Every society has its own catalog of deviance. In contemporary Spain, a particularly perverse practice is increasingly entrenched in social networks of declaring that freedom of expression is under attack when someone condemns and justifies the presence of a sexist or homophobic expression in a song (applauded, even) imprisoning rappers who decided to turn their words into political weapons of war. “It seems that the media in Spain only remember the right to freedom of expression when it comes to protecting the ideas and views of the far right,” he says. Fran Garcia Tapiamanufacturer Documentary ‘We Will Not Be Silent’It will be presented at the In-Edit festival on Saturday.
Focuses on ‘no callarem’ stories Paul Hasel, Valtonic and Elgiothree 18 rappers sentenced to prison A figure that has placed the country at the top of the European rankings in the suppression of crimes related to freedom of expression by Spanish justice in recent years. Hasél (Pablo Rivadulla Duró) has been imprisoned in Ponent prison in Lleida since February of last year, and his mother also has an open criminal case for participating in a demonstration to demand her son’s freedom; Valtònyc (Josep Miquel Arenas Beltran) Refugee for more than four years in BrusselsHe escaped to avoid a three-and-a-half-year sentence upheld by the Supreme Court, and Elgio (Alex Nicolaev) was dragged along with the others. 11 rappers from the La Insurgencia collectiveHe was sentenced to six months in prison and eight years of disqualification (after a sentence that went so far as to affirm that the defendants “had a religion that was the religion of the workers,” with the zeal of associating left-wing rap with Islamic terrorism).
Fran García Tapia, former drummer for bands The!Fuck and The Hills Around, and member of Sindicat de Músics Activistes de Catalunya (SMAC!), was involved from the first hour. platform No Callaremcreated in 2017 to provide an organized response to the unleashed wave of repression under the ‘gag law’was approved in 2015 by a PP government, which at the time was harassed by citizen protests. “It felt like something out of science fiction to me that writing lyrics would take you to the National Supreme Court,” she recalls. Parallel to the mobilizations that reached moments of maximum enthusiasm with the celebration of a week’s worth of free speech events at the Modelo prison in Barcelona in April 2018, García Tapia began to consider the idea of explaining this in a documentary. The human stories behind the cases of Hasél, Valtònyc, and Elgio. “We wanted to dismantle the version given in the media and show what’s on the other side” he points out.
prison interview
When the project was finalized, it started to take definite shape. audio-visual cooperative Brunato which the three persons who signed the directing of the film belong: Claudia Arribas, Violeta Octavio and Carlos Juan Martinez. With a budget of close to 70,000 euros, financed in part through crowdfunding, the documentary features: interview with three heroes (Hasél’s is the only one the Lleida rapper has done since he was in prison) and Albert Pla, Ana Tijoux, Bittah (from rap group Tribade), Las Bajas Pasiones, Za! , Yolanda Sey (from The Sey Sisters), Nacho Vegas, saxophonist Irene Reig and Majorca brilliant musician Mateu Matas.
‘No Callarem’ chronicles the paths followed by three young people from very different backgrounds, as well as showing the devastating impact of court decisions on their lives. reached both hip-hop and political activism. Thus, while Hasél changed his life when he saw the slum while riding his bike and listening to the NWA album, Elgio, born in Sabadell, was born in Moldova. lived in his own flesh poverty (and an eviction) and sought solace in the rhymes of the Falsaarma group. “The first song I did was a love song for my mom,” she explains. Politics came much later.
“Nuclear Destruction Bomb”
For Valtònyc, music is above all a way to channel anger and sadness. As a result of a family tragedy that the film did not choose to focus on, Mallorcan, who was raised by his older sister from the age of eight, saw rap as a way of expression that allowed him to bring his emotions together. poetry and provocation. Josep Miquel Arenas was 15 when he released his first demo and 18 when he was first arrested; It happened in 2012 as a result of a complaint by the then-president of the anti-Catalan platform Círculo Balearic. Jorge Campos (today, the best leader of Vox in the Balearic Islands)For a song containing the line “Jorge Campos deserves a nuke”.
“Obviously that’s an exaggeration, isn’t it? Nobody has plutonium in their home. Well, they sentenced me to six months in prison for that sentence,” says Valtònyc, who wrote the song when he was just 17. Other sentences were added to this initial conviction. to glorify terror and insult the Crown. The flight to Belgium followed, and the authorities refused to attend the extradition request filed by the Spanish justice, claiming that the rapper’s words were framed within the scope of freedom of expression. Not only that: as a result of the ‘Valtònyc case’, the Belgian Constitutional Court repealed the article of the penal code punishing insults to the king in that country..
In Spain, however, things look much more stable. The ‘gag law’ has not changed, protests disappeared from the streets, and freedom of expression was invoked only to argue that a far-right technopop duo could say “we need to go back to 36”. “The fear they want to impose on us has had its effect – Garcia Tapia complains – and it’s a very serious thing, we will regret it. We are losing the right to freedom of expression And people have a hard time realizing that it doesn’t just affect some rappers, it’s going to affect them too if they want to go out and protest the layoffs or cuts.”
“Tomorrow it could be you,” he says to Pablo Hasél in the closing scene of the documentary. “If you’re not rich, it could be you tomorrow.”