BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – The arrest of a rapper for his music and tweets praising terrorist violence and insulting the Spanish monarchy spawned a repressed powder keg this week in the southern European country.
Pablo Hasél’s arrest brought thousands to the streets for several reasons.
Under the banner of freedom of expression, many Spaniards are strongly opposed to putting an artist behind bars for his lyrics and comments on social media. They are calling for Spain’s left-wing government to keep its promise and to reverse the Public Security Law passed by the previous conservative government that was used to prosecute Hasél and other artists.
Hasel’s Prison serving a nine-month sentence on Tuesday also generated frustration among Spanish youths, who have the highest unemployment rate in the European Union. Four out of 10 eligible workers under 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,” said student Pablo Castilla, 26, during a protest in Barcelona. “The protests are being brutally repressed by the supposedly progressive national government and the Catalan government.
“They are attacking us, young people, because we are showing our anger.”
For many, including older peaceful protesters, Hasél’s case also represents what they perceive as a violent reaction from a state whose very structure needs profound reform. That’s right when some of his public comments, especially in messages sent on Twitter, Hasél expressed radical ideas, spoke about attacks on politicians and defended the now defunct Grapo and ETA, two armed organizations that killed more than 1,000 people in Spain.
Hasél’s lyrics that hit 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. Unquestionable outside the marginal circles of the left until the past decade, the royal house was plagued by a financial scandal that hit Juan Carlos himself. Many Spaniards were horrified when the ex-monarch left Spain and went to the United Arab Emirates amid a judicial investigation into his alleged tax irregularities..
In addition to shouting their support for Hasel, a crowd that gathered in Madrid on Saturday shouted “Where’s the change? Where’s the progress? ”And“ Juan Carlos de Borbón, womanizer and thief ”.
The debate caused tensions within Spain’s left-wing coalition government. While Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist Party have supported the parliamentary monarchy that Spain has had since the end of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in the 1970s, his minor partner, the United We Can party, wants to get rid of the monarchy and supported the protests by Hasél despite his violent turn.
In Catalonia, the rapper’s home region, the unrest also comes after years of separatist politicians urging citizens to ignore or disobey legal decisions unfavorable to their cause. Although this week’s protests did not present widespread appeals for the independence of Catalonia or flags that support the secession of the industrial region, the head of public security in the city of Barcelona said that many of the most violent criminals were also heavily involved in the 2019 riots that followed the arrest of several separatist leaders.
“It is a varied and violent profile with which we are already familiar, because it is very similar to those who played an important role in the October 2019 incidents, so we know the type,” Barcelona councilor Albert Batlle told Cadena SER radio.
Some pro-secessionist political leaders have sharply criticized the handling of protests by the Catalan police, which made more than 35 arrests on Saturday night alone.
What started as peaceful, though angry, protests by thousands in Barcelona and other nearby cities, degenerated into ugly nightfall incidents caused by a violent minority committed to destroying property and fighting the police.
“I think we should differentiate 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 themselves are doing well. But those who go there just to revolt don’t have my support ”.
Mossos d’Esquadra police said on Monday that 61 of the 75 people arrested in the Catalan capital since the February 16 protests were 25 years or younger, including 24 minors. Three out of four were Spanish nationals and 26 of them had previous disagreements with authorities for public unrest or theft.
Within this dissident group of troublemakers, some are trying to plunder in a timely manner, Catalonia’s regional interior minister, Miquel Sàmper, told regional television station TV3 on Sunday that what was “a free speech protest” has evolved into “acts of pure vandalism” . ”
The police point to small groups that invade sporting goods stores and other stores, while police officers are involved in the clashes and barricades of burning garbage containers and metal barriers scattered across the streets. The police described what they called “looting” by “some people who take advantage of the disorder and the coverage provided by a large number of people”.
Then there are those, especially rowdy teenagers, who seem to be motivated by an anarchist, anti-police leaning and seek to disrupt public order by all possible means. They work in packages that move quickly, breaking shop windows and destroying bank offices. They choose their moments to stop running and target the police with coordinated throws of stones and other objects. Police swing truncheons and fire foam bullets after exiting bumper vans to disperse them – and the chase continues.
Eleven policemen were injured on Tuesday night when a mob attacked a police station in the Catalan city of Vic.
“The attack on the Vic station was a turning point,” Imma Viudes, a spokesman for the Catalan police SAP-Fepol union, told Spanish National Radio. “We cannot control this mass violence. (…) Someone will have to lower their fist. “
On Sunday, on the way to throwing bottles and fireworks at a police station in Barcelona, a group of young men dressed in black marched behind a banner that they defiantly planted in front of a row of police vans.
It said: “You 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.