Violence is not tolerable

February 23 2021 (11:47 WET)

In our country, resorting to violence in the streets to claim the right to demonstrate and the right to freedom of expression lacks political and legal fit. Spain is a State of Law that enshrines individual and collective freedoms, and we are governed by laws to guarantee coexistence. Therefore, it is incredible that at this point we are forced to remember these elementary issues, which gives us an idea of the fragility of democracy and reinforces the need to exercise and defend it every day.

The right to demonstrate and the right to freedom of expression cannot be used by some individuals as an alibi for looting, vandalism and gratuitous confrontation with the State Security Forces. No way. Some do it for political reasons, such as the independentists in some Catalan cities, and others because they belong to anti-system groups looking for their minute of glory in the form of screen time.

The riots began after Pablo Hasél's imprisonment, whose record includes several convictions. The first in 2014, when the justice system imposed a two-year prison sentence for considering that he was making an apology for terrorism by mentioning organizations such as ETA or Al Qaeda in his songs and on his social networks. As it was the first sentence, the sentence was suspended, but in 2018 he was again sentenced to prison for glorifying terrorism, with the aggravating circumstance of recidivism. The reason for his imprisonment has been dozens of messages published on Twitter and a song on YouTube that the courts consider to constitute a crime.

As we all know, freedom of expression is not absolute and has limits, although the crimes of opinion established in our legal system are pending reform, announced by the Ministry of Justice in early February. Thus, conduct that clearly involves the creation of a risk to public order or the provocation of some type of violent conduct will be punished with dissuasive, but not custodial, sentences. In addition, those verbal excesses that are committed in the context of artistic, cultural or intellectual manifestations will remain outside the scope of criminal punishment.

In any case, we must be aware that this type of disturbance and the feeling of insecurity they generate only benefit the self-proclaimed people of order, such as the far-right, who do not hesitate to demand a firm hand, repression and cuts in rights and freedoms at the slightest opportunity, giving rise to authoritarian proposals that progressives do not want to see in any way. We socialists are very clear: rights are defended through words, through arguments, through politics.

 

Fco. Manuel Fajardo Palarea, PSOE senator for Lanzarote and La Graciosa.

Most read