More than 50 people were detained across Spain during the unrest at protests triggered by the arrest of rapper Pablo Hasel over controversial tweets, Spanish law enforcement agencies told Sputnik on Thursday
MADRID (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th February, 2021) More than 50 people were detained across Spain during the unrest at protests triggered by the arrest of rapper Pablo Hasel over controversial tweets, Spanish law enforcement agencies told Sputnik on Thursday.
This included 19 people detained in Madrid, with six minors aged from 16-17 and four women among them, according to the Spanish National Police.
Another 33 people were detained in Catalonia's cities of Barcelona, Lleida and Girona on Wednesday, and four others in Andalusia's Granada.
In some of these places, the violent protests left people injured. Thirty-five out of 55 people injured during the protest in Madrid were police officers, the Spanish capital's emergency service said. In Catalonia, at least eight people were injured and two of them were hospitalized, according to the Catalan ambulance service.
In 2018, Hasel was sentenced to nine months in prison for glorifying radical Left terrorism and slandering the Spanish monarchy on Twitter and in one of his songs posted on YouTube. The rapper was supposed to voluntarily report to the prison last Friday but refused to do so. On Tuesday, he was arrested.
The arrest prompted public outcry and freedom of speech debates. Hundreds of artists, including Javier Bardem and Pedro Almodovar, signed a petition demanding to let Hasel go. Mass protests were held across the country on Tuesday and Wednesday.
