LLEIDA, Spain (AP) – Violent street protests erupted in some Spanish cities on Tuesday night after the arrest of a rap artist who barricaded himself at a university with dozens of supporters to avoid prison and has portrayed his case as a fight for freedom of expression.
In Barcelona, thousands of protesters set fire to garbage cans and threw stones at the police. Several shops and a bank were damaged amid chaotic scenes on one of the main streets of the city. Smaller demonstrations took place in Valencia and Palma de Mallorca, Spanish media reported.
A 24-hour stalemate between police and Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél ended Tuesday when anti-riot officers arrested the artist shortly after sunrise and escorted him from the rectorate building of Lleida University. He and more than 50 supporters locked themselves up on Monday at noon at university in Spain’s Northeast Catalonia region.
Hasél was sent to prison where he is serving a nine-month sentence for insulting the monarchy and glorifying terrorism.
The university barricade was the rapper’s latest attempt not to serve his sentence and to draw attention to what he believes is a campaign for free speech. He has been criticized and has taken legal action over some of his statements, including statements about the monarchy and the need for armed resistance.
“We will win! They will not bow us with all their oppression, never!” Said the 32-year-old rapper as he walked past TV news cameras.
The case of Hasél, whose name at birth is Pablo Rivadulla Duró, has attracted increasing attention in Spain, with many members of the public, artists, celebrities and politicians expressing their support and a change in the so-called “Gag Law”. demanded. “
Spain’s left-wing coalition government also unexpectedly announced last week that it would amend the country’s criminal code to scrap jail sentences for crimes related to freedom of expression. It did not specifically mention Hasél or set a timetable for the changes.
The rapper is no stranger to controversy. With an artistic opus that features songs strongly criticizing the establishment, he has seen his fame increase among the wider Spanish public at every meeting with authorities.
After being charged at least four times with assault, praising armed extremist groups, invading private property or insulting the country’s monarchy, he was given a two-year suspended sentence in 2014. But in a new case brought to trial in 2018, judges gave him a 9-month sentence behind bars for a song about former King Juan Carlos I and 64 tweets he posted between 2014 and 2016.
The tweets crossed the line between opinion and calls for violent insurgency, with several mentions from ETA and Grapo, two now-defunct armed extremist groups in Spain. In the song, Hasél rapped about corruption linked to the former monarch, but also spoke of him as a woman beater, a drunkard, head of a mob mob and a frequent user of prostitution.
The Spanish national court on Monday rejected his latest appeal to be held out of jail. Judges said the conviction came on the back of a person being suspended and that offenders should serve jail time if they relapse.
Saving Hasél from jail time, the court said, would “discriminate” against other convicts, adding that the campaigns surrounding his case could be used to change laws in parliament, but that the courts must apply the existing criminal code.
“I won’t let them tell me what to think, feel or say,” Hasél told The Associated Press late Monday. “This is an extra incentive for me to keep writing the same songs.”
Jordi Dalmau, head of the Mossos d’Esquadara police for Western Catalonia, said Hasél’s arrest, dismantling the barricades of offices and banks blocking the entrance to the building, was “normal” and that the activists do not resist. The rapper had last week declined to voluntarily respond to a call to appear before prison.
Before being hurled into a police car, he shouted to supporters, “Death to the fascist state!”
More than 200 artists, including film director Pedro Almodóvar and actor Javier Bardem, signed a petition last week in support of the rapper. Amnesty International noted that Hasel’s case was the latest in a series of lawsuits against artists and social media personalities under the Public Safety Act of 2015 introduced by a conservative government.
Valtònyc, another rapper convicted on similar grounds in 2018, fled to Belgium, where judicial authorities rejected Spain’s extradition request. Other recent cases have involved puppeteers spreading political satire and bloggers joking about the assassination of General Francisco Franco’s authoritarian regime of 1939-1975.
The Spanish government’s eleventh-hour proposal to amend the criminal code has been rejected by the conservative and far-right opposition.
But Tuesday’s arrest also sparked another political storm in the ruling left-wing coalition led by socialists from their smaller partner, the far-left United We Can (Unidas Podemos) party.
“All who boast of this” full democratic normality “and consider themselves progressive should be ashamed,” the party tweeted on Tuesday. ‘Will they cover their eyes? There will be no progress if we refuse to recognize the current democratic deficits. “
Parra reported from Madrid. AP journalists Renata Brito in Barcelona and Ciarán Giles and Aritz Parra in Madrid and contributed to this report.