Dozens of people arrested in Spain after a second night of clashes

Madrid, Feb 18 (AFP/APP): Dozens of people were arrested in Spain after a second night of clashes over the jailing of a rapper for controversial tweets, triggering a political backlash.

Angry demonstrations first erupted on Tuesday night after police detained Pablo Hasel, 32, who was holed up in a university in Catalonia to avoid going to jail in a highly contentious free speech case. The violence has thrust the hard left Podemos party — the junior partner in Spain’s leftwing coalition which has opposed Hasel’s jailing and publicly supported the protesters — into the firing line.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of people gathered in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square calling for Hasel’s release, hurling bottles at police, who charged at them in clashes lasting several hours, AFP journalists said. Police arrested 19 people, while the city’s emergency services said 55 people were injured, among them 35 police officers.

In Barcelona and three other Catalan cities, demonstrators lobbed objects at police and set barricades ablaze, with police charging the protesters and in some places firing foam rounds. A total of 33 people were arrested and 14 injured, police said. The director of Catalonia’s regional police force, Pere Ferrer, said officers faced a “highly complex scenario” becasue of the “high volume of public disorder” which included looting.