The forces of order arrested last night 14 people in serious disturbances in the Spanish city of Barcelona (northeast), in which six agents were slightly injured, reported this Sunday the Regional Police of Catalonia and the services of emergency.
The violent incidents began after some 4,000 people, according to the Barcelona Urban Guard, demonstrated in the Catalan capital to demand the freedom of rapper Pablo Hasel, sentenced to prison for crimes of glorifying terrorism and insults against the Crown, in addition to political and social demands, called by Catalan organizations of the left and independence.
About 140 people were arrested in several nights of altercations in Catalonia since Tuesday, February 16, when the singer was arrested and jailed.
The most violent tried to burn this Saturday a van of the Urban Guard with an agent inside, who was able to get out of the vehicle; They set fire to a barracks belonging to this police force, looted shops, vandalized bank offices and damaged a hotel, among other damage.
The agents detected several people who tried to enter the area of the disturbances with stones, white spirit, pyrotechnic material and cans of paint.
The Police verified that the incidents were caused by organized groups of between 15 and 20 hooded men, who used pyrotechnic material and gasoline to burn banks, other establishments and the police vehicle. Others engaged in looting, while some set up barricades and burned garbage containers to prevent the intervention of the security forces.
“ACTS OF VANDALISM UNACCEPTABLE”
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, supported the police forces and described the acts of vandalism and violence as “unacceptable”, which were condemned by the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and rejected by the regional authorities of Catalonia.
Hasel was sentenced to nine months in prison, six years of disqualification from holding public office and to the payment of almost 30,000 euros in fine for crimes of glorification of terrorism and insults against the Crown and the institutions of the Spanish State.
The National Court dismissed in recent days Hasel’s last resort to avoid his imprisonment. The court argued that suspending the execution of the sentence would be “totally unjustified” and “absolutely discriminatory vis-à-vis other offenders”, taking into account their “criminal record”.
Among other sentences, the rapper had previously been sentenced (2014) to two years in prison for extolling the terrorism of ETA, the Grapo, Terra Lliure or Al Qaeda in his songs, although the National Court decided in 2019 to suspend it.
Recently, another two-and-a-half year prison sentence was upheld for threatening a trial witness.