Spain Unearths the 'Charlie Spirit'

Article 525 of the Spanish penal code in force punishes with a sentence of from eight to twelve months in prison those who “for offending the feelings of members of a religious confession, denigrate publicly, orally, in writing or any type of document its dogmas, beliefs, rites, or ceremonies.”

A “crime of blasphemy” that the heterogeneous government coalition of the left and the far-left intends to eliminate, as quickly as possible.

Also, on February 2, 2021, the Senate Justice Committee asked the government to repeal Article 525, or at least to modify it substantially, in order to be in harmony with European jurisprudence.

One of the senators at the origin of the revision project, Carles Mulet, denounced in this law punishing blasphemy, an “anachronism used by certain reactionary groups, in order to practice judicial terrorism against those who do not think like them.”

We wonder which side terrorism is really on, when we look at one of the last cases of blasphemy that has hit the headlines in recent years: an “artist” Abel Azcona exhibited a “work” in Pamplona in 2015, then reoffended in 2016 in Berga, near Barcelona. It consisted of writing the word “Pederastia” (pedophilia) on the ground, using 242 hosts presented as consecrated.

Filed for the first time by the judge, the Constitutional Court and even the Strasbourg human rights court, the complaint was reactivated in February 2019 before a Barcelona court, which indicted the artist for the “possible offense of profanation” and the “offense to religious sentiments.”

To keep an eye on and fight against the proliferation of anti-Christian hate speech, an association bringing together jurists was created in 2008: it files between thirty and forty complaints per year to “defend religious freedom and life from its conception until death,” explains its president Polonia Castellanos. But for how long will it have the power?

Because, on February 2, the parliamentary groups, with the exception of the right-wing parties—Popular Party (PP) and Vox—voted in favor abolishing article 525 of the penal code, in the name of an “adaptation to the social awareness of the moment.”

Suffice to say that it would be coherent to base the law and statute on the quicksand of opinion, or worse, on a so-called “Charlie spirit” with the hints of mothballs which, behind its very selective indignation, badly hides a certain nihilism which we know, sooner or later, makes the bed of totalitarianism.