Spain to reform free speech laws after rapper ordered jailed

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Spain will ease its restrictions on free speech, the government said on Tuesday, in response to a nationwide furore over a rapper ordered jailed over a song and tweets.

A change in the law would not by itself prevent the jailing of Pablo Hasel, who has been ordered to surrender by the end of this week to serve a nine-month prison sentence imposed in 2018 under a security law known in Spain as the “gag law”.

Hasel’s lyrics and tweets, which included references to banned guerrilla groups, compared a court to Nazis and called former king Juan Carlos a mafia capo, were found under the 2015 law to have encouraged violence and insulted the monarchy.

More than 200 artists have signed a petition against Hasel’s jailing, calling for the law to be changed. 

Government spokeswoman said that in response to the Hasel case, the government had “expressed its willingness to provide a much more secure framework for freedom of expression”. The reform was in its early stages, she said.

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