What is happening currently shows that the right to free speech is not respected by the Spanish government.
AFAIK, Spain doesn't have any law that guarantees the citizens are free to speak there mind without fear of censorship from the government. It does however have laws restricting speech (glorification of crimes).
The US on the other hand, included it in the first amendment of its constitution.
Much of the rest of the world does not have the guarantees on free speech that the US does (it is hard to get much freer). Germany for example restricts criticism of the state, denial of the holocaust, etc.
The US is fairly unique in preserving the freedom of speech to the degree that it does. There are others such as Poland or Norway that also make strong guarantees, but Spain is not among them.
> What is happening currently shows that the right to free speech is not respected by the Spanish government.
You might have missed the non-stop concentrations of people claiming for independence. Or if you think the app being banned from the Play Store is by a private individual developed using their own funds, you should know it's not the case.
> You might have missed the non-stop concentrations of people claiming for independence.
Are you saying that the Spanish have the right to free speech because they claim independence? Any person can do whatever is within their power (such as speak their mind or kill somebody); the right to free speech is the assurance that the Government won't interfere (as they should with murder).
> Or if you think the app being banned from the Play Store is by a private individual developed using their own funds, you should know it's not the case.
I am not sure what you are trying to insinuate with this.
I'm just speculating with what made you think this:
> What is happening currently shows that the right to free speech is not respected by the Spanish government.
because you didn't explain it.
The Spanish have the assurance, from our Constitution, that the Government won't interfere with concentrations claiming independence, or whatever else. Thus, by your own definition (and mine) we have the right to free speech.
> The Spanish have the assurance, from our Constitution, that the Government won't interfere with concentrations claiming independence, or whatever else. Thus, by your own definition (and mine) we have the right to free speech.
Which section(s) are you referring to? I couldn't find anything about interfering in concentrations claiming independence or free speech? I did find Section 71 stating that members of Congress have free speech in order to do their functions, but that implies normal people do not.
Hi, I'm the poster that originally objected to the lack of first-amendment protection in Spain, and the nonchalance of the other poster with regard to this fact. I just read your link and I like it. I'd like to quote it so it's part of our thread here:
>1. The following rights are recognised and protected:
> a) the right to freely express and spread thoughts, ideas and opinions through words, in writing or by any other means of reproduction.
> b) the right to literary, artistic, scientific and technical production and creation.
> c) the right to academic freedom.
> d) the right to freely communicate or receive truthful information by any means of dissemination whatsoever.
I didn't quote points 2, 3, 4 and 5 immediately after, you can click on the PDF parent poster quoted they're on page 16 and page 17 there. They're about prior censorship, mass media, and a couple of exceptions concerning privacy, and how publications can be seized.
The language I did quote, though, is very good. So the question is, why doesn't this apply to the case we're reading about?
This is what we're reading about (quoted from our article):
>The app, available on Google Play until just before 7 p.m. on Friday, helps people to find their polling station via their address and shows the closest polling stations on Google Maps via GPS, the name of the town or keywords.
>It also allows users to share links to polling station locations.
It's directly under point A "by any other means of reproduction" and it's under point b "technical production and creation" and point d "freely communicate any truthful information by any means of dissemination whatsoever."
Is information about polling stations, distributed by app, truthful information disseminated by any means whatsoever? Clearly it is.
So why doesn't what we just quoted have teeth? This goes directly to what I'm saying that although it might be written somewhere, the (excellent) language you referred to doesn't have the force that the first amendment does in the United States.
The problem here is that a court has determined that the referendum is illegal. So helping to do an illegal act is not allowed, and preventing it is one of the exceptions of free speech. I think advertising for drug dealers in the USA also wouldn't be covered by free speech.
The other problem is using public funds for something illegal. The use of public money is very restricted in Spain. There is a body of civil servants (interventores) whose only job is approving and supervising every euro spent by any gobernment entity. If there is public spending involved in the development or promotion of this app this is a big problem.
What do free speech have to do with a local government breaking laws? If the Catalan government proclaims next week the “independence” of their new republic (but maintaining the Spanish passports, of course), do you think the reaction from the Spanish government will also be an attack on their right to free speech?
> What do free speech have to do with a local government breaking laws?
Censorship is what it has to do with. The Spanish Government does not want the Catalan government to be able to organize people and thus has tried to remove the people's right to communicate with each other about it.
I was directly addressing the parent comment. It also addressed free speech.
> do you think the reaction from the Spanish government will also be an attack on their right to free speech?
It may be; that entirely depends on what the reaction is.
> The Spanish Government does not want the Catalan government to be able to organize people and thus has tried to remove the people's right to communicate with each other about it.
This has very little relation to the actual situation:
- The Catalan government, and anybody really, can organize people and the Central Government can't do anything about it.
- The Central Government, further, has nothing to do with the app that was banned from the Play Store. That's an order from a court in Catalonia.
- The banned app doesn't allow people to communicate with each other.
> In Spain every single adult of average or slightly below average intelligence knows they have the right to say whatever they want.
As smug as you are, you're wrong -- Spain doesn't have freedom of speech as Americans understand that term.
For example, from Wikipedia: "justifying the Holocaust or any other genocide is an offence punishable by imprisonment in accordance with the constitution."
If you honestly thought the US was unique about that, you need to travel or read more.