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Spain banned speech critical of the government several years ago, and several people have been jailed already. At least one person has been jailed over a tweet.

Spain banned speech critical of the government several years ago, and several people have been jailed already. At least one person has been jailed over a tweet. Europe isn’t one big whole, parts of it are already obviously worse than others.

honzzz 8y ago
> Spain banned speech critical of the government Could you please provide some reference? I seriously doubt that what you said is correct.
- oska 8y ago
  Spain has passed a law banning the “glorification of terrorism” or “humiliating victims of terrorism”. While this is not 'speech critical of the government' the law is vaguely worded and has been broadly interpreted. More detail in this report from Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/Spain-Counter-terror-law-used-to-crush-satire-and-creative-expression-online/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/Spain-Counter...
  - narag 8y ago
    I don't know why you're being downvoted. While the GP comment is total BS, what you wrote is simply the facts. There's nobody in jail for writing anything. The report is based on facts, but it goes overboard with the conclusions. Edit: the BS comment is by oarsinsync, so it should be GGP, sorry if that led to confusionl.
    - oarsinsync 8y ago
      Apologies, I appear to have overstated things for sure. That said, satire against the police force lands you in court: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/07/satirical-article-spanish-riot-police-cocaine-lands-editor-el-jueves-court-catalonia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/07/satirical-arti... And tweeting can get you a suspended sentence (which got overturned on appeal, but didn't prevent the original conviction): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/01/spanish-student-cassandra-vera-conviction-twitter-joke-overturned https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/01/spanish-studen... I did overstate things, but "total BS" doesn't seem fair either.
      - narag 8y ago
        First of all, I'm opposed to that law. If it was up to me, it would be annihilated from existence. Please understand that joining a few imprecisions, innocuous in isolation, the result is totally incorrect. 'Incorrect' would have been better than 'BS' indeed, sorry. The reason for verbal escalation is we have to see this kind of "imprecision" very often and it's not funny anymore.
      - narag 8y ago
        Oh, one more thing. Satire is a different thing than outright insult. Putting the insult in a cartoon makes no difference. The Guardian makes a good job mentioning the context, maybe because in the UK there're a libel laws. Also in the other article correctly mention that the "rapper" was accused of death threats and asking terrorists to attack people. The guy is at large, thanks to certain terrorists haven country that happens to host EU institutions.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- Y_Y 8y ago
  I live in Spain. The king is a hamster and the government in Madrid smells of elderberries.
spanxx 8y ago
Please, provide a source. When Pedro Sánchez (current Spanish Prime Minister) PhD thesis was discovered to be an alleged forgery or when allegedly used an official plane for personal matters there was plenty of content criticizing h directly.

honzzz 8y ago

> Spain banned speech critical of the government Could you please provide some reference? I seriously doubt that what you said is correct.

oska 8y ago
Spain has passed a law banning the “glorification of terrorism” or “humiliating victims of terrorism”. While this is not 'speech critical of the government' the law is vaguely worded and has been broadly interpreted. More detail in this report from Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/Spain-Counter-terror-law-used-to-crush-satire-and-creative-expression-online/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/Spain-Counter...
- narag 8y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted. While the GP comment is total BS, what you wrote is simply the facts. There's nobody in jail for writing anything. The report is based on facts, but it goes overboard with the conclusions. Edit: the BS comment is by oarsinsync, so it should be GGP, sorry if that led to confusionl.
  - oarsinsync 8y ago
    Apologies, I appear to have overstated things for sure. That said, satire against the police force lands you in court: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/07/satirical-article-spanish-riot-police-cocaine-lands-editor-el-jueves-court-catalonia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/07/satirical-arti... And tweeting can get you a suspended sentence (which got overturned on appeal, but didn't prevent the original conviction): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/01/spanish-student-cassandra-vera-conviction-twitter-joke-overturned https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/01/spanish-studen... I did overstate things, but "total BS" doesn't seem fair either.
    - narag 8y ago
      First of all, I'm opposed to that law. If it was up to me, it would be annihilated from existence. Please understand that joining a few imprecisions, innocuous in isolation, the result is totally incorrect. 'Incorrect' would have been better than 'BS' indeed, sorry. The reason for verbal escalation is we have to see this kind of "imprecision" very often and it's not funny anymore.
    - narag 8y ago
      Oh, one more thing. Satire is a different thing than outright insult. Putting the insult in a cartoon makes no difference. The Guardian makes a good job mentioning the context, maybe because in the UK there're a libel laws. Also in the other article correctly mention that the "rapper" was accused of death threats and asking terrorists to attack people. The guy is at large, thanks to certain terrorists haven country that happens to host EU institutions.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Y_Y 8y ago
I live in Spain. The king is a hamster and the government in Madrid smells of elderberries.

spanxx 8y ago

Please, provide a source. When Pedro Sánchez (current Spanish Prime Minister) PhD thesis was discovered to be an alleged forgery or when allegedly used an official plane for personal matters there was plenty of content criticizing h directly.