Ultra agitator Vito Quiles has canceled his event in Bilbao this Monday, scheduled for 7:00 p.m. in the vicinity of the University of Deusto, after two anti-fascist mobilizations and the preventive closure of the campus. He announced the suspension in a message on X in which he accuses those protesting of being "former ETA members, street terrorists, and other criminals", without providing evidence for these claims.
Quiles attributes the decision to a conversation with the head of the police operation. "I have just spoken with the head of the Ertzaina operation and he warns me of a 'very high' risk of incidents in Bilbao at my 7 p.m. event," he wrote. The police warning is included in his account of what happened, with which he justifies the cancellation for the safety of attendees.
In the same message, he contrasted the "good young people" who attend his calls with those who were demonstrating, whom he called "scum." He also expressly linked his return to the general elections on November 29. "We will return to Bilbao. But after responding to them on 29N as they deserve," he announced.
Acabo de hablar con el jefe del dispositivo de la Ertzaina y me advierte de un riesgo “muy elevado” de incidentes en Bilbao ante mi acto de las 19h.
— Vito Quiles 🇪🇸 (@vitoquiles) October 26, 2026
Dado que hay ex miembros de ETA, terroristas callejeros y otros delincuentes encabezando las protestas, se suspende la charla.…
Hours earlier, when images of the student mobilization were already circulating on social media, he had celebrated the repercussion of his visit with new insults. "We have managed to get a lot of lazy people out of bed who had not been out on the street on a Monday at that time for centuries," he had published. He described the day as "an unprecedented success" and finished the message with a "now for a beer, slobs."
The suspension interrupts a tour with a declared electoral purpose. Quiles has called for mobilization so that Spain wakes up on November 30 with another president of the Government and has called to vote for the opposition. The reference to 29N in his cancellation message maintains that objective, after other calls surrounded by protests in cities like Pamplona and Zaragoza.
Two protests and a closed campus
Thousands of students demonstrated in the morning against his presence in Bilbao, in a march called by Ikasle Antolakunde Sozialista —IAS— from Elíptica square to Deusto bridge. In the afternoon, a second anti-fascist mobilization was held. The organizers denounced the dissemination and normalization of sexist, racist and classist discourses, and defended student and social organization to respond to the far right.
The University of Deusto had announced in the morning the suspension of all its activity from 2:00 p.m. and the preventive closure of the campus at 3:00 p.m., following the instructions of the Ertzaintza to protect the university community. The institution clarified that the call was external to it, that it did not organize or support it and that it had not authorized its celebration within the premises. In its statement, it rejected actions and messages that deteriorate coexistence or incite violence.
The university environment has been under a large deployment of the Ertzaintza and the municipal police. The closure has also generated political discrepancies. The Basque Minister of Science, Universities and Innovation, Juan Ignacio Pérez Iglesias, has questioned the paralysis of academic activity. The youth wings of the PSE and PNV have criticized Quiles' visit, while the Basque PP has defended his call as an exercise of freedom of expression.
The cancellation coincides with another piece of news about the ultra agitator. This Monday, a judicial order for search, arrest, and presentation, dated October 23, was issued to notify him of the opening of an oral trial after several failed attempts to locate him. The Prosecutor's Office requests two years in prison for the alleged denigration of a woman with intellectual disability during an interview conducted in 2024 in front of the PP headquarters in Madrid. The resolution states that, once the notifications and requirements have been carried out, he should be immediately released if there is no other legal reason to keep him detained.
