17.05.2014 - 10:41
Update: Thursday, a 19-year-old was arrested in València and charged with “sympathizing with an assassination, for having expressed his agreement with” the death of the President of the Diputació of León, Isabel Carrasco. After Carrasco’s assassination, the Spanish Minister of the Interior said the state was studying how to control Twitter in order to avoid “abusive comments”.
The following article from Belén Fernández, at Al Jazeera, gives a good summary of the issue.
Spain versus Twitter
(May 7, 2014) Last week, Spain’s Guardia Civil – the Civil Guard or gendarmerie – detained 21 social media users for allegedly “glorifying terrorism” on Twitter and Facebook. Fifteen of them were apprehended in the northern Spanish regions of Navarre and the Basque Country, an area that has long harboured separatist aspirations. Two were minors.
If convicted, the tweeters and Facebookers will face up to two years in prison. Among the alleged glorifications of terrorism, apparently, was a tweeted map of the Basque Country, emblazoned with the Basque word for independence.
