James Warren
THE latest symbol of Spain’s far-right has emerged as an 18-year-old Instagram influencer after a controversial speech during a Neo-Nazi rally in Madrid last weekend.
The daughter of a former PP leader, Isabel Peralta took to the stand at an event held in Madrid in front of around 300 nationalists and far-right supporters.
The event was organised by the Juventud Patriota, a nationalist organisation that openly fights against the liberal left and opposes modern and progressive national values.
Residents looked on as the march travelled through the city centre to commemorate the role of the Blue Division in World War II, a battalion of Spanish volunteers and Franco supporters that worked under Adolf Hitler.
The march was organised to pay tribute to the 78th anniversary of the battle of Krasny Bor, one of the main battles that the Blue Division participated in.
Peralta’s 10 minute speech went viral on social media shortly after the event thanks to her heavily anti-Semitic and racial remarks.
“The enemy is always going to be the same, although with different masks: the Jew … The Jew is the culprit and the Blue Division fought against it.” said Peralta.
“Being Spanish is one of the few serious things that one can be in this life,”.
The video rammed Peralta into the spotlight overnight and made her face and values known to the world, which was immediately met with criticism and disgust almost unanimously.
The video also pushed authorities to delve into her social media profiles of sites such as LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
Her Instagram account appeared to have all the hallmarks of a generic millennial influencer, with poses modelling fashion labels such as 21 Buttons.
However her Twitter account revealed a much more sinister side of her political beliefs, with her timeline regularly retweeting racist and homophobic content from groups such as the Juventudes de Falange.
“Our civilization sinks in the twilight of a nauseating rainbow,” read one of her tweets.
In her Twitter bio, she boasts of being fascist, non-democrat, homophobic and anti-feminist, yet refuses to be labelled as a Nazi, as told in an interview with El Mundo.
“I believe I am a Falangist, a Jonsista to be exact, I believe in a nationalist and socialist regime.”
“I don’t like the word Nazi, it evokes images of shaved heads and hooliganism, like in the movies.” she said. “It seems like a ridiculus word to me.”
Since the speech, her Twitter account has been suspended for hate speech and authorities are investigating whether any of her content has broken any laws after the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) launched a campaign to make her accountable for her words.
The police are also working on identifying individuals who took part in the march to study whether any hate crimes had taken place.
The incident has come at a sensitive time in Spain’s history as the release of the video coincided with the arrest of 32-year-old rapper and activist Pablo Hansel for crimes of hate speech and insulting the monarchy in his songs.
Although his political ideologies lean far-left, polar opposite to Peralta’s fascist beliefs, Hansel was sentenced to nine months in prison with a further two years pending for praising terrorism and banned groups in his lyrics.
His detention has divided the nation and led to widespread riots, particularly in his hometown of Barcelona, and has led humanitarian groups such as Amnesty International to call on Spain for a reform on their hate speech laws.
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