Spain

The Spanish jurisprudence often fails to reflect international freedom of expression standards, which has led to indiscriminate convictions of artists and criminalisation of satirical expression, such as in the cases of Pablo Hasél or Cesar Strawberry. 

Protests in Catalonia, that took a violent turn, set a dangerous precedent in regard to the use of excessive police force against protesters and journalists covering socio-political upheavals. This has been exacerbated by the introduction of the 2015 ‘Ley Mordaza’, which limits the right to peaceful assembly by setting rigorous rules on organising protests and introducing fines on media for distributing unauthorised images of police officers. 

All these elements contribute to a dark climate for free expression in the country.  

On this page, you can find ARTICLE 19 Europe’s work documenting and analysing these challenges and advocating for robust protection of free expression in Spain. 

‘Hate Speech’

Measures against ‘hate speech’ were conceived to ensure the protection of historically discriminated groups in society. However, in Spain criminal provisions against ‘hate speech’ are misused and may lead to censorship and criminalisation of legitimate speech. Article 510 of the Penal Code does not sufficiently distinguish between the different degrees of  ‘hate speech’ and imposes criminal penalties that do not follow the requirements set by the UN Rabat Plan of Action in relation to “intent” and “likelihood” of violence to assess the adequate response to hate speech. 

ARTICLE 19 Europe hosted a dialogue with Spanish judges of the Supreme and Constitutional Courts of Spain to encourage compliance of domestic interpretation of hate crimes with the European Court of Human Rights’ jurisprudence and international standards on freedom of expression. In addition, in our analysis of the Guidelines to interpret hate speech offences in the Criminal Code by the Public Prosecutor OfficeCircular – we underscore that some of the interpretative criteria provided to prosecutors go against international freedom of expression standards and remind Spanish authorities that criminal law should be applied as a last resort and only in exceptional circumstances.

The use of criminal law to regulate hate speech may pave the way to overbroad and unnecessary restriction of freedom of speech. In light of the growing need for clear guidance,  our Hate Speech toolkit discusses different types of  ‘hate speech’ and suggests avenues to effectively counter it while respecting freedom of expression.

Consult our reports and analyses

Advocacy

ARTICLE 19 Europe contributed to raise these concerns at national and international level,  highlighting critical commitments to uphold Spain’s international human rights obligations. 

In our advocacy in the context of a political change, we promoted our analysis to different parties and government entities. We underscored the urgent need for a swift and robust reform of key provisions in the Penal Code commonly misused to restrict freedom of expression in the country.  

The core components of our analysis were also reflected in a set of recommendations submitted by states to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Spain’s human rights track record, and presented throughout the UPR cycle.