As a country, Spain has been recognized as a democracy for 40 years. Despite this, many citizens in Spain, specifically members in the art community have reported mass censorship of ideas and imprisonment for freedom of expression. On February 7th, a group of graffiti artists protested the wrongful ordered imprisonment of rapper Pablo Hasel.
Pablo Hasel is a rapper who was ordered to be jailed for alleged tweets and song lyrics, an action that undermines democracy. A 2015 law that was enacted by a right-wing government states that any speech that incites violence, insults religion and the system of monarchy is banned. It is alleged that some of Pablo’s lyrics have incited violence. Nevertheless his call for imprisonment has garnered massive protest and solidarity from artists, celebrities and the public.
One of these artists from Barcelona is named Roc Blackblock. Of the 15 artists who were demonstrating February 7th at an event in Barcelona, his piece was the only piece that was censored. An ironic twist considering this was a protest about censorship. Here is what Roc had to say about the censorship of his work, and censorship policy in Spain.
The following has been translated from Spanish by Fernando Alcalá Losa
Q: Feel free to introduce yourself, and your artistic medium.
My name is Roc Blackblock . I’m an urban artist from Barcelona (Catalunya, Spain). I was born here and I’m still living in this city. I’ve been painting in the streets since 1999. My artistic career also includes illustration and tattooing, but muralism has been my main focus during the last 7 years.
Q: What was your mural that got censored and what were your initial intentions behind it?
Last Sunday, February 7th, several artists from Barcelona and its surroundings got together to paint some walls protesting against the imprisonment of Pablo Hasel, a rap artist, because of his lyrics and tweets.
I painted a wall as a graphic representation of one of Pablo’s songs and some of the tweets that took Pablo Hasel to jail. It (was) an image of the former king of Spain with several sentences and words like: thief, parasite, elephants killers…among others, and blaming him for taking advantage of the people and the national resources.
The main goal of my wall and the whole artistic action was complaining against Spanish censorship about rappers, artists, newspapers…through freedom of speech.
Q: How did you react when you found out it was covered?
I found out that my mural was being buffed by the local cleaning workers through social media. There were tons of people pissed off about it. I was pissed off too… They only covered my piece. At the present time, we don’t really know why this wall was erased. The local authorities from the City Council say that they didn’t order it and that they didn’t agree with covering the artwork.
Q: Has this type of censorship of graffiti happened before?
The local laws say that murals that incite to hate and violence must be covered. This is a statement that it’s being oftenly used for covering murals, or artwork that people in powerful positions just don’t like.
Here’s an example: The Black Wolf Movement Collective did an artistic intervention some months ago. They were supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. They painted a wall saying: “Violence also happens here. Cops also kill here”. Those same cops then put the painting to an end and the mural was covered the day after.
There are other less well known examples. The censorship problem is not only about street art, but in expression. It is a problem that is happening in Spain and involves all the cultural movements. You name it. All these people are being chased and prosecuted because of their opinions. We protested against all this, which is a global problem, through street art. This is what we tried to do last weekend.
Q: What should people who aren’t in Spain know about the politics there or the censorship policies in place?
There’s one important fact that you need to know about Spain: it’s not about the law. The real thing is that some people with power (police, judges, church, army, crown…) are free to do whatever they want. But, at the end of the day, artists, creative people, social communicators etc, are the ones that are being chased and convicted. This is happening with Pablo Hasel. This is what has happened with other artists who had to leave Spain in order to not be imprisoned. Actors, public figures, you name it…
There is no real law in Spain about censorship in Spain. So, you get some grey areas that can be used by the judges for prosecuting some statements.
The Franco dictatorship lasted 40 years in Spain. Since then, we have been living in a democracy for more than 45 years until now. We have inherited a lot of the bullshit mindset that was happening through dictatorship times. A lot of the power structures and the lobbies that existed during the Franco times are still alive today (i.e. churches, police, politicians, judges). They are a corrupt system. They are very conservative as well. They prosecute any form of dissent covering themselves with a false democracy image.
Q: How are you going to proceed with your work in the future? Are you expecting censorship again in the future?
My work has always got a big social following because of its protest value through street art over the last 20 years. The social support and the media impact that is happening in these last days is huge. What was supposed to be a censorship effort has become a more powerful message of vindicating our message. I hope to not deal with more censorship episodes. I hope that these will be the dynamics that inspire our future actions.
Q: What change would you or other artists like to see being done?
We look forward to the end of censorship in execution of ideas and speeches. We think that the diversity of ideas, including ones that we don’t like, are positive for our society. We should be able to grow as a society through dialogue and mutual understanding, not through imprisonment and repression. It would be great putting this pressure on the authorities to consolidate itself in order to avoid all these ‘powerful’ people using laws in favor of themselves or other powerful individuals.
We think that this weak effort of silencing my wall about the former king has become a powerful statement against censorship. The fact that you, from the United States of America, are listening to us is great proof that freedom of speech has beaten censorship. And we are grateful for that.
Any democracy which attempts to control expression and thinking is not fitting to the true definition of democracy. As long as creative minds and artists like Roc Blackblock, and Pablo Hasel question the systems in place, can society progress to something better in the future. As long as the art of creativity meets the art of protest, free thinking will continue to prevail, and past systems will fall.
Images by Fernando Alcalá Losa
Nice interview.