Rapper, sentenced for 3,5 years of jail for his songs, will appeal to the ECHR in Strasburg

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, unanimously ruled recently that the Spanish Kingdom must compensate Jaume Roura and Eric Stern for violating their right to free speech when they were wrongfully condemned for burning a picture of the king and queen. The Two catalans were sentenced to 15 months in prison for burning an image of the king and queen of Spain.

The rapper Valtonyc, Catalan speaking from Majorca, yesterday announced that he will also apeal to the ECHR.  Human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have requested the Spanish inquisition legislation to be overturned arguing authorities have made use of this broad legal provision to punish satire and dissent.  In 2018 alone, Santiago Sierra’s art piece Political Prisoners in Contemporary Spain was removed from an international art fair in Madrid, and rappers Valtonyc and Pablo Hasel were convicted and sentenced to 3.5 and two years in prison, respectively.

Rapper Valtonyc will go to jail for singing “The Bourbons are thieves ". The Supreme Court of the Spanish Inquisition has confirmed today the three and a half years of prison imposed by the National Court for insulting the king and singing that “the Bourbons are thieves”.

Valtonyc, Josep Miquel Arenas Beltran, was sentenced to 3 years and a half in jail as well as a fine of € 3,000 by the Spanish Inquisition. The rapper said he was only a poet and that his lyrics are metaphors. But the Spanish court said "freedom of expression is limited in Spain". Valtonyc answered that"only the poor go to jail" in reference with more than 700 politicians of the ruling Popular Party condemned or investigated by corruption as well as Iñaki Urdangarin y Liebaert, the brother-in-law of King Philip VI. Urdangarin was convicted of embezzling about 6 million euros in public funds for sporting events since 2004 through his nonprofit foundation, the so-called Nóos case, and of political corruption by using his former courtesy title of Duke of Palma de Mallorca as the husband of the Infanta Cristina, daughter of King Juan Carlos. But Urdangarin has never been in jail.