Pictured above: Protestors marching for Pablo Hasel, Spanish rapper, who was arrested. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
By Sophie Soloway’23
Global Editor
A popular Spanish rapper, Pablo Hasél, was arrested on Feb. 16 under public security law charges accusing him of criticizing the monarchy and glorifying a separatist group. This action sparked massive and widespread protests spanning several major cities and resulting in the arrests of multiple protesters. These arrests follow a long history of repression and separatist support in Spain.
Hasél is a well-known and controversial musician who has been charged several times, including for assaulting a journalist in 2016 and repeatedly criticizing monarchs. His most recent arrest came after he mocked politicians and voiced support for the ETA, a militant separatist group, resulting in a nine-month sentence.
Antonio Illescas, a language instructor in Spanish at Mount Holyoke, says that Hasél’s prison sentence is a consequence of his convictions and several failures to pay the associated fines. “These legal proceedings are initiated by the opinions and comments made by the rap singer on social networks and in the lyrics of his songs, which were qualified by the courts as ‘apology of terrorism’ and ‘insults to the institution of the monarchy,’” Illescas says.
Created in 1958 during the height of Francisco Franco’s dictatorial regime in Spain, the ETA has long pursued the secession of the Catalonian region. Before its nominal disbanding in 2018, the group was responsible for countless deaths, including the 1973 killing of Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco, a close associate of Franco. Although the ETA has dissolved, Illescas notes that its sentiments still relate to demands being made by Spanish citizens today. “Currently, the most important ETA-related issues being discussed in Spain are two: the recognition and moral compensation to the victims it [created], and the future of the many ETA prisoners still serving sentences in Spanish prisons,” Illescas said.
Hasél’s arrest was not the first under the public security law, which attempts to bar widespread protests through fines and arrests. According to Visiting Associate Professor of Spanish at Mount Holyoke Megan Saltzman, who researches the politics of public spaces within the context of Spanish cities like Barcelona, “Sometimes the Citizen Security law is used to reprimand other left-wing actions that authorities find extreme or insulting — for example, to punish voices in favor of the independence of Catalonia.”
Written in 2015, the law follows a long history of repressing critical voices in Spain, which Saltzman traces back to Franco-era regulations. Although democratic rule and political protections have emerged since this regime, Saltzman notes that “less obvious is that history, the past, doesn’t disappear. The right-wing today has roots in the dictatorship of yesterday and occasionally, it surfaces in situations like what happened this past week with Hasél.”
Despite these legal and political obstacles to political protest, citizens have taken to the streets in numerous Spanish cities, including Barcelona and the national capital. Dozens of arrests have been made following the looting of businesses and the emergence of violence in select demonstrations. Protesters largely demand a “total pardon” for Hasél, a sentiment not uncommon within Spain. Their violence, however, according to Illescas, may shift public opinion: “The serious thing is that some of these protests ended in vandalism and looting, and this creates a rejection in public opinion even if the demands are fully justified,” Illescas says.
However, Illescas notes that these protests are shrouded in various other political and social concerns, including COVID-19-era economic suffering, long-standing calls for Catalonian freedom and a more general defense of free speech in Spain. Indeed, the protesters — reportedly majority young, and likely mobilized by rampant rates of unemployment — have expanded their chants to call for more general progress and support from the Spanish government.
Saltzman concluded that, “These protests bring a lot of contemporary and future issues to the forefront that span across countries, and that students in the US care about. The protests trigger difficult debates about where we draw the lines around freedom of speech in the public sphere, in person and online.”