A/HRC/43/47/Add.1 Annex Report of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues on his visit to Spain I. Introduction 1. The Special Rapporteur on minority issues conducted, at the invitation of the Government, an official visit to Spain from 14 to 25 January 2019. He visited the capital, Madrid, and the localities of Barcelona, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela, Seville and Vitoria-Gasteiz in the autonomous communities of Andalusia, Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia. He consulted widely with a number of government representatives and stakeholders, both national and local, including senior government officials from the Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with the Cortes and Equality, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Union and Cooperation, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, the Ministry of Labour, Migration and Social Security, the ministry responsible for territorial policy and public function, the Ministry of Culture and Sport and the Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare. He also met with the Prosecutor-General and members of his office, members of the Supreme Court, members of the Senate and of the Congress of Deputies, and the Ombudsperson and members of his teams. He was also able to meet with authorities of, as well as ombudsmen and members of their teams in, the four autonomous communities visited. 2. In addition, the Special Rapporteur consulted with a wide spectrum of civil society organizations working on issues affecting minorities. He also met with members of minority communities, such as the Roma, Asturian, Balearic, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Valencian communities, and their representatives; representatives from Muslim and Jewish minorities; migrants from Morocco; and others. Of the members of minority communities the Special Rapporteur met, members and representatives of the Roma community represented, by far, the largest proportion. This was partly because the Roma population in Spain, estimated at 750,000,1 is estimated to be the largest population of Roma in Western Europe, but also because Roma remain among the country’s most marginalized and vulnerable people, with anti-Gypsyism still widespread and deeply entrenched in social and cultural attitudes and institutional practices. He also met with defenders of minority rights, representatives of minority women and youth, as well as community workers. 3. In his 2019 annual report to the General Assembly (A/74/160), the Special Rapporteur presented a study on the concept of a minority in the United Nations system. As a result of the study, he stated that he would use and promote, as part of his mandate to promote the full and effective realization of the human rights of minorities and in carrying out his activities under the mandate, the following concept of a minority: An ethnic, religious or linguistic minority is any group of persons which constitutes less than half of the population in the entire territory of a State whose members share common characteristics of culture, religion or language, or a combination of any of these. A person can freely belong to an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority without any requirement of citizenship, residence, official recognition or any other status (ibid., para. 53). 4. Consistent with this concept, and as announced at the 2017 Forum on Minority Issues, deaf and hard-of-hearing persons who use sign languages are considered to be members of a linguistic minority. Catalan, Basque and other linguistic groups who may constitute a numerical majority in some regions of the country, but remain numerically less than half of the population in the entirety of the State, are also considered minorities pursuant to this working definition. 1 2 The absence of disaggregated data means this is a broad estimate only, with actual numbers being possibly anywhere between 500,000 and 1 million.