2009. Errenteria. A young man was arrested for attempting to rape a woman. The media stressed that the aggressor was native to the Maghreb, although they did not specify the origin of the victim. Days later, SOS Racism denounced that the city's Maghreb suffered threats and persecution. It is believed that an immigrant woman was attacked by a group that shouted “Out of here!” from the newsstands.

2010. Diario Vasco: “Four Romanians have been sentenced to 14 years in prison for raping a young man in Irun.” In the first paragraph, they said that the girl was of South American origin. Most of the comments on the news were xenophobic. Imagine the readers’ reaction if the journalist had said that the victim was also an immigrant in the headline! What if I had only mentioned the victim's origin? What if I had only written “Four Men for Raping a Young Man”?

2015. Cologne. In this German city a hundred robberies and sexual assaults have been reported in New Year’s Eve in recent years. Several local and foreign media stressed that there were a large number of refugees among detainees and that the number of refugees was considerable. The German Government announced two repressive measures: tightening the law on the expulsion of refugees and increasing the presence of police officers on the street. Once again, the media and social media once again had an impact on xenophobic reactions.

I read a very interesting comment on the Internet: “Have we been informed about the nationality of purchased women or do we have to assume that they are all German, wigs and blue? It seems that for some the nationality of the aggressors is very important, but if the majority of the victims had been refugees, would we have the same anger and would we demand a change in asylum policy?”

Brigitte Vasallo uses the concept of purplewashing (purple cleaning) to define this trend. In other words, to use the defence of women’s rights as a pretext for criminalising immigrants. In Pikara’s article on Cologne’s news, he stressed that when those responsible for sexual assaults are “gutarrak” (Sanfermin, for example) society justifies violence. Vasallo received thousands of insults and assaults for a week, “I wish you a Moor’s rape” and so on. He reminded me of what happened at Errenteria: With the argument “Our women come to rape”, the men who feed xenophobia are left without disguise when they direct their hatred against women (immigrants, anti-racism activists...).

2010. Bilbao. Several feminist associations organized a meeting to denounce sexist violence and, above all, sexual assaults on the street, which are accusing immigrant men. The white activists were clear about the reason for this prejudice: identifying and denouncing the attitude or the machist aggression of a stranger on the street costs us less than those of us who live in our own home, in the workplace or in gaztetxe. And another reason: for society it is reassuring to think that male violence is a problem of “others”, “external”. However, it was the turn of the immigrant feminists, and when they told us the macho and racist situations experienced with the indigenous men, we were left open. For example, someone would wait on the street, a man here would come up and ask how much he would charge for throwing. This kind of violence does not appear in the media. No expulsion order would be required against these aggressors.