"Spain is a full democracy and the use of any type of violence is inadmissible"
"Spain is a full democracy and the use of any type of violence is inadmissible." Pedro Sánchez has been adamant against the episodes of violence that are taking place in some demonstrations in support of the jailed rapper Pablo Hasel. "The Government will face any form of violence and will guarantee citizen security," the president condemned in his speech in Merida scheduled to present the Recovery and Resilience Plan in Extremadura. Sánchez has assured that his intention is to modify the law to "expand and improve the protection of freedom of expression" -an announcement that Moncloa made after what 200 artists will sign a manifesto against Hasel's prison sentence-. The president has taken advantage of this intervention to correct the second vice president, Pablo Iglesias, for his words questioning the Spanish democratic quality as well as the spokesman for United We Can, Pablo Echenique, for applauding the protesters when riots were already taking place.
More than fifty arrested in the altercations of the protests by Pablo Hasel in Catalonia and Madrid
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"Democracy has a pending task, which is to expand and improve the protection of freedom of expression," Sánchez said as soon as he began his speech. "The Government of Spain has stated that it is going to improve the legal protection of freedom of expression," he continued before recalling that "Spain is a full democracy" in which "the use of any type of violence is inadmissible." "There is no exception to this rule, there is no cause, no place, or situation that justifies the violence," he concluded.
Sánchez has used the expression "full democracy" that in recent days the socialist ministers have repeated ad nauseam, thus correcting the questioning made by the second vice president and leader of United We Can, Pablo Iglesias, by assuring that "there is no full political normality and democratic in Spain ". He was referring to the imprisonment of the independence leaders and the flight of others such as Carles Puigdemont.
But Sánchez has referred especially to the altercations in the demonstrations in Madrid and several Catalan cities in recent days, although he has not expressly cited them. The president has insisted that violence "is not a freedom, it is an attack on the freedoms of others." "It is an attack on democracy," he stressed.
Sánchez, as the socialist ministers had previously done, thus clearly stands out from the words of the United We Can spokesperson, Pablo Echenique, who in full altercations and police charges applauded "the young anti-fascists who are demanding justice and freedom of expression in streets". The PP has come to blame the minority partner of the coalition for these riots and the first vice president, Carmen Calvo, corrected Echenique by accusing her of "encouraging" the protests.
"Democracy protects freedom of demonstration, freedom of expression and even the expression of the most infamous thoughts, the most absurd, but violence is the opposite of democracy." It is the denial of democracy, "Sánchez reiterated, which has repeated the intention of the Government of modify the Penal Code so that those known as crimes of expression do not carry prison sentences.
