Censorship in Spain

Last Wednesday, Spain's satirical weekly El Jueves published a cartoon on its front page depicting crown prince Felipe having sex with his wife princess Letizia. While performing the act, Felipe says: "Have you thought about it, if you get pregnant, this will be the first time in my life I do something that resembles real work?" That is an allusion to a new measure by the Spanish government to grant 2,500 euros ($3,500) for each new born child.



On Friday, high court judge Juan del Olmo ordered the impounding of all copies of the magazine in shops, the impounding of the printing plates, and the closure of the website of the magazine.

On Saturday, Spain's attorney general Candido Conde Pumpido defended the judge's decision, saying that insulting the royal family clearly constituted a crime. The judicial order clearly came too late, because the news of the cartoon itself and of the impounding had reached the Spaniards before the police was able to impound the 120,000 copies of the magazine. All copies were sold out, and the impounding gave El Jueves a lot of free publicity by other magazines, newspapers, radio and tv channels.

As in most democratic countries, the Spanish Constitution prohibits any previous censorship of material in publications, but action can be taken after publication if a judge considers that fundamental rights have been infringed. But, as Howard Brereton writes on TypicallySpanish.com:

"The story and cartoon [have] become a clear case of viral marketing. Emails and links multiplied by the second and generated interest in the story within minutes. 'El Jueves' could not have hoped for a better publicity campaign, spreading across the world. (...) The Attorney General must be more than clear that in this case he has made an error, and his efforts have backfired in spectacular fashion. It remains to be seen whether he moves ahead with the prosecution against 'El Jueves', or realises that he should lick his wounds and quietly retire.