BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – The imprisonment of a rap artist for his music and tweets praising terrorist violence and insulting the Spanish monarchy has sparked a powder keg of pent-up anger in the southern European country this week.
The arrest of Pablo Hasél has left thousands on the streets for various reasons.
Under the banner of freedom of speech, many Spaniards are strongly against putting an artist behind bars for his lyrics and comments on social media. They are shouting that Spain’s left-wing government will keep its promise and roll back the public security law passed by the previous conservative government that was used to prosecute Hasél and other artists.
Hasél’s imprisonment serving a nine-month sentence on Tuesday has also been a source of frustration among young people in Spain, who have the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. Four in ten eligible employees under the age of 25 are not in a job.
“I think what we are now experiencing with the cases of Pablo Hasél (…) and other rappers held politically by this regime is a brutal attack on freedom of expression,” 26-year-old student Pablo Castilla said during a speech. protest in Barcelona. The protests have been brutally suppressed by the supposedly progressive national government and the Catalan government.
“They attack us young people because we show our anger.”
For many, including older peaceful protesters, Hasél’s case also represents what they see as a crackdown by a state whose structure is in need of deep reform. That’s even when some of his public comments, especially in messages sent on Twitter, expressed Hasél’s radical ideas, spoke of attacking politicians, and defended the now-defunct Grapo and ETA, two armed organizations that employ more than 1,000 people. killed in Spain.
Hasél’s lyrics affecting King Felipe VI and his father, King Emeritus Juan Carlos I, are linked to a growing public debate about the future of the Spanish parliamentary monarchy. Undisputed outside of peripheral circles of the left until the past decade, the royal family has been plagued by a financial scandal that reached Juan Carlos himself. Many Spaniards were baffled when the former monarch left Spain to go to the United Arab Emirates as part of a judicial investigation into his alleged tax irregularities
In addition to calling out his support for Hasél, a crowd gathering in Madrid on Saturday shouted, “Where is the change? Where is the progress? “and” Juan Carlos de Borbón, womanizer and thief. “
The debate has sparked tensions within Spain’s left-wing coalition government. While Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist Party support the parliamentary monarchy Spain has known since the end of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in the 1970s, their underage partner, the upstart United We Can party, wants to get rid of the monarchy and back she’s the monarchy this week. protests for Hasél despite their violent turn.
In the rapper’s home region, Catalonia, the unrest also comes after years of separatist politicians urging citizens to ignore or ignore court rulings that are unfavorable to their cause. While this week’s protests miss the widespread calls for Catalonia’s independence or flags supporting the industrial region’s secession, Barcelona City Hall’s head of public security said many of the most violent offenders were also deeply involved in the riots of 2019. that followed the imprisonment of several separatist leaders.
“It’s a varied, violent profile that we already know because it’s very similar to those who played a big role in the October 2019 incidents, so we know the type,” Albert Batlle, Barcelona city councilor, told Cadena SER radio. .
Some prominent pro-secessionist politicians have strongly criticized the handling of the protests by the Catalan police, which made more than 35 arrests on Saturday night alone.
What started out as peaceful, albeit angry, protests by thousands in Barcelona and other nearby cities turned into ugly night-time incidents caused by a violent minority bent on destroying property and fighting with the police.
“I think we have to distinguish between those who come here to support Pablo Hasél’s freedom and those who don’t,” said 19-year-old Joana Junca. “Street barricades to defend oneself are okay. But those who go out to riot do not have my support. ”
Mossos d’Esquadra police said on Monday that 61 of the 75 people arrested in the Catalan capital since the protests broke out on Feb. 16, were 25 years old or younger, including 24 minors. Three out of four were Spanish nationals and 26 of them had previously come into contact with the authorities for public disorder or theft.
Within that splinter group of troublemakers, some are out to loot in good time, Catalonia’s regional interior minister Miquel Sàmper told TV3 regional broadcaster on Sunday that what was “ a protest against freedom of speech ” had evolved. to ‘acts of pure vandalism. . “
Police are pointing to small groups making their way to sporting goods and other stores, while law enforcement officers are dealing with the clashes and clearing barricades from burning trash cans and metal barriers strewn across streets. Police described what they called ‘looting’ by ‘some people who take advantage of the condition and provide cover because of the large number of people.
Then there are those, mostly teenage rioters, who seem motivated by an anarchist, anti-police tendency and try to disrupt public order in every way possible. They work in fast-moving parcels, smash shop windows and destroy bank branches. They choose their moments to stop running and target the police with coordinated hurling of stones and other objects. Police swing batons and fire foam bullets after gushing out of riot cars to disperse them – and the chase continues.
Eleven police officers were injured on Tuesday evening when a mob attacked a police station in the Catalan city of Vic.
“The attack on the station in Vic was a turning point,” Imma Viudes, spokeswoman for the SAP-Fepol union for the Catalan police, told Spanish National Radio. “We don’t have the resources to contain this massive violence. (…) Someone will have to put down his fist. “
On Sunday, on their way to throw bottles and fireworks at a police station in Barcelona, a group of mostly black-clad youth marched behind a banner they’d defiantly planted in front of a row of police vans.
It said, “You have taught us that to be peaceful is useless.”
AP journalists Aritz Parra in Madrid and Renata Brito in Barcelona contributed to this report.