BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – Demonstrations over the imprisonment of a rapper convicted of insulting the Spanish monarchy and the price of violence against terrorists were rioted on Thursday for the third consecutive night.
The situation of Pablo Hasél, who was serving a 9-month sentence in a north-eastern prison this week, has a heated debate over the limits of freedom of speech in Spain and a political storm over the use of force by the rapper supporters and the police.
The ruling coalition’s junior partner, the left-wing United We Can (Unidas Podemos) party, filed a petition on Thursday for a ‘total pardon’ for Hasél and another rapper, Valtònyc, who fled to Belgium in 2018. to avoid trial on charges of Terrorism “glorified”.
But to possibly deepen tensions, court authorities in the north-eastern region of Catalonia have announced that Hasél has lost a recent appeal and he is looking at an extra 2 1/2 years in prison for obstruction of justice and assault in 2017. The sentence can be appealed again country’s Supreme Court.
Like the two previous nights, the protests on Thursday began with large rallies in several cities that were initially mostly peaceful.
In the capital of Catalonia, Barcelona, hundreds of songs were sung, scratched and shouted: “Pablo Hasél, freedom!” and “Spanish media, manipulators!” at a central square before dozens demolished the main group to set fire to a barrier rubbish bins and a construction ship that blocked a capital city and threw stones, bottles and other objects at the riot police.
There were moments of tension as flames threatened to spread to nearby buildings before firefighters arrived.
In the eastern coastal city of Valencia, police used batons to disperse protesters and arrested at least eight people, according to the Spanish government’s local delegation.
Nearly 80 people have been arrested and more than 100 injured since Hasél was abducted from a university where he sought refuge after refusing to show up at the jail.
The facades of the headquarters of several political parties were maimed, a police station in the city of Vic was ravaged and protesters significantly damaged shop fronts and bank branches in several cities, including the capital Madrid.
Catalan regional police have also launched an internal investigation to determine if one of their foam bullets hit a youth who lost an eye during the protests.
The rapper and his fans say Hasél’s nine-month sentence for writing a critical song about former King Juan Carlos I, and for dozens of tweets glorifying some of Spain’s executed terrorist groups, violates the right to freedom of speech.
Aside from the case, the rapper has previously faced other charges or been tried for assault, praising armed extremist groups, breaking into private premises and insulting the monarchy.
His legal situation has attracted considerable public attention as it comes after a series of other artists and personalities were executed on social media for violating the 2015 Public Safety Act, led by a previous Conservative government and criticized by human rights organizations is. .
One of them was Valtònyc, who had so far avoided extradition from Belgium.
Jaume Asens, spokesman for the United We Can parliament, said on Thursday that the party had taken the first step to demand an “urgent” and “total” forgiveness from both rappers. Pardons is a bureaucratic process that requires the final approval of the Spanish government, which is currently in the hands of a left-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Asens’ party.
And while both parties agreed to amend criminal law to eliminate jail time for offenses involving freedom of speech, the protests also opened the last chasm in the shaky partnership after the opposition United We Can committed the violent protests. did not publicly condemn.
Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo, a member of the center-left Socialist Party, also criticized a United We Can spokesman who expressed support for what he called “anti-fascist protesters fighting for freedom of expression.”
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Associated Press journalists Ciarán Giles and Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed to this report.