Blocus and Halloween Movement: More than 10 arrests in Spain

Athe Spanish authorities held about a dozen people linked to the violent movement “Blocus”, including the alleged leader, before new acts of vandalism planned for the ‘Halloween’ on Saturday.

The arrests were made in the context of operations carried out around the country, notably in Valencia, Bilbao, Malaga and Tenerife, according to the Spanish news agency Europa Press.

According to the Spanish authorities, a group without identified authors acts under the word or label “Blocus”, and allegedly in the name of “school quality”, in a motto and terminology inspired by the movement that has been mobilizing protests in France for weeks.

Detainees are accused of instigating multiple looting, calling on young people to join the protest using weapons and also to manufacture ‘cocktails’ molotov, with the aim of overloading police officers facing sabotage.

The appeal of this movement aimed at new acts of vandalism against commercial surfaces on Saturday, October 31, on the occasion of the celebration of ‘Halloween’.

For this reason, Spanish security forces have intensified the monitoring of social networks and have prepared special devices.

In addition, many commercial establishments have shielded themselves, covering the windows with wooden boards in the center of cities such as Madrid, Valencia or Barcelona, and in the Catalan capital more disturbances are expected, as happened last Saturday.

The alleged leader of the “Blocus” in Spain was arrested today in Picanya (Valencia), 24 hours before Halloween.

The Spanish Civil Guard Information Service accused this 20-year-old youth of being the “founder and main driver” of the violent movement.

The investigation began following a video released on social networks, in which a hooded individual appealed to other young people to join the acts of sabotage, imitating what had happened earlier in France, since, according to him, “with peaceful protests, they didn’t give a shit”.

The Civil Guard indicated that the detainee in Picanya aimed to “coordinate the looting in real time” in shops in various cities that he considered accessible on Saturday, when many young people have planned to celebrate Halloween.

In addition to its Telegram channel, the “Blocus” attracts followers with videos on TikTok and posters, created with artificial intelligence and QR codes, from which interested parties are referred to WhatsApp and Telegram groups and later to private channels.

In another operation, the Spanish Civil Guard also arrested two young people in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, one of them under the age of 16, accused of using encrypted communication tools to avoid localization and disclose instructions to commit acts of vandalism and sabotage, including advice to “overload security forces and bodies”.

The first arrests of young people linked to the “Blocus” occurred following the serious disturbances of 24 October in central Barcelona: police forces arrested 128 people, 72 of whom were underage, which increased concern about the capacity to mobilize among younger people.

The Catalan police requested the Spanish Ministry of the Interior's Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO) to urge platforms to close down the channels that released these summons.