A group of anti-tourism activists has been warned they face prosecution over shirts saying: ‘Kill a foreign tourist, free up a house.’

Four members of a Marxist youth organisation called Arran have been questioned over the tops and have now been told they are being investigated on suspicion of committing a hate crime.

Public prosecutors have opposed an appeal lodged by the group to halt the probe by a judge on the holiday island of Menorca.

The T-shirts bore the message: ‘M*ta un guiri, allibera una casa.’ The word ‘Mata’ without the asterisk in it translates as ‘Kill’ in English.

The word Guiri is used to portray northern European tourists like British holidaymakers partying in Magaluf, usually in a mildly offensive way.

The activists under investigation wore the tops at an assembly they held earlier this year at a neighbourhood association hall in the Menorcan rural village of Sant Climent.

Police picked up on the T-shirts on an Arran Menorca Instagram post during ‘routine’ Internet checks to detect possible hate crimes and ended up reporting the four activists to a local court.

An investigating judge agreed to admit a police complaint under Article 510 of the Spanish penal code, which punishes hate speech and incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, and is understood to have summoned the group members for questioning.

The activist group, whose associates on the mainland have in the past attacked tourist buses, revealed the probe today as it claimed the T-shirt campaign was ‘satirical’.

Josep de Luis, who is defending the four people being probed, said: ‘Article 510 does not punish every act that is hostile, offensive, exaggerated or in poor taste.

‘It seeks to protect groups that are vulnerable on the grounds of race, religion, sex, nationality, sexual orientation or sexual identity. A ‘guiri’ does not form part of a specially-protected group.’

He told local press: ‘You can understand the police doing their job, but taking it to court is going too far, and it’s even worse that the case has been allowed to proceed.

‘There is no aggrieved party, no real danger, and no incitement to violence but rather a reference to tourism itself, through a campaign against touristification.’

Graffiti in English left on walls and benches in and around Palm Mar in southern Tenerife at the start of April 2024 included ‘My misery your paradise’ and ‘Average salary in Canary Islands is 1,200 euros.’

In an apparent UK backlash, a response left in English on a wall next to a ‘Tourists go home’ message said: “F##k off, we pay your wages.”

Spaniards in several parts of Spain went on to step up their war on holidaymakers by gluing shut Airbnb key boxes.

Brits have also been warned about activists using fake police tape to cordon off popular beauty spots like beach access paths to trick tourists into thinking they are closed.

Critics blame mass tourism for problems like sea pollution, traffic gridlock and lack of cheap, affordable housing for residents, linked to the pushing up of property prices because of Airbnb-style holiday lets.

Arran claimed responsibility for a July 2017 attack on a tourist bus in Barcelona, which holidaymakers mistook for a terror raid.

The gang slashed the vehicle’s tyres and daubed graffiti on its windows in a savage protest against mass tourism in the Catalan capital.

A group spokesman claimed at the time they were acting in legitimate self-defence against a development model which wanted to turn the country into an ‘amusement park’.

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