Respect the Royal Family and Speak the Right Language

Nov 21, 2007
Spanish court fines men for burning king and queen's photos
SPAIN - TWO Catalan nationalists who burned photos of Spain's king and queen were convicted on Tuesday of insulting the royal family and fined euro2,700 (S$5,789) each.
The ruling was handed down by Judge Jose Maria Vazquez Honrubia of the National Court, the same magistrate who last week fined two cartoonists who depicted Crown Prince Felipe having sex with his wife in a drawing that ran on the cover of a humour magazine.

This time, the judge said the two defendants - Jaume Roura and Enric Stern - committed 'grave insults' to the Spanish crown by burning photos of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia at an anti-monarchy and Catalan separatist rally in Girona as the royal couple visited that Catalan city on Sept 13.

'They can have whatever ideas they want, but they cannot attack the basic institutions of the state,' Judge Vazquez Honrubia said.

The defendants admitted burning the photos - Stern doused them with gasoline and Roura set them on fire - and said they did so as a protest against the monarchy.

Like other Spanish regions, Catalonia has its own language and distinct culture and is home to strong nationalist sentiment. One of the parties in the regional government is outright pro-independence.

The judge interrupted the proceedings at one point because the two men insisted on speaking Catalan rather than Spanish in answering questions from their lawyer and the prosecutor.

In the end, Judge Vazquez Honrubia let this continue but cut the defendants off when they tried to make their final statements in Catalan, the official language in the powerful and wealthy region of northeast Spain.

The prosecutor had originally sought jail terms of a year and three months but ultimately sought just a fine. The judge agreed.

The photo burning and sex cartoon are part of a spate of recent cases in which King Juan Carlos, a soft-spoken figurehead who shuns publicity, has seen himself or his family thrust into the limelight.

On Nov 10, the king told President Hugo Chavez to 'shut up' at a summit in Chile after the Venezuelan president called a former Spanish prime minister a fascist, sparking a diplomatic spat that is still simmering, with Venezuela threatening to review Spanish investment in that country.

Last week, the Spanish royal palace announced that the king's eldest child, Elena, is separating from her husband, banker Jaime de Marichalar. They have two small children.

Spanish newspapers are calling 2007 the king's 'annus horribilis'. -- AP