“Everyone saw what was coming,” Tom Grundy, editor-in-chief and founder of Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP)—the last major independent daily still holding out in the city—told the ARA. Grundy is referring to the sentencing of Jimmy Lai, the media mogul and founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily, who was sentenced this Monday to twenty years in prison for violating the National Security Law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

Jimmy Kimmel returned to television this Tuesday after a week past the ABC network announced that it was suspending "indefinitely" the late show from the comedian for a comment on the death of the Trump activist Charlie Kirk, murdered on September 10. In the opening monologue of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the comedian has become so emotional that he was close to tears and has argued that his commentary on Charlie Kirk's death was never intended to make light of the Trumpist's assassination.

It may seem that the fight for respect for freedom of thought and expression is more necessary than ever. And yet, in retrospect, it has always been necessary, and it is a struggle that has no end. I say this after reading Castellio vs. Calvin. Awareness against violence, by Stefan Zweig. Beyond the literary style and the extraordinary documentation, I was impressed by the burning relevance of this work.. Published in 1936, it has been opportunely edited this year in Catalan by La Segunda Periferia with a very readable translation by Marc Jiménez Buzzi.

1) I don't recall there being so much talk about a book that hasn't yet been published and distributed, and therefore hasn't yet been read by its potential readers. At least in Spain. The book in question is titled Hate and its author is the writer Luisgé Martín (Madrid, 1962), an author with several published novels to his credit. This title came to our attention when the media announced last week that a judge had suspended its publication for alleged interference in the right to honor, privacy, and self-image of the mother of the children murdered by their father more than a decade ago. The legal services of the publishing company itself, in turn, would be the ones to decide whether or not to respect the judges' decision. In a word, its distribution was illegal. A few days later, a court in Barcelona was considering whether to halt the publication of HateAt the time of writing this article, it is still unknown whether Hate whether it will be distributed or not, and therefore whether it can be read. The latest we know is that the publisher has suspended publication "indefinitely."

U.S. authorities have denied entry to a French scientist after immigration officers at the airport found messages critical of the Trump administration on his phone. The researcher at France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) was randomly checked upon arrival in March, and his computer and phone were searched.

A Madrid judge has decided to prosecute comedian Héctor de Miguel, better known as Quequé, for an alleged hate crime for joking on his radio show encouraging people to blow up the Valle de los Caídos and throw stones at paedophile care. In an appearance before the judge on 23 January, the comedian argued that the alleged events were a joke "exclusively with the audience" of the programme. Vintipico Time, from Cadena SER. The radio program is a satirical news program that is broadcast from Monday to Thursday at 8:45 p.m.

The savage and near fatal knife attack on Salman Rushdie on 12^th August in quiet upstate New York shocked many. It echoed through the global community of writers and readers and well beyond. Rushdie had been about to speak when naked violence plunged into a literary event. It charged brutally into the world of words, thought and imaginative expression. These are more usually spaces of reflection in which violence is parsed, questioned, perhaps mocked, deflected, understood.

"There has been some loss in the international consensus on what human rights are." "In five years we have seen an explosion in the repression of free speech". These two sentences are by Carles Torner, until recently executive director of the PEN International Club, and correspond to the interview that opens the Culture section. Torner can provide the global overview that the position he has held for seven years gives him, especially on freedom of expression and the serious problems faced by many writers. But he is not alone. He has encountered a generalised outburst that pushes back against fundamental rights, whose starting point he places in Donald Trump's election victory in 2016

On Wednesday, the French judge sentenced eleven people to sentences of between four and six months in prison (which they will not serve) for having cyberstalked a teenager who had criticised Islam with rude words through Instagram. The sentence, which according to the same judge should "set the rules of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable" on social media, can create jurisprudence. "In the street, when we come across someone we dislike because of their physical appearance or their statements, even if they are offensive, we refrain from insulting them, threatening them or laughing. What you don't do in the street, don't do on social media", said judge Michaël Humbert.

The Seville prosecutor's office is asking for 4 years in prison for Mallorcan rapper Josep Miquel Arenas, aka Valtònyc, for a hate crime against the Guardia Civil (Civil Guard) related to his songs. The Belgian police took a statement from the singer at the request of the Spanish authorities a few months ago and this Friday has received the request for imprisonment from the prosecutor's office, as confirmed by the ACN. Valtònyc's defense does not know for now if the trial would be at a distance or if the Spanish justice would have to make a new European order. The singer already has extradition proceedings open in Belgium for the three-and-a-half-year prison sentence he received in 2017 for glorifying terrorism, insulting the Crown and making threats through the lyrics of his songs. A few months after that conviction, in May 2018, Valtònyc went into exile in Belgium to avoid prison.

