Demonstrations in Spain: "Freedom of expression is just a pretext"

Protesters march through the streets of Barcelona on February 19, 2021 to demand the release of rapper Pablo Hasel.

AP - Felipe Dana

Text by: Clea Broadhurst

6 min

In Spain, this Sunday, for the sixth night in a row, demonstrators protested against the imprisonment of Pablo Hasel, the rapper sentenced for insults to the monarchy and the police, as well as for apologizing for terrorism.

The case has become the symbol of the issue of freedom of expression in the country.

Analysis by Barbara Loyer, professor at the French Institute of Geopolitics and at the University of Paris VIII.

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RFI: Why such anger in recent days in Spain? 

Barbara Loyer

:

It's a complicated situation, there is a kind of condensation of a lot of frustrations that have been accumulating for a long time.

What should already be remembered is that at least half of the demonstrations take place in Catalonia, and they have a strong independence tinge, that is to say that the people who are in the street are quite heterogeneous, There are anti-systems, anarchists, separatists… The slogans for amnesty are reminiscent of separatist slogans, so it all gets mixed up.

In addition, we are in a period of great tension, the elections have just taken place in Catalonia on February 14, the separatists had a majority with a very high rate of abstention and the great maneuvers for power in Catalonia are very complex.

It is convenient for many people to allow an image of society to develop against the state.

It is not spontaneous anger.

But there are also demonstrations in Madrid, and in other regions where there are nationalists who are very accustomed to this kind of demonstrations, in Navarre in the Basque Country, in Valencia.  

There is also a general context in Spain, we are more than 40% unemployed among young people, so that does not help calm the situation.

And then there are very great tensions throughout the Spanish political class, the political parties have divisive, deliberately divisive strategies.

The capacity for debate is reduced to nil at the moment.

In addition,

leaders of Podemos

, the far left party in power, support the demonstrators and do not want to condemn the violence.  

What are the demands of these demonstrators

? 

They talk about freedom of expression, which makes you smile a little, because the famous Pablo Hasel, is a very disreputable character, makes macho tweets, tweets calling for hanging or murdering all his opponents and all those who do not. do not like, rejoicing in the place where the victims of ETA are underground… We see demands for freedom of expression but there is still the freedom to scare everyone who is essentially put into practice.

The demand for freedom of expression is also based on a panorama where we have an extreme left which also has problematic sentences on freedom of expression, since the president of the Podemos party said that it is a problem of have a private press that is not under control because it has too much influence in public opinion.

The relationship with the press, with freedom of expression is therefore very confused for the moment in Spain.

In my opinion, freedom of expression is a pretext, a pretext to mobilize the troops, a pretext to play with the power of the street, and a pretext to show abroad that the Spanish democracy would be in a terrible state.

While in fact

Pablo Hasel

was sentenced several times, but always suspended, postponements, and as he is very aggressive and he hit a lot of people, after a while, it hit him . 

But apart from that, in

the demonstrations

, we will see the aggregation of problems which are for the moment real problems, such as that of the impoverishment of a part of the population, in particular because of the health crisis.

The left crystallized after the crisis of 2008 and the impoverishment of large numbers of people who found themselves losing their homes, because they were in debt, with variable rates, like in the United States, has created a feeling of injustice which gave birth to these great left movements in 2011 and which came to power a little over a year ago, but on extremely divisive themes.

And the constructive debate between the right and the left to get out of the crisis together, there is none for the moment.

There is no common project. 

Why did people mobilize for this character

? 

At the moment there is a real and significant anti-system force in Spain.

But when the devil of hate is out of its box, it's hard to get it back.

But there is no common vision on what democracy is, and it is a skilfully constructed disagreement to succeed in advancing its pawns.

The Spanish right can calmly compare what is happening on the streets to what happened under Trump in the United States, even though they are on the left.

We have people who are totalitarian and who knock to impose themselves.

And Pablo Hasel only has hate speech, he has no idea, neither about Spain, nor about democracy, not even about Catalonia.

He is opposed to everyone on principle, he is an anti-system. 

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