ARCHIVED - Violent weekend in Barcelona as protestors set fire to police van with officer inside
Disturbances continue in Catalonia, with at least 13 people arrested and multiple damages caused to shops, banks, a hotel and a police station on Saturday evening following a protest in favour of jailed rapper Pablo Hasél.
Around 4,000 people gathered in Barcelona on Saturday (27 February) to demand freedom for the rapper Pablo Hasél, who has been jailed for glorifying terrorism and hate speech, following several days on unrest and violence. Although the demonstration itself - which went from Plaza Universitat to the end of the Rambla along streets in the Raval neighbourhood – was mostly peaceful, the police said, once it had ended some small, violent groups spread across the city spreading chaos as they went.
Several shops in central Barcelona were ransacked, including a Decathlon which was targeted for the second time in a fortnight, and a Zara shop. Damage was also caused to various restaurants and ATMs, as well as a hotel on Rambla Catalunya.
Stones were thrown through bank windows and small fires lit, while violent protestors pushed rubbish bins across streets and set fire to them. Bottles and firecrackers were thrown at police officers, and the evening could have ended in tragedy as a Guardia Urbana van with an officer inside was set on fire outside the Rambla police station.
Fortunately the officer managed to exit the vehicle before the fire took hold.
Click on the tweet below to see the video:
â–¶ Te mostramos el vídeo completo de cómo el agente de la Guardia Urbana consiguió salir del furgón incendiado en los disturbios de Barcelona https://t.co/T6JEEp6T7I
— Antena 3 Noticias (@A3Noticias) March 1, 2021
Barcelona mayor Ada Colau has condemned the incidents and expressed her support for the Guardia Urbana officers. "The right to protest is totally legitimate. Violence and vandalism aren’t," she said on Twitter.
The Catalonian Interior Minister, Miquel Sàmper, stressed that the incident could have ended very badly as the van could have exploded and killed the policeman, and said that a group of 150 or 200 people had taken to pure, unbridled and unprecedented violence.
Barcelona was not the only place to register protests in support of Hasel over the weekend. Demonstrations were also held in Girona, Tarragona, Vic, Lleida and Sabadell. Altercations were reported in Lleida, where a group of violent protesters hurled stones at the police and caused considerable damage to shops in the city’s commercial district, and in Sabadell paint and fireworks were thrown at officers posted outside the courts.
Pablo Hasél, who has been found guilty of glorifying terrorism and insulting the monarchy not only in his songs but also via his Twitter account, has been the spark which has set off protests amongst the younger members of the population across Spain for the last two weeks.
Born Pablo Rivadulla Duró, Hasél comes from a well-off family with a history of controversy: his grandfather was a militant member of the armed forces of Franco and fought against the “Maqui” anti-Franco guerrillas in 1944, while his father became a successful businessman but stood trial after his spell as president of the Unió Esportiva Lleida football club, having left the club with debts of 10 million euros.
Hasél, though, courts controversy in other ways, and his lyrics and Tweets constantly refer to the “Nazi-onal” police, assert that leading politicans deserve “a bullet through the head”, insult the royal family and appear to contain incitements to violence. For this reason, in late January he was given a 10-day period in which to begin serving time in jail after being sentenced to 9 months in prison, a six-year ban on his activities and a fine of almost 30,000 euros.
But Hasél immediately made it clear that he did not intend to go quietly and holed up with a group of his supporters in the University of Lleida, making it necessary for the Mossos d’Esquadra (the regional police force of Catalunya) to force their way in and arrest him. This was followed later on in the same week by the confirmation of another two-and-a-half-year sentence for threatening a witness at a trial in Lleida, and during the week it seems that the indignation of those who feel that he is a victim of laws against free speech has become as contagious as the most virulent strains of Covid.
Among the phrases which have led to charges being brought against Hasél are those advocating an explosion in the car of Patxi López (former president of the Basque Country government), a bullet in the head for José Bono (former regional president in Castilla-La Mancha and Minister of Defence), the death sentence for the “pathetic princesses” of Spain and the eviction of King Felipe VI from his home, as well as countless accusations of police violence, torture and corruption.
The actions of his supporters have been widely condemned both nationally and internationally, and whatever the concerns raised about his freedom to the right of expression within Spain as a direct result of his jail sentence, the violence which has ensued has also been seen as justification for why his incendiary comments are not acceptable in Spanish society today