JAIL TERM PROMPTS CHANGE TO FREE SPEECH

Spain will ease its restrictions on free speech, the government said Tuesday, in response to a nationwide furor over a rapper ordered jailed over a song and tweets.

A change in the law would not by itself prevent the jailing of Pablo Hasel, who has been ordered to serve a ninemonth sentence imposed in 2018 under a security law known in Spain as the “gag law.” He has said he will not turn himself in.

Hasel’s lyrics and tweets included references to banned guerrilla groups, compared a court to Nazis and called former king Juan Carlos a mafia capo. They were found under the 2015 law to have encouraged violence and insulted the monarchy.

More than 200 artists have signed a petition against Hasel’s jailing, calling for the Spanish law to be changed.

Government spokesperson Maria Jesus Montero said that the government had “expressed its willingness to provide a much more secure framework for freedom of expression.”