Two men with links to a xenophobic far-right football fan group have been arrested after brutally beating a pregnant woman and her husband because she was wearing a niqab in a Barcelona street.

The two suspects belong to the Blanc-i-Blaves brigades, a right-wing group of supporters connected to Barcelona’s Espanyol football club, according to the newspaper La Vanguardia.

The Muslim couple were walking with their two children in Barcelona’s famous historic centre when the two men barred their path and began to insult the woman owing to her use of the niqab, which covers the whole body except for a narrow slit for the eyes.

Her husband stepped forward to defend his wife but he was beaten and pushed, according to witnesses.

The woman, described by police officers who were called to the scene as “heavily pregnant”, was kicked in the stomach by one of the men as she attempted to help her husband.