Spain wants to punish glorification of dictatorship
Spain's left-wing coalition government consisting of the two parties PSOE and Unidas Podemos wants to ban by law statements that glorify the Franco dictatorship. The country's media is divided over whether this will have the desired effect.
Don't copy the far right's strategy
Banning people from expressing their opinions is the wrong way to go about protecting society from right-wing extremism, warns philosophy professor Clara Serra on the left-leaning website eldiario.es:
“Expanding the penal code to include further opinion offences is a dangerous path initiated by [the former conservative head of government José María] Aznar and which has led to gagging law and prison sentences for rappers and Twitterers. The current government should not continue along this path but head in the opposite direction. Copying the recipes of the far right only expands their battlefield and helps them in their quest to conquer common sense. I can't imagine a greater victory for Vox than if we resort to using its proposals even though we are trying to defeat them.”
Personal freedom ends where it hurts others
Punishing the glorification of contempt for humanity helps to show where the limits of personal rights lie, argues anthropologist Rosana Pinheiro in El País:
“Freedom of expression is a fundamental right, but it does not include the unrestricted right to express every thought: my freedom ends at the point where it intimidates or hurts others. ... Nazi regimes must be condemned and rejected. I believe that classifying this as a criminal offence in the penal code can serve as a political instrument that creates civilising boundaries in favour of respect for human rights within which genocide and discrimination are simply unacceptable.”