He had become the symbol of freedom of expression in Spain.

The conviction of rapper Pablo Hasél, found guilty of defending terrorism, as well as insults and slanders against the crown and the state gave rise to clashes with the police, Wednesday, February 17, in Madrid and Barcelona.

In the Spanish capital, hundreds of people gathered on the Puerta del Sol, heavily guarded by security forces, behind banners that proclaimed "Enough censorship" and demanded "Freedom" for Pablo Hasél, imprisoned Tuesday.

The rapper was sentenced to nine months in prison for messages in which he insulted Spanish law enforcement agencies as "shitty mercenaries", accused them of torture and murder and also attacked the monarchy.

He had barricaded himself in the University of Lleida in the company of a group of sympathizers, but the Catalan police intervened Tuesday morning and took him directly to prison.

"They will not arrest us, they will never make us bow, despite all the repression", had shouted, the raised fist, the rapper, escorted by police officers, according to images of his arrest broadcast by Spanish television.

"It's the fascist state that is stopping me. Death to the fascist state!", He still proclaimed, looking at the cameras when entering a vehicle of the "Mossos d'Esquadra", the Catalan regional police who extracted him from the University of Lérida, in Catalonia, where he had been barricaded since Monday with dozens of supporters wanting to prevent his arrest.

According to a police spokesperson, the rapper was held in Lleida prison immediately after his imprisonment.

Support demonstrations

In Madrid, demonstrators with their faces hidden threw bottles at riot police, who charged on Wednesday evening.

In Barcelona, ​​altercations were recorded again, with projectiles thrown at the police and barricades erected with garbage dumpsters set on fire.

In the Catalan capital, around 1,700 demonstrators gathered near the city's central square, shouting “Free Pablo!” “Some masked demonstrators then set fire to garbage cans and threw projectiles at the police. The protests on Tuesday evening, in Barcelona and other cities in Catalonia, left around 30 injured and led to the arrest of 15 people.

Pablo Hasél - real name Pablo Rivadulla Duró - had until Friday evening to voluntarily go to prison and start serving the nine-month sentence imposed on him by the Spanish courts.

"They will have to come and kidnap me and it will also serve to portray the state in its true face, that of a fake democracy," the 32-year-old Catalan rapper, already convicted in the past, told AFP by telephone on Friday. but never imprisoned.

"Sword of Damocles" above all artists

Before his arrest, several sometimes tense protests in support of Pablo Hasél took place in recent weeks in Madrid and Barcelona, ​​while more than 200 personalities from the Spanish-speaking cultural world, including director Pedro Almodóvar and actor Javier Bardem, signed a platform in his favor.

The signatories affirmed in particular that the conviction of Pablo Hasél constituted a "sword of Damocles" above all artists and accused Spain of acting like "Turkey or Morocco".

The affair had become a real thorn in the side of the left-wing government of Pedro Sanchez, especially as the Catalan elections approached last Sunday.

The spokesperson of the executive María Jesús Montero had thus recognized last week "a lack of proportionality" in the sentence imposed on the rapper.

On the defensive, the government also promised "a reform" so that "verbal excesses committed in the context of artistic, cultural or intellectual events" no longer fall under criminal law and no longer result in prison sentences.

Avoiding pronouncing on the sentence, the number two of the government Carmen Calvo defended the necessary "tolerance proper to a mature democracy like ours" in the field of freedom of expression.

A partner of the Socialists in the government, the radical left party Podemos sharply denounced the arrest of the rapper.

"Everyone who considers themselves progressive and brags about 'full democratic normality' (of Spain), should be ashamed. Will they close their eyes? There is no progress if we do not want to recognize the current democratic lacks, "Podemos tweeted.

It was an allusion to highly controversial comments by its leader and vice-president of government, Pablo Iglesias, who said last week that there was "no full political and democratic normalcy in Spain" .

These remarks sparked an uproar from all the right-wing opposition parties, but also enormous unease within Pedro Sánchez's Socialist Party.

With AFP

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