Spanish rapper Pablo Hasel's arrest has sparked protests in major cities, with critics calling his prosecution an assault on free speech. Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Spain overnight in support of a jailed rapper, as was reported by BBC.
On Tuesday, February 16, Spanish people took to the streets demanding the release of a rapper arrested by police over a series of tweets in a controversial free speech case.
There were clashes in Barcelona as police tried to disperse the protesters.
Pablo Hasel was taken to prison on Tuesday, after barricading himself in a university to avoid arrest. He faces nine months in prison for glorifying terrorism and slandering the crown and state institutions over tweets and song lyrics. Besides attacks on the monarchy, Pablo Hasel's tweets and lyrics accused police of torturing and killing demonstrators and migrants.
Demonstrations were reported mainly in cities across the Catalonia region and in the eastern city of Valencia on Tuesday night, hours after Hasel began serving his sentence. The biggest demonstration involved 5,000 people in the city of Girona. In Barcelona, around 2,000 people joined protests, while hundreds more gathered in Lérida (Lleida in Catalan), where the rapper was arrested earlier in the day. Another 2,000 people called for Hasel's release in his home town of Segrià, according to Catalan media. The protesters were waving placards reading "Free Pablo".
According to the BBC, fifteen protesters were detained in different cities. Some violence was later reported on as police moved in and demonstrators set rubbish bins alight and threw objects.
More than 200 famous Spanish artists have signed a petition against Hasel's jail term, while Amnesty International described his arrest as terrible news for freedom of expression in Spain.
The Spanish government said last week it planned to reduce the penalty for "crimes of expression" - including the glorification of terrorism, hate speech and insults to the crown and religion - in cases that involve artistic or cultural activities. However, this will not apply to Hasel's sentence.