MELILLA AND THE 1985 IMMIGRATION LAW. INTERNATIONAL TRASCENDENCE OF A LOCAL CONFLICT. A REVIEW OF THREE NEWSPAPERS

Abstract

The 1985 Immigration Law had not taken into account thousands of people who had been born or had been living in Melilla for generations, but who had no rights as citizens. Under the leadership of Aomar Mohamedi Duddu, the Muslim colective in Melilla mobilised to claim their right to obtain the Spanish nationality. The objective of this paper is to analyse the interweaving of this conflict, which developed between 1985 and 1987, and that was a priori local, with the Moroccan territorial claims, and the international dimension it reached, through the analysis of what three main newspapers, ABC, El País and La Vanguardia, published about this issue along those years.