National
National Court Judge orders satirical magazine to be removed from sale
By h.b.
Jul 21, 2007 - 10:22 PM

National Court judge, Juan Del Olmo, on Friday ordered the withdraw of all copies of the Spanish satirical magazine, ‘El Jueves’ because of a cartoon of the Prince and Princess of Asturias on the front page.

The judge gave the order at the request of the State Prosecutor’s Office, which has insisted that they acted without any complaint coming from the Palace.

The cartoon showed the sum of 2,500 €, the amount now offered by the Government for every birth in Spain, and below the money, the cartoon of the Prince and Princess in a sexual posture. The Prince is commenting along the lines that is the closest he will get to earning a living.

The Spanish Constitution prohibits any previous censorship of material in publications, but action can be taken after publication if a judge considers that fundamental rights have been infringed. Here an alleged crime of insults or slander has taken place.

The director of El Jueves, J.L. Martín, commented that they have previously carried many similar covers. He said he thought the whole matter would be forgotten in a week, despite the fact that he now faces a possible sentence of up to two years in prison.

The cartoonist Guillermo says that he had drawn Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, but he was such a bad drawer that people had thought he had drawn other people.
‘Judge Del Olmo wears glasses’, he said, ‘Perhaps he got confused’.

The cartoon remained however on the webpage of the magazine, but the interest in the subject had crashed the webserver by Friday afternoon.

The prosecutor, Miguel Ángel Carballo, later called for the magazine’s webpage to be closed down, but most other Spanish media websites, including El Pais, El Mundo and 20 minutos are continuing to show the cartoon.

The whole affair has opened a debate in the Spanish media as to where are the limits on freedom of expression.

The magazine say their next cover will answer all this week’s events.

The PP General Secretary, Angel Acebes, on Saturday accused the Attorney General, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, of causing the even greater diffusion of the offensive cartoon, and said for that reason it had been a mistaken decision.

Note – Typically Spanish has decided not to publish the cartoon, simply because doing so could be considered as being unnecessarily offensive to the Spanish Royal Family.