Train security guards caught on camera beating up migrant without ticket in Barcelona

Spain’s state railway company Renfe has taken eight train security guards off duty after they were caught on camera brutally beating a young migrant at the Plaza Catalunya Metro station in the Catalan capital Barcelona on Tuesday night.

The rail operator also announced that it has opened an investigation into why the officers beat the passenger, who did not have a ticket, and violently manhandled him to the ground. It added that the investigation could lead to disciplinary measures.

This has just happened at Plaza de Catalunya station (Barcelona). We have one thing to say: the brutality in which the security guards beat the young man is racist brutality. They acted disproportionately. [The man was] against a wall with everyone hitting him with a baton.

The incident was reported by the anti-discrimination group Es Racismo, which published a video of the assault on its Twitter account. The video shows a group of security guards chasing the passenger through the station and cornering him against a column. The officers then hold him as a female officer repeatedly beats the passenger with a baton.

Sources from Renfe, which was made aware of the incident thanks to the video on Twitter, maintain the company “condemns all violence” and “does not tolerate any discriminatory attitude, action or display against anybody,“ regardless of what may have provoked the attack.

The video comes just weeks after three migrant youth centers were attacked in Catalonia.

English version by Melissa Kitson.