Spanish views from a small town

This week, another issue of El Jueves came out, and the camp over at extreme right Vox went berserk.  To begin, I will explain that El Jueves is much like the American Mad magazine. It is a satirical comic, which lampoons everything that walks on two legs. It doesn't matter who it is, if someone says or does something that catches the public eye, they will be satirized by this magazine. This week, it was Vox's turn. The magazine published a series of fake baseball cards, with different, disgusting characters lampooning actual members of the extremist organization. The artists made them look like the Garbage Pail Kids cards, from the 1980's. The images are a little too disgusting, perhaps, but the lampooning messages are the usual.  On the official Twitter account of Vox, someone, probably the leader, Santiago Abascal, posted: "Se llama Ricardo Rodrigo Amar y es presidente de RBA, grupo que edita El Jueves. Su revista difunde odio contra millones de españoles a diari...

Alternative rapper, Pablo Hasel, has entered jail to serve a two year sentence for insults and calumny of the King and state institutions, and the glorifying of terrorism. His case has brought into question whether or not freedom of speech is actually respected in this country. It's a spiny question. When does openly giving your opinion become illicit? Among the reasons for his sentence, is a song, Muerte a los Borbones . In it, the rapper criticizes the monarchy, and King Juan Carlos specifically. I agree with most of the lyrics of the song, except the title, which is repeated in places, Death to the Borbons . The song criticizes aspects of the monarchy, with which criticism many people agree and comment on in daily life. "El rey hizo lo que más le convenía a su cuenta bancaria..." (The king acted in the best interests of his bank account.) At the beginning of the video on YouTube, Hasel includes an interview ex-King Juan Carlos gave in France, while Franco was still in...

Free speech is guaranteed under the 1978 Constitution in Spain. However, completely free speech can sometimes be a thorn to those in power. Hence, the conservative Partido Popular passed a law a few years ago to limit certain extremes. The libel laws were also reinforced. What was once easily said and brushed off in public now has to limit itself to the private sphere, which does not include social media.  A rapper from Mallorca has recently been condemned to three and a half years in prison for singing and uploading a song to the internet where he criticizes the monarchy. In the song, which is of a mediocre quality and never would have been given publicity outside his circle if it weren't for the courtroom, he does mention he can't wait for when he can enter Marivent (the royal family's summer palace in Mallorca) with a Kalashnikov. He does not, however, at any moment actually threaten the former king (the one mentioned in the song) nor any of the royal family in so man...