A
21-year-old student has been sentenced to prison for joking about the
1973 assassination of Spanish prime minister, Admiral Luis Carrero
Blanco on Twitter.
Cassandra Vera said her tweets about Luis Carrero Blanco’s death were ‘a joke – nothing more than that.’
On 20 December 1973, the Spanish prime minister was killed in
Madrid by a car bomb of such force that the Dodge in which he was
travelling was blown more than 20 metres into the air and over the roof
of the church where he had minutes earlier attended mass.
It both murdered the man seen as Franco’s natural successor and
showed that the Basque separatists Eta could strike at the highest level
of his dictatorship.
44-years on, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco’s assassination is once
again resonating through Spanish society after Cassandra Vera, a
21-year-old student from the south-eastern region of Murcia, was
sentenced to a year in prison for joking about it in a series of tweets.
“Eta launched a policy against official cars combined with a space programme,” she wrote on 29 November 2013.
Five months later, Vera tweeted: “Kissinger gave Carrero Blanco a piece of the moon; Eta paid for the trip there.”
Spain’s top criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional, found her
guilty of glorifying terrorism and humiliating victims. On top of her
jail term, it also barred her from doing a publicly funded job – such as
being a teacher – for seven years.
The case has fuelled concerns about freedom of expression in Spain
and split political parties along familiar lines. The ruling
conservative People’s party (PP) said it respected the court’s decision,
while Pablo Iglesias, leader of the anti-austerity Podemos party, came
out to defend Vera, as did his coalition partner, Alberto Garzón of
Izquierda Unida.
“Joking is not a crime and Spain is not a dictatorship,” Iglesias tweeted. “If that lands you in the Audiencia Nacional, then let them take me there along with Cassandra.”
Vera, who studies history at Murcia University, argues that she had
no intention of praising terrorists or belittling their victims.
“It was a joke – nothing more than that,” she told the Guardian.
“I don’t regret doing it. It was just humour – and this kind of humour
is very accepted in Spain so I don’t think I have anything to be sorry
for.”
Vera pointed out that the 13 tweets were drawn from more than
90,000 she had posted and said she had been scared and surprised to find
herself before the Audiencia Nacional.
“It’s where the country’s corruption cases end up, and the drug traffickers and the terrorists,” she said. “I can’t believe that I ended up there for a joke in today’s Spain.”
Although Vera’s sentence was suspended as the offence was not violent, she fears the court’s decision will “mark me for life”.
She added: “I want to be a teacher but I can’t get a government
loan to carry on studying at university and I don’t know what I’m going
to do from now on.”
Vera said that while most of Spain had learned to come to terms
with its past through humour, some people seemed to be lagging behind.
“The majority of Spanish society has accepted its past and recognised that the dictatorship was a cruel period,” she said. “And
it knows that while jokes about Carrero Blanco may be in bad taste,
they’re socially acceptable. But judges and prosecutors don’t see it
that way and haven’t adapted.”
-The Guardian UK
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