Protests in Spain after police arrest Pablo Hasel, rapper convicted in free speech case
- Thousands take to streets to demand release of arrested rapper Pablo Hasel who barricaded himself in university
- Hasel convicted for glorifying terrorism, slander and libel against the crown and state institutions
Thousands of people protested across Spain in reaction to police arresting an outspoken rapper on Tuesday, after he was sentenced to prison for insulting the monarchy and glorifying violence.
Rapper Pablo Hasel, whose real name is Pablo Rivadulla Duro, had barricaded himself in Lleida University, 150km (90 miles) west of Barcelona, with dozens of supporters.
Hasel, who is known throughout Spain for his radical lyrics, had missed a deadline last Friday to surrender to police to serve a nine-month jail term handed down in 2018 – a sentence that caused an uproar in Spain and led the government to announce it would make free speech laws less restrictive.
During the rallies on Tuesday evening there were clashes between demonstrators and police in Barcelona, Valencia, Palma de Mallorca and Girona, among other cities.
In the centre of Barcelona, the protesters – around 2,000 according to media estimates – set fire to trash containers, among other things.
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Violent protests in Spain after rapper Pablo Hasel arrested for anti-monarchy songs
They erected street barricades and threw stones, bottles and firecrackers at officers, chanting slogans such as “Freedom for Pablo Hasel” and “Death to the Spanish regime”.
Earlier in the day police also removed several dozen students from the university who tried to prevent his arrest.
Hasel was convicted over lyrics and tweets that included references to the Basque separatist paramilitary group ETA, compared Spanish judges to Nazis and called former king Juan Carlos a mafia boss. His work also featured violent fantasies about conservative politicians.
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“They will never make us give in, despite the repression,” shouted 32-year-old Hasel, his fist raised as officers in riot gear escorted him out of the building after an early-morning raid on the Catalan university where he’d been holed up.
“It is the fascist state that is arresting me. Death to the fascist state!”
Amnesty International said jailing the rapper for song lyrics and tweets was “unjust and disproportionate”.
“Pablo Hasel’s imprisonment is an excessive and disproportionate restriction on his freedom of expression, but he is not alone in suffering the consequences of unjust laws,” the NGO wrote on Twitter.
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Hundreds of artists signed a petition calling for Hasel’s release, including film director Pedro Almodóvar, Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem and folk singer Joan Manuel Serrat.
Far-left party Podemos, the junior partner in Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority coalition government, also criticised Hasel’s arrest.
“All those who consider themselves progressives and boast of (Spain’s) ‘full democratic normality’ should be ashamed,” the party tweeted.
“There is no progress if we refuse to recognise our existing democratic shortcomings.”
Spain’s leftist government said last week in response to the case that it would reform the “gag law” enacted in 2015 by a previous administration to prevent the glorification of banned armed groups such as ETA. The law also bans insults against religion and the monarchy.
The government said it would introduce milder penalties, target only actions that pose a risk to public order or might provoke violence, and would uphold tolerance for artistic, cultural and intellectual forms of expression.
ETA announced its dissolution in 2018 after a four-decade campaign of violence that ended in 2010.
Hasel’s case echoes that of another rapper, Valtonyc, who fled to Belgium in 2018 after being convicted of similar crimes.
Spain wants him extradited but Belgium has refused as his offences are not a crime under Belgian law.
Valtonyc said he felt “shame” and “anger at seeing a colleague treated like this for doing what artists do, which is to provoke”.
He said: “Artists are now going to suffer the worst type of censorship, which is self-censorship.
“There are many songs that will not be written, plays that will stop being written – all out of fear.”
DPA, Agence France-Presse, Reuters
