Far-Right Media Whipped Up Fake-News Outrage Over Imaginary Line of Cocaine

A far-right media figure in Spain accused a government minister of taking drugs after pointing out “a line of cocaine” on an Instagram post – but it turned out to be the zipper on a washbag for period products.

Javier Negre, president of the far right media platform EDATV, shared a screen recording on Twitter over the weekend which appeared to show a white line on a table in front of Irene Montero, Spain’s Equalities Minister, in a post of hers. 

Montero, who has been credited for introducing increased gender equality into Spanish law, was sitting next to her husband, Pablo Iglesias, former politician and co-founder of the left-wing Podemos party. 

“Now we find this mysterious line,” Negre tweeted about the photograph. “They should take a test tomorrow to clear up any suspicions.” 

The post was retweeted more than 1,000 times, and the claim was repeated by Negre’s media network EDATV as well as other right-wing media outlets and Twitter accounts.

Irene Montero, who is part of Spain’s left-wing coalition government, has been the driving force behind a slate of new legislation expanding gender equality in Spain. In February, the Spanish parliament approved changes to sexual and reproductive rights meaning that 16 and 17-year-olds could, for the first time, access abortion care without their parents’ consent. It also approved paid menstrual leave for workers and the right for any citizen over 16 to legally change their gender without medical supervision. 

In Spain’s febrile political environment, where a left-wing coalition regularly contends with far right voices like the VOX party, which has seen regional electoral success in the past few years, Montero is regularly attacked online and in broadcast media by her critics. 

In November, right-wing and far right politicians targeted Montero with personal attacks off the back of the new legislation, with one city councillor saying she had “got where she is because of being impregnated by an alpha male.” 

As far right social media channels spread the cocaine claims this weekend, other social media users were quick to identify that the white shape wasn’t a line of coke – it was the zipper on a period bag from the La meva regla, les meves regles - ‘my period, my rules’ - project from the Catalan government, which has handed out 1200 menstrual kits to pupils in schools. 

The fake news story comes as Spain braced itself for a wave of online dirty tricks and fake news ahead of a general election next month, in which culture-war topics and misinformation are expected to be prolific. 

Julián Macías Tovar, an activist who combats digital disinformation, tracked the spread of the claim, finding that the conservative Popular Party in Madrid had published the accusation on their TikTok and that social media users and even councillors associated with the Popular Party and the far right Vox party had also shared the claim without verifying it. 

Other right-wing voices used the false claim as an opportunity to target Montero for her recent policies. Referring to a recent trip Montero undertook to Mexico, the president of a cultural association in Spain asked: “When you asked the drug mule [in Mexico] if it was good, did he answer ‘Only yes means yes?’” in reference to her recent ‘Only yes means yes’ consent law, which clarified that passivity or silence can no longer be interpreted as consent in assault and rape cases. 

Journalist Paola Aragón Pérez criticised the far right, tweeting: ‘They’re all very Catholic, but they don’t even take a break from hate, fake news and political violence at Easter.”

Pablo Iglesias, her husband, said in a radio appearance over the weekend that “lies are being normalised as acceptable political information”.