BARCELONA, Spain – Thousands of protesters took over some streets of Barcelona on Tuesday night to demand the release of a rapper who was arrested by Spanish police after he was sentenced to prison on charges of glorifying terrorism and insulting royalty in his songs.
Dozens of police officers stormed the University of Lleida in northeastern Spain earlier in the day and arrested rapper Pablo Hasel after barricading himself there. Hasel, known for his radical leftist views, missed a deadline last Friday to surrender to police to serve a nine-month prison sentence handed down in 2018 – a sentence that caused a stir in Spain and the government. prompted to announce that she would keep free speech. laws less restrictive.
Hasel was convicted of texts and tweets referring to Basque separatist paramilitary group ETA, comparing Spanish judges to Nazis, and calling the former King Juan Carlos a mob boss.
Following Hasel’s arrest, Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo told reporters that people should be jailed for issues of freedom of expression in a democracy like Spain.
Hasel took refuge at the university with a group of supporters on Monday. They briefly clashed with police on Tuesday morning, throwing chairs and emptying fire extinguishers, before officers with guns and protective headgear arrested Hasel.
News footage showed thousands of people marching down some of Barcelona’s main streets shouting “Freedom for Pablo Hasel”. Protests also took place in other towns and villages in the Catalonia region.
There were some clashes between protesters and riot police, with images of trash cans on fire, looted shops, and items thrown at officers trying to disperse the crowd, sometimes using batons and foam projectiles.
Mossos d’Escuadra, the Catalan regional police, said on Twitter that protesters burned motorcycles and trash cans, set up barricades and blocked streets in Barcelona, and that 14 people had been arrested.
“It could be you”
The victory will be ours. … There will be no forgetting and no forgiveness, ” Hasel shouted, his fist held high, as he was surrounded by police and taken to prison, having retweeted the lyrics for which he had been convicted several hours earlier.
“Tomorrow it could be you,” Hasel added in a message to his 125,000 followers.
More than 200 artists, including film director Pedro Almodovar, actor Javier Bardem and singer Joan Manuel Serrat, signed a petition opposing Hasel’s imprisonment.
Spain’s left-wing government said last week in response to the case that it would reform the “prop law” passed by a previous government in 2015 to prevent the glorification of banned armed groups such as ETA. The law also prohibits insults against religion and the monarchy.
The government said it would introduce milder penalties, target only actions that pose a risk to public policy or provoke violence, and maintain tolerance for artistic, cultural and intellectual forms of expression.
ETA announced its disbandment in 2018 after a violent campaign spanning four decades that ended in 2010.