Pablo Hasel: new day of protest in Spain | …

Nine people were injured this Wednesday in Madrid during the riots during the rally to protest against the arrest and imprisonment of rapper Pablo Hasel. All have minor injuries, although three of them had to be hospitalized.

The injuries occurred after the police crackdown. The troops deployed fourteen prevention units, in addition to four fire teams at the request of the national police to quell the various fires in containers and barricades.

The protests were replicated not only in Madrid, but also in Barcelona and other parts of Catalonia, where the 33-year-old rapper is from (he was born in Lleida), and who was arrested on Tuesday for his critical comments against the monarchy.

In the Spanish capital, a concentration of hundreds of people in the central Puerta del Sol, heavily guarded by security forces, collided with police. The violence lasted for several hours. “Violent people and those who do not accept the rules have no place in our society. I strongly condemn violence,” tweeted the mayor of Madrid, conservative José Luis Martínez-Almeida of the Popular Party. Not satisfied with this, he retweeted a post by Pablo Echenique, in which he calls for the crackdown that cost a protester in Barcelona to be investigated and to disengage by criticizing the Socialist Party’s support for his partner government.

In Barcelona, ​​altercations were again recorded after the clashes which took place Tuesday evening, with agents who fired rubber bullets at the demonstrators who chanted the slogan “Freedom Pablo Hasel”. Violent protests were also seen in Lleida and Girona, the Mossos reported, and the day ended with six detainees.

His case sparked a heated debate over freedom of expression in Spain, a few hours when Spain witnessed last Saturday the spectacle of a far-right act in which the Blue Division was commemorated (the troops sent by Francisco Franco in support of the Nazis in the USSR) and the young Isabel Peralta launched the anti-Semitic slogan “the Jew is the culprit”.

Hasel’s arrest sparked discussions within the left-wing coalition of the Socialist Party and United We Can. The president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, has promised to review the penal code so that comments like those of the rapper are not punished in prison. For his part, Unidos Podemos assured that he would ask for a pardon. Personalities such as Joan Manuel Serrat and Pedro Almodóvar have already made public their support for Hasel.