The arrest of the popular Spanish rapper Pablo Hasel sparked days of protests in Spain as thousands who are fighting against what they see as a stunning attack on freedom of expression laws in the country took to the streets.
Hasel was arrested on Tuesday while he was barricaded inside the University of Lleida with supporters. He is accused of insulting the Bourbon monarchy and the Spanish state. He could face up to two decades in prison if convicted for exalting terrorism.
Before the raid by police, Hasel took to Twitter and appealed to his supporters to keep “denouncing those guilty of f—king up so many lives.” While he was being led out, he reportedly yelled, “They will never silence us; death to the fascist state!”
Youth Revolution
Sky News reported that protesters took to the streets after the arrest. The report said the protesters included the youth from the country who were frustrated with its policing policies and austerity. There have been about 80 arrests since Tuesday, with more than 100 injured, the report stated.
The protests were largely peaceful, according to reports. These protesters, who called themselves the “antifascists,” chanted, “The Bourbons are thieves.” As with most protests, while the vast majority were marching peacefully, on Saturday night, a small group of rioters in Barcelona damaged and looted luxury storefronts and threw bottles at police.
Rather than focus on the peacefulness and dissent among those taking to the streets, the media, as they always do, focused on the rioters (never mentioning they may be agents provocateurs), with headlines on Sunday such as this one from NPR:
Violence Erupts in Barcelona on 5th Night of Protests Over Jailed Rapper
It was reported that a petition called, “Without freedom for expression there is no Democracy” was signed by 300 artists. The petition read, “We are aware that, if we let Pablo go to jail, they can go after any of us tomorrow, until any dissenting voice is silenced.”
Amnesty International tied Hasel’s arrest to the country’s 2015 Public Security Law. The far-left Podemos party has called for Hasel to be pardoned, RT.com reported. The party, which reportedly props up the country’s coalition government, called it unjust detention. The Podemos party has been criticized by the conservative PP party for not condemning the violence in the streets.
Hasel has been critical of the government and called King Juan Carlos a thief. He tweeted about the country’s support of Saudi Arabia, which has been blamed for contributing to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
As the investigation of corruption charges against Juan Carlos intensified, the “King” left Spain and has been living in the United Arab Emirates since 3 August.
“YOUTH REVOLUTION,” one of our Top 10 Trends for 2021: As we forecast in December 2020, the uprisings and revolutions that were sweeping the world before the COVID War would accelerate dramatically, as billions of people sink deeper into economic despair.
Spain’s economy shrank by 11 percent last year, according to the National Statistics Institute, which El País reported is the country’s biggest contraction since the late 1930s. Isabel Diaz Ayuso, the head of Madrid’s regional government, told the Financial Times in September about the dire economic straits there. “We have to avoid at all costs a state of alert and above all confining people to their homes. A state of alert and confining people are an economic disaster.”
Rubén Lázaro, a set builder, told the FT last week, “The younger generations are pushing hard and this protest is to say, ‘There’s been enough of this repression, this corruption, this system that doesn’t provide a space for us.’”
The youth in Spain have realized they do not have a future under the current conditions in the country and – like in other countries – have lashed out against the status quo.