Youth outrage erupts over the arrest of Pablo

Hasél

For the immediate release of all political

prisoners

The repressive evolution of the transitional regime established in 1978 continues to deepen. The latest expression of this process is the arrest of rap singer Pablo Hasél on Tuesday 16th. February at the University of Lleida, where he had taken refuge surrounded by sympathizers. Hasél accumulates sentences for glorifying terrorism, of which he has already served nine months, and has now been arrested for refusing to pay a fine of 38,000 euros imposed by a court for insults to the crown and state institutions. Once detained, the Lérida Provincial Court has also convicted him of assaulting a witness in another trial. The government, for its part, supports the former head of state, the king emeritus, who rests in the Emirates while his corrupt practices come to light one after another and the police are dedicated to repressing neighborhood protests against the actions of the forces. of “order”.

The arrest of the rapper has provoked a wave of indignation among young people who have taken to the streets in several Spanish cities in mobilizations of considerable size. An important part of the youth identifies with Hasél’s songs among other things because it is the most punished sector of the Spanish society with an unemployment rate of 41% while the average in Europe is 14%. The effect of the pandemic and the impoverishment it has meant for the families of the workers, is also expelling the poorest students from schools and universities, without resources for the remote classes and without scholarships for study. More than a fortnight after the arrest demonstrations continue in Barcelona.

The base breaks with Podemos.

The youth mobilizations also highlight the growing rupture of Izquierda Unida and Podemos with their base, the young people who believed in their promises to storm the skies. The sympathy for the rapper goes hand in hand with his lyrics, which are lapidary towards institutional politicians, including the alleged left wing of the Government, Unidas Podemos. Not in vain the vote for UP falls with each election. The youth rebellion has thrown out of the window the statement that “nothing happens here” and despite lacking a clear direction, it is directed against the government and against power. The courts have tried, as is the norm in Spain, to set the political agenda by punishing a rebellious artist who denounces the system and the monarchy at a time of extreme weakness of the Spanish crown beset by corruption. It is an attempt to assert the objectives that the right wing is unable to impose due to its weakness, but before which the government is permanently backing down. A retreat that can be explained by their coincidence in the defense of the political regime of the transition and the interests of the capitalists in the face of the fear of a social explosion that would shake the

foundations of the state. The weekend preceding Hasel’s arrest, three policemen gave a huge beating to a parishioner in a bar in the city of Linares in the province of Jaen, who was in the company of his underage daughter.

Police repression in Linares

The population of that neighborhood of Linares took to the streets in protest at the police outrage and the anti-riot forces unleashed a fierce repression on the mobilized neighbors. Live fire was used in the police attack. A week before, a group of 200 musicians, artists and intellectuals mobilized and asked the government to repeal the repressive legislation that they consider to be the instrument by which musicians and artists are persecuted. This is the famous “gag law” that penalizes freedom of opinion and applies severe penalties. The Spanish state has lost many trials before the European Court of Justice that has forced the Supreme Court to rectify doctrines already established in Spain as unconstitutional and opposed to democracy and freedom of expression. The church and its civil ramifications are the great promoters of any attack against independent expressions of art and criticism of religion reflected in blasphemy proceedings against artists and intellectuals. The coalition government does not want to carry out the decriminalization of freedom of expression by repealing the “Ley Mordaza” that was part of its electoral program. Both Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias have forgotten that electoral commitment. What determines their behavior is the fear of an overflow of the now dispersed struggles and therefore they preserve the repressive mechanisms. The facts show that the government’s electoral program was a hoax because they never had the intention of repealing the repressive laws, the labor reform or those of the pensions or proceeding to release the political prisoners, many of them for their opinion.

The role of the “left wing”.

It is clear that the cooptation for the UP Government is nothing more than an attempt to reinforce the control of workers and youth. In this context, the statements of the ministers of Unidas Podemos who criticize the democratic quality of Spain is a real joke. The criticisms of its members in the Government for the only thing they serve is to arouse the illusion that the presence of that left wing operates some change in the policy of the Council of Ministers. In other words, they function as an element that promotes resignation before the Government and passivity in the face of its policy. The mobilizations of the residents of Linares and of the young people have a common thread, the rejection of the policy of repression with which the bourgeois state tries to maintain the system of exploitation of the workers. Meanwhile, the Government Delegation in Madrid authorized an act in honor of the Fallen of the Blue Division, the expeditionary force sent by the Franco regime to accompany Hitler’s troops in their invasion of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. In that act a praise of the Nazi deed was made and an apology for anti-Semitism was consummated. There was no repression there. Yes, there was a priest who addressed the crowd in front of the monument in honor of the fallen of the Blue Division in the Almudena cemetery.

Right adaptation – the left wing fits right-.

This chain of events clearly shows that the Government is adapting to the pressures of the right, it reveals that its electoral program was decorative, and lacks the will to repeal anything because the plan of new adjustments added to social chaos generated by the pandemic make repressive laws essential to contain discontent. If he really wanted to do it, he would have the necessary votes in Congress. The social platforms influenced by Unidas Podemos, the government partner of the PSOE, have tried by all means to stay out of the fight against this repressive offensive. The pensioners coordinator (Coespe oficial) tried to postpone any action against Hasél’s arrest and political persecution. The platform of pensioners systematically complains that youth do not mobilize in defense of pensions and leaves the pensioner movement in isolation. A false statement because at the time of the great mobilizations of the pensioners against the PP government, the organized student movement had a decided participation. But now that young people are mobilizing for elementarydemocratic rights, pensioners’ organizations are trying to look the other way to preserve the government of which UP is a part. But under the pressure of events, some platforms have already begun to speak out for Hasél’s freedom and for the repeal of the Ley Mordaza (gang law).

The prisoners of the Procés.

An essential antecedent of this pattern of repressive progress is the sentence to prison of the Catalan political and social leaders after the call of the referendum on October 1, 2017. The sentences of the Procés prisoners are the result of a Francoist penal code that applies the crimes of sedition and rebellion against the civilian population. The Spanish bourgeoisie intends to resolve the national question, that is, the tendency to

disintegrate Spain under the rule of capital, through decisions of public order, but it cannot prevent the majority of the vote in Catalonia from turning on February 14 in favor of the nationalist parties. However, the Catalan nationalist parties themselves have given up on mass mobilization to demand the release of their political prisoners. Meanwhile, the autonomous police, the Mossos d’Esquadra that depend on the Generalitat, are the ones that repress young people and workers in Catalonia. The youth rebellion has reiterated the principle that the masses in action outperform the leaderships. The mobilization has denied the “nothing happens here” and made a fool of the argument of the government and its left wing about “whatwould happen if the right governed.” The government and its left appear as the executing arm of the

plans of the bourgeoisie, the CEOE, the Ibex35 and the EU in which all agree.

Defeat repressive plans.

The mobilizations for the freedom of Pablo Hasél are a central issue for the rest of the groups in struggle, mainly for the working class. Raising unity on this issue is central to inflicting a defeat on the repressive plans and fascist riots, and for imposing our demands. How could it be otherwise, the two main trade union centrals, CCOO and UGT, remain in complicit silence with the government.

For the freedom of Pablo Hasél and all the political prisoners.

Immediate freedom for the Procés prisoners.

For the repeal of the Gag Law.

For the repeal of labor and pension reforms.

Against the violence of the state and its repressive forces. For the dismantling of the security forces.

For a general strike against unemployment, against evictions, against company closings and layoffs.

Long live the struggle of the youth.