Video: Spanish police beat up deportee on airplane

Screenshot of the video below.

This video, filmed on an airplane, captures Spanish police beating up a foreigner being deported to his home country, the Dominican Republic. This scene is far from unusual, according to the collective that shared the footage.

"Let me go! You’re going too far! You’re hurting my hand!” yells the Dominican national, Dawlin Sánchez, who is being held down by two police officers while a woman in plain clothes punches him repeatedly. The woman continues, seemingly undisturbed by his cries. Numerous passengers watch the scene unfold without reacting. Finally, the woman notices that she is being filmed and another police officer orders the witness to stop filming. The video ends abruptly.

Video published on Youtube by the collective Stop Deportación.

The incident occurred on April 11, 2015, on an Air Europa plane headed from Madrid to the Dominican Republic. According to police, Dawlin Sánchez was trying to resist being deported and had grabbed the shirt of one of the agents, which police said justified their reaction.

Sánchez admitted that he did resist when interviewed by Spanish daily El Mundo:

“I resisted a little, I was moving around and trying to explain to them that I couldn’t go back to the Dominican Republic. I have been living in Spain for the past 14 years, my entire family is there,” he said.

On the other hand, he denies having hurt the police. "How could I have hurt them seeing as I was handcuffed?"

He said he was treated “like a dog”.

“The woman hit me on the head and chest. One man was holding my neck and the other held my arm,” he said.

The video immediately provoked a strong response after it was uploaded to YouTube by Spanish collective Stop Deportación. Spanish authorities have launched an investigation to establish whether the police used excessive force or not.

"My god, the police are just disgusting to have beaten this Dominican man while he was on plane being deported back to his country,” wrote one Internet user.

According to the collective – which campaigns for the closure of immigrant detention centres – there are frequent instances of this kind of violence during deportations. Moreover, these acts are carried out in “total impunity”.

According to a source close to the investigation, Dawlin Sánchez was deported on the orders of a judge after having served six months in prison. His deportation was an “express” procedure, which means that police are allowed to deport a foreigner within 72 hours.

"Express" deportations are more and more common, despite the fact that they have been widely criticised by many NGOs as well as the General Council of Spanish Lawyers, who says that these speedy proceedings make it impossible for migrants to properly defend themselves. According to the government, there were 6,462 people sent back to their country of origin through express deportations in 2013 while 4,726 were deported through the classic procedure.

Spain deported more than 26,000 immigrants by plane between 2010 and 2014, according to the interior minister.