MADRID, Spain – The duty magistrate in Torrent, Valencia, of Instruction Section number 2 of that Court, has ordered the provisional detention without bail of the alleged leader of Blocus Spain, who was detained on Friday in the Valencian town of Picanya. The alleged founder and driving force of the Blocus movement in Spain is a 20-year-old young man born in Spain to parents of Pakistani origin, identified as Alfayez A. A.
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The pre-trial detention is communicated, except with regard to access to computers or any other type of device in the prison that would allow him to access social media, according to the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community on social media. The detainee is under investigation in a case opened for crimes of criminal organisation aimed at inciting public disorder, robberies with force in shops and damage, without prejudice to further classification.
The Civil Guard detained on Friday in Picanya the alleged founder and main driving force in Spain of the Blocus movement, which it links to the calls spread on social media that, under the appearance of student protests, sought to carry out looting in shops and violent acts. The 20-year-old suspect is attributed with the creation and administration of Telegram groups from which these actions were coordinated.
Blocus is a movement that takes as its reference youth mobilisations in France and spread through TikTok, WhatsApp and Telegram, with the Civil Guard saying the calls spread under the appearance of student protests and other social demands sought to carry out looting and violent acts, with the detention taking place as a new mobilisation was being prepared for 31 October.
The investigation began after the incidents of 24 October in Barcelona, in which some 500 people took part, a day that ended with 128 arrests, more than half of them minors, 23 shops stormed and around thirty barricades burned, after which calls began circulating on social media to repeat the disturbances in Bilbao.
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In recent hours, the National Police, Civil Guard and Mossos d’Esquadra have arrested 10 young people in different parts of Spain, four of them minors, with a 17-year-old boy who created two channels called Blocus Vlc, one with more than 400 users, detained on Wednesday in Valencia province and interned in a juvenile centre, and another 18-year-old detained on Friday in Alfafar accused of encouraging the manufacture of explosive devices. Regarding the other person arrested over these events, who was taken to the Court of Catarroja, the Valencian high court said it will report on his situation once it has the data, while the Picanya suspect will remain in provisional, communicated detention without bail, with the aforementioned restriction on access to devices allowing entry to social media from the prison.
