With the arrest and incarceration of the rapper Pablo Hasél on Tuesday (16/02/2021) by the spanish authorities for the crimes of offending the crown and promoting terrorism under the country’s law on public security (Ley Orgánica de protección de la seguridad ciudadana), otherwise known as the “Ley Mordaza/Gag Law” (The Guardian; The New York Times), thousands have protested throughout the country with the usual parade of injured, arrested and hospitalised by the police. (El Salto Diario)
Hasél was condemned by spanish courts in 2018, one of over a hundred people condemned for the same crimes since the introduction of the law. (El Salto Diario)
We republish below our statement of solidarity with Hasél of 2018, followed by a letter of solidarity from Alfonso Fernández Ortega (“Alfon”), an anti-fascist activist also formerly condemned and imprisoned under the same law. (Público)
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In solidarity with the rapper Pablo Hasél, and all of the other dissidents fined, arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the spanish state.
The Spanish “transition” was nothing more than the handing over of Francoist power to its “democratic” and “socialist” acolytes, fearing a rupture and a military uprising, as happened in Portugal. In Spain, more than in Portugal, fascism has always remained entrenched in all sectors of power. The all-powerful Franco, executioner of the civil war, was succeeded by the monarchist fool Juan Carlos.
Spain today, pro-fascist, reactionary with political prisoners, rappers and puppeteers convicted of crimes of opinion, accused anarcho-syndicalists, police operations mounted against anarchists and environmentalists, all clearly show the pro-fascist, police regime that the Spanish state has become, an example of repression, intolerance and authoritarianism.
On the day that marks 44 years after the assassination of the anarchist Salvador Puig Antich, at the hands of Franco and the vile garrote, the condemnation of the rapper Pablo Hasél to two years and a day in prison for “promoting terrorism and insulting and calumniating the Crown and the state security services” cannot pass without a response.
We reiterate our solidarity with all of those in the Spanish State who are victims of persecution, repression and intolerance on the part of those who, by the force of the State and Justice, have held power since the carnage that was the fascist victory in the Civil War!
Long live freedom! Long live the freedom of expression and opinion!
(Translation from the Portal Anarquista, 02/03/2018)
Pablo Hasél, “Juan Carlos el Bobón” …
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Carta de Alfon a Pablo Hasel
Hola, Pablo,
Years ago I was the one who received your words through a letter. Then I was occupying that trench to which today the same bastards who handed down a thousand and one sentences and condemnations against the antifascists of this country want to send you. In that trench you will need the same ammunition that you gave me in your letters, solidarity.
Our enemy is powerful and no less wicked. Through a State machine plagued by corrupt vultures that have lived for centuries from rent and robbery, looting and rape, they beat and destroy the lives of our people without regard to maintaining their way of life, their luxuries, their obscenities, their frivolous reality alien to our suffering.
And nothing scares them more than seeing us abandon the individualism and the competitiveness that structures our cultural paradigm, than seeing us march side by side, united, exercising solidarity and commitment to our people, because they know that it is in that circumstance where our longing will be transformed into power.
That is why they persecute you, because they fear you, because through your stanzas and your rhymes you have become a unifying agent in the construction of an identity that acts as a counterweight to the empire of those without reason that day after day makes its way into our generation.
The fact that they want to take you prisoner reminds us where we live, what we face, but it also reveals who is who. It is so aberrant that they want to lock you up for your lyrics, that they will no longer be able to use dialectical juggling or half measures against those who refuse to recognise that here there are only two options, either you are part of the solution and push to bring down the old world, or you are part of the problem.
Pablo, be brave compañero, for they will never have bars for words and ideas.
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