BARCELONA, Spain (AP) –
A fifth night of peaceful protests to denounce the imprisonment of a Spanish rap artist has once again turned into clashes between police and members of marginal groups who set up street barricades and smashed shop windows on Saturday night in central Barcelona.
Small groups of mostly young people began their night game with cats and mice with officers an hour after several thousand protesters gathered in the capital of Spain’s Catalonia region, which was also the most popular. serious violence that took place during earlier demonstrations this week on rapper Pablo Hasél’s detention.
Police were also stoned after a march in the Catalan city of Lleida, where Hasél spent 24 hours barricading a university building before police sentenced him to 9 months in prison for insulting the monarchy. Spanish and praised the terrorist violence in his music. .
Catalonia’s regional police said there was defiance in the city of Tarragona, where groups threw glass bottles at police lines and smashed shop windows.
Police reported at least 11 arrests Saturday, including three minors. The worst riot took place on Barcelona’s Passeig de Gràcia, the city’s most fashionable shopping boulevard, which houses Art Deco apartment buildings considered architectural treasures.
The mob made its way down the street, smashing windows in front of the store, overturning motorcycles and setting up barricades with metal street barriers and burning garbage containers to slow down police pursuits. Some even fought the police lines, forcing officers to use shields to protect them from the stones thrown. Police said they identified a “young man” because he was targeting a laser police helicopter for two hours.
After spilling armored vans, police handed sticks and fired foam bullets to disperse the groups.
It appears that the disorder arose in a marginal group, mainly of younger people, who made up a small part of the thousands of participants who joined the marches to support Hasél and to oppose the Spanish laws used to support him. follow.
About 90 people have been arrested and more than 100 injured since Hasél’s arrest on Tuesday.
The mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, called for calm.
“Defending freedom of expression in no way justifies the destruction of property, the frightening of our fellow citizens and the injury of businesses already affected by the crisis” caused by the pandemic, the mayor said.
The marches were convened for cities throughout Spain. Most were peaceful, but Pamplona in north-central saw clashes between police and people throwing bottles.
Madrid municipal authorities said 300 National Police officers had been called in to assist city police, but a protest by several hundred people ended in the Spanish capital, without parting with those in trouble.
Spain’s left-wing government announced last week before Hasel was detained that it would change the law to remove prison sentences for crimes involving freedom of expression. He did not specifically mention the rap artist, nor did he set a timetable for change, and his commitment seems to have done little to release the social tension that has passed.