BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – The imprisonment of a rap artist for his music and tweets praising terrorist violence and insulting the Spanish monarchy has caused a pulse of anger in the southern European country this week.
The arrest of Pablo Hasél has taken thousands of people to the streets for various reasons.
Under the banner of freedom of expression, many Spaniards are firmly opposed to putting an artist behind bars for his lyrics and comments on social media. They demand that the Spanish left-wing government keep its promise and that the Public Security Act passed by the previous Conservative administration that was used to prosecute Hasel and other artists be reversed.
Hasel prison serving a nine-month sentence on Tuesday has also taken advantage of a pit of frustration among young Spaniards, who have the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. Four out of ten eligible workers under the age of 25 are unemployed.
“I think what we are experiencing now with the cases of Pablo Hasél (…) and other rappers politically detained by this regime is a brutal attack on freedom of expression,” Pablo Castilla, a 26-year-old student, said during a protest in Barcelona. “The protests are being brutally repressed by the supposedly progressive national government and the Catalan government.
“We are being attacked by young people because we are showing our anger.”
For many, including older peaceful protesters, Hasel’s case also represents what they perceive as a heavy reaction by a state whose very structure needs profound reform. It was even when some of his public comments, especially in messages sent to Twitter, Hasel expressed radical ideas, spoke of attacking politicians and defended the now-defunct Grapo and ETA, two armed organizations that killed more than 1,000 people in Spain.
Hasel’s letters attacking King Philip VI and his father, King Emeritus Juan Carlos I, have connected with a growing public debate about the future of the Spanish parliamentary monarchy. Outside a few indisputable left-wing marginal circles until the last decade, the royal house has been hit by a financial scandal that has hit Juan Carlos himself. Many Spaniards were frightened when the former monarch left Spain for the United Arab Emirates amid a judicial investigation into his alleged tax improprieties..
In addition to calling out their support for Hasel, a crowd that gathered in Madrid on Saturday chanted “Where is the change? Where is the progress?” And “Juan Carlos de Borbón, flirt and thief.”
The debate has provoked tensions within the Spanish left-wing coalition government. Although Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his socialist party are responding to the parliamentary monarchy that Spain has had since the end of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in the 1970s, its minor partner, the sought-after United Podem party, wants to get rid of it. of the monarchy and has supported this week protests for Hasel despite his violent turn.
In the rapper’s home region of Catalonia, the unrest also comes after years of separatist politicians urging citizens to ignore or disobey court rulings unfavorable to their cause. Although this week’s protests lack widespread calls for independence from Catalonia or flags supporting the secession of the industrial region, the head of citizen security at Barcelona City Council said that many of the most violent criminals they also participated heavily in the 2019 riots which followed after the imprisonment of several separatist leaders.
“It’s a varied and violent profile that we already know because it’s very similar to those who played a major role in the October 2019 incidents, so we know the type,” Cadena SER, a member of the Barcelona City Council, Albert Batlle. .
Some pro-secessionist political leaders have harshly criticized the management of the protests by the Catalan police, who made more than 35 arrests on Saturday night alone.
What began as peaceful, albeit angry, protests by thousands of people in Barcelona and other nearby cities degenerated into ugly incidents at nightfall caused by a violent minority pushed to destroy property and fight with police.
“I think we need to differentiate between those who come here in favor of Pablo Hasél’s freedom and those who don’t,” said 19-year-old Joana Junca. “The barricades on the street to defend themselves are fine. But those who go out there just to revolt do not have my support.
Mossos d’Esquadra police said on Monday that 61 of the 75 people detained in the Catalan capital since the protests broke out on 16 February were 25 years old or younger, including 24 minors. Three out of four had Spanish nationality and 26 of them had previous collisions with authorities for public disorder or theft.
Within this bursting group of problems, some have come out to make a timely looting, the Minister of the Interior, Miquel Sàmper, said on Sunday to the regional station of TV3 that what was “a protest for the freedom of expression “had become” acts of pure vandalism. ” “.
Police are targeting small groups that are debuting in sporting goods stores and other stores as police officers confront clashes and barricades cleaning garbage containers and metal barriers scattered across the streets. Police described what they called “looting” by “some people who take advantage of the disorder and the coverage provided by the large number of people.”
In addition, there are those, mainly adolescent riot police, who appear to be motivated by anarchism and anti-police bias and who seek to disrupt public order by any means possible. They work in fast-moving packages, smashing storefronts and sweeping bank branches. They choose their moments to stop running and aim at the police with a coordinated throw of stones and other objects. Police turn sticks and shoot foam bullets after dumping riot vans to disperse them, and the chase continues.
Eleven policemen were injured on Tuesday night when a crowd attacked a police station in the Catalan town of Vic.
“The attack on the station Vic was a turning point,” he told Spanish National Radio Imma widow union spokesman SAP-Fepol for the Catalan police. “We do not have the means to control this mass violence. (…) Someone will have to give up. “
On Sunday, on their way to throw bottles and firecrackers at a police station in Barcelona, a group of young people, mostly dressed in black, marched behind a banner and stood defiantly in front of a line of police vans.
It was said, “You have taught us that being peaceful is useless.”
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AP journalists Aritz Parra in Madrid and Renata Brito in Barcelona contributed to this report.