After the amnesty law did not even get to be debated in the Spanish Parliament after being thrown out by the bureau, the independentism is again trying to convince the socialists to agree to debate the proposal. This Monday ERC, Junts per Catalunya, PDECat and CUP appealed the bureau's rejection of the law. They consider, after having requested the corresponding reports from lawyers, that the PSOE, PP and Vox's veto "violates" the right to freedom of expression, as well as constituting "an ideological discrimination" of chamber MPs.

The first was Afghan journalist Yama Siawash. He was killed on 7 November in Kabul with a bomb that blew up his car. No one claimed responsibility for the attack. Five days later it was the turn of Elyas Daee, who also worked as a journalist in Afghanistan but in the southern city of Lashkargah. An explosive device was also planted in the underbody of his vehicle and no one claimed responsibility for the attack. The killings of journalists in Afghanistan continued in December and January, but no one knows who is behind most of the cases. The latest was last Tuesday: three female employees of the local Enikas TV station - Mursal Hakimi, 25, Sadia, 20, and Shanaz, also 20 - were killed as they walked home from work in the eastern city of Jalalabad. They were shot in the head.

The truce was short-lived. The resumption of the mobilizations against the imprisonment of the rapper Pablo Hasél -there have already been twelve days of protest- has also made the riots return to the streets of Barcelona. The demonstration called in the Plaça Universitat in Barcelona under the slogan Sense futur no tenim res a perdre ("Without future we have nothing to lose") has been the most crowded so far, with about 4.4,000 people according to the City Police (Guardia Urbana), in a call that added several demands: freedom of expression -and freedom for the rapper Pablo Hasél-, the right to housing, the halting of evictions, the regulation of rents, the amnesty of political prisoners and the repeal of the labor reform and the so-called gag law. A welter of different slogans because there were also different entities that supported the demonstration. Although it has been called spontaneously and has been spreading through social networks, organizations such as the Sindicat de Llogateres, the CDR, Arran, the SEPC or parties like Podemos and the CUP have encouraged the population to attend.

Hundreds of young people have taken to the streets day after day since the arrest of the rapper Pablo Hasél and, disassociating themselves from the vandalism acts for pure entertainment, most of the demonstrators with whom ARA has spoken agree in feeling undervalued and little listened to by the older generations and frightened by a future of work and housing that is not at all hopeful. "We are fed up, very tired. The imprisonment of Hasél has been the straw that broke the camel's back", sums up Eudald Rovira (18), a history student.

PEN Català, from its committee of persecuted writers, has organized an eight-hour marathon in defense of freedom of expression and for the release of Pablo Hasél. The organization has called on the entire literary community to participate in the event, which will be held on March 5 from 9 o'clock and can be followed on the YouTube channel of PEN Català. At the moment there are about 60 people and entities that have signed the statement, which is open to more adhesions. It is also made with the collaboration of the entities that have mobilized in favor of Hasél's freedom, such as the Acadèmia Catalana de la Música, the Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana, the Associació de Publicacions Periòdiques en Català, Editors.cat, the Gremi de Llibreters de Catalunya, Llegir en Català and Òmnium.

Hundreds of people gathered in front of Arc de Triomf in Barcelona in the seventh night of protests against the imprisonment of Pablo Hasél. The protest saw fewer demonstrators, with rain dampening the spirits and attendees, mostly young people, huddled under the monument. There they improvised rap songs and headed towards Marqués de l'Argentera street in the midst of a festive atmosphere in which chants in favor of the republic and against the monarchy could be heard.

The hard police charges, the looting of shops and the burned containers has spread like a stain through the center of Barcelona again this Saturday in the fifth day of protests, the most multitudinous with more than 6,000 demonstrators, according to municipal sources. There were also protests in Tarragona, Lleida, Girona, Mataró and Sabadell. The Mossos d'Esquadra have arrested 34 people in total for acts related to public disorder and acts of looting, 31 of them in Barcelona.

There have now been four nights of protests against the imprisonment of Pablo Hasél, a rapper only known in minority circles until the Public Prosecutor's Office accused him of glorifying terrorism and his name was associated with freedom of expression. The demonstrations were called through Telegram channels and other social networks, which gives a clue that the attendees are mostly young people. "Very young", insist sources from the Mossos d'Esquadra, who explain that there are some who were already under surveillance and others who are new to these scenarios.

After four days of riots at the end of the demonstrations in support of Pablo Hasél, Ada Colau has made this Saturday a call for calm in statements to the media and has ensured that, despite understanding that "there are reasons for social unrest", attacks on businesses or urban material "are not a solution". For this afternoon another protest is expected, which could be the largest of those that have occurred up until now, and the Mossos are on alert to prevent a repeat of the disorders of previous nights.