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LAST UPDATE | 17 Feb 2021
SPANISH POLICE HAVE clashed with protesters in Madrid and Barcelona tonight, as fresh demonstrations broke out over the jailing of a rapper for tweets insulting police and the monarchy.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered under a heavy police presence at Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol square, calling for 32-year-old rapper Pablo Hasel to be released and wielding banners reading “enough censorship”.
Masked protesters threw bottles at police, who charged at them in clashes that lasted for several hours, AFP journalists reported.
Madrid’s conservative mayor condemned the violence, tweeting: “The violent and those who do not accept the rules have no place in our society.”
In Barcelona there were also altercations between police and protesters following heavy clashes last night, with demonstrators lobbing objects at officers and setting barricades made with dustbins ablaze.
Police responded with foam bullets.
Around six people had been detained, Catalan police said, following at least 15 arrests a night earlier following violent protests in Barcelona and other cities in the northern Catalonia region.
Last night’s unrest left more than 30 people injured, including 19 police officers, according to local authorities.
Earlier yesterday, police had stormed a university campus in the Catalan city of Lerida to arrest Hasel, who had barricaded himself inside to avoid prison.
Hasel missed a deadline last Friday to give himself up to police and begin serving a nine-month jail term handed down in 2018.
At issue was a series of tweets calling former king Juan Carlos I a mafia boss and accusing police of torturing and killing demonstrators and migrants.
Hasel is known for his hard-left views, but his case has become a cause celebre among campaigners who say that prosecuting him is a dangerous assault on free speech.
His sentence caused outrage in Spain, with stars including the filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and the Hollywood actor Javier Bardem expressing support for his cause.
The Socialist-led government has announced it is seeking to make free speech laws less restrictive, with Podemos, the junior partner in the coalition, saying yesterday that it would request a pardon for the rapper.
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All monarchy’s are criminals. The divine right to rule is a crime. Its subjugation and oppresion
@Aaron92utd: agreed. Today’s Monarchy by nature are the descendants of whoever was most bad ass and ruthless back in the day before police forces etc.
They basically got a monopoly on violence by killing their competitors & taking their land, so that they could extract taxes from business and peasants. On their death they pass on the rights to the taxes to their descendants… todays monarchies.
Mafia basically.
@Aaron92utd: If not “to rule” anymore, its still the divine right to spend half your life in a casino or a high class brothel and own loads of land you are not entitled to as well as get a massive state subsidy for yourself and your shady friends as well as buy yourself influence for the entitled rich with the plebian politicians who will promote your agents and interests to avoid taxes for yourself and friends.
@mmz: Wait until you read what the wealthy and puppet government’s are suggesting as a future solution in Davos. That people below the entitled classes should not own property/property rights and should rent from a landlord (i.e. from the entitled classes).
@Daniel Kelly: where is thos information from?
@DJ François: It can be found on YouTube and various other websites where anyone can post anything at all based on whatever they heard or watched on those same websites.
@Chris Linehan: Oh, makey uppy so.
Thought when Franco passed on that they left Fascism in the past.
@Gerry Ryan: hahaha..
@Gerry Ryan: the monarchy is an imposition of the dictator so impossible to leave behind. However the offence is the less strick law than UK if someone insult in public the queen and the royal family …. maybe you should update yourself
Insulting the monarchy??? Seriously? King Carlos is an criminal ickle numpty.
Seems like from EU perspective its only ok to criticize & protest politicians ,rulers and former rulers outside the EU.
@Da Dell: Last time I checked Spain is not the EU. This case actually has absolutely nothing at all to do with the EU, other than occurring in one of the member states.
@Mark Wallace: Dont see the EU commentating about the freedom to protest in one of its own member states or in Catalonia . but see plenty on outside the EU, but you knew what was meant. Nice try,
@Da Dell:
When you say that you don’t see the eu commenting on it, do you mean that you you’ve read newspapers from different eu countries and there’s no mention of it, or that there has been no correspondence between Brussels and Madrid? Are you saying that you’re monitoring all these different channels so that you can make that claim?
@Da Dell: misdirecting through conflation
Spain is a fascist state. This arrest should be all over European news.
@Laura Walsh: So it’s a fascist state with is under the rule of a left wing coalition who have said they’re changing the law? I think you may need to look up the meaning of fascist.
@Mark Wallace: have they changed the law yet? No. Are the police acting to arrest those who speak out against the monarchy? Yes. So currently, like for a lot of their past, Spain are acting like a fascist state who actively target catalan and basque separatists. And also, don’t be so condescending as to tell me what I need to look up, I’m more than educated enough thanks.
@Laura Walsh: also interesting to note that they felt that free speech was perfectly OK when a bunch of Nazis marched through Madrid a few days ago.
@Laura Walsh:
The Journal Open
Laura Walsh – 40
Mark Wallace – 15
Game point, Wallace to serve.
@EarthwormJim:
D@mn you journal, i had that nicely formatted and you go and do this to me
@Laura Walsh: nobody can ever be educated enough. The fact you said such a silly thing proves how far you have to go…
Every days is a school day!
@Paul Jude Redmond: nah Paul, I actually am more than educated enough as a sociology MA not to have to “look up” what fascism is.
@Laura Walsh: police have to police a demonstration/riot and enforce the law whether they like it or not oh learned one.. But I guess you knew this.. Night night.. Hope that hat keeps you warm..
@Togs: my comment was referring to the arrest of a catalan rapper. And the use of excessive force in doing so as well. And I’d like to hope that Irish people would protest if a musician was arrested for singing about disliking FG. So really not sure what your reply is supposed to mean. My hat is really warm though yeah, so thanks for that.
@Laura Walsh: sociology. Jesus wept.
@Laura Walsh: he was arrested for failing to turn up to serve a prison sentence. Read the article
@Laura Walsh: ,,,, Christy Moore got arrested for singing about the Stardust & used to get stopped regularly & searched by the police here
Good. All rappers should be imprisoned for crimes against music.
Word up
Who.. Fuffin.. Cares
UK has more strick law about insulting the queen and the royal family … so less drama and more culture. The Monarchy in Spain is supported by the Catholic church in Rome, there are the first Catholic Monarchy, most European monarchies hold this title too … it is a kind of Quality Certification and Union that brought peace to European.
The other offence is about encouraging terrorism in a democratic society with the worse terrorism attracts in the modern history of Europe
I remember walk by USA embassy in Madrid and the tanks of the Spanish Army parked out, walk by police headquarters in Madrid and the police with assault guns on their hand ready to use, day night, well in democracy ….
I remember a child losing her leg because her mum’s car didn’t start that cold morning and took her dad’s car to take her to school, blow away
I remember that mum was told her husband was shut on the neck and son, a toddler, got a missing bullet and when she asked for the twin, a little two years old boy, no body knew it. He was found wondering the streets. This baby was holding the hand of his dad, when a terrorist decided to kill his dad from the back, a dad holding the hands of his twin toddlers … event in democracy
@Maria Quinn: I remember all the people kidnapped by terrorists well into democracy for not other reason than money, football player, business person and their families, people representative Councillors TDs and k.illing them despite of meeting the demands
Some spend over a year living in a grave-like place (zulos) without window, fresh air, sunlight
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