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Cartoonists jailed for defaming Spanish royal family
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — A Spanish court yesterday convicted two cartoonists of defaming the royal family by publishing a caricature of Crown Prince Felipe having sex with his wife.
The pair, who work for the satirical weekly magazine El Jueves, were fined 4,500 dollars each over the cartoon, which Judge Jose Maria Vazquez Honrubia said was “insulting to the crown prince.”
In the cartoon, featured on the magazine’s cover, the prince says to Princess Letizia, who is depicted naked and kneeling on a bed in front of him: “If you get pregnant, that will be the closest to real work I have ever done in my life.”
Manuel Fontdevilla Subirana, who designed the cartoon, and Guillermo Torres Meanam, who drew it, said they had not intended to make fun of the royal family but of a government plan to pay a 2,500-euro bonus for every baby born in Spain.
“The sentence is unjust... There are some things in this country that we cannot touch,” Fontdevilla said after the verdict.
A lawyer for the defendants, Jordi Plana, said he planned to appeal the verdict, if necessary to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
“In a democratic society, nothing or no one can be free of criticism, it is fundamental for freedom of expression,” he said.
In July, Spain’s high court ordered the seizure of all copies of the magazine which featured the cartoon, sparking a debate about press freedom in Spain.
The court said it had acted after it received a complaint from the state prosecutor’s office which argued the cartoon was “defamatory, and possibly an offence.”
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — A Spanish court yesterday convicted two cartoonists of defaming the royal family by publishing a caricature of Crown Prince Felipe having sex with his wife.
The pair, who work for the satirical weekly magazine El Jueves, were fined 4,500 dollars each over the cartoon, which Judge Jose Maria Vazquez Honrubia said was “insulting to the crown prince.”
In the cartoon, featured on the magazine’s cover, the prince says to Princess Letizia, who is depicted naked and kneeling on a bed in front of him: “If you get pregnant, that will be the closest to real work I have ever done in my life.”
Manuel Fontdevilla Subirana, who designed the cartoon, and Guillermo Torres Meanam, who drew it, said they had not intended to make fun of the royal family but of a government plan to pay a 2,500-euro bonus for every baby born in Spain.
“The sentence is unjust... There are some things in this country that we cannot touch,” Fontdevilla said after the verdict.
A lawyer for the defendants, Jordi Plana, said he planned to appeal the verdict, if necessary to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
“In a democratic society, nothing or no one can be free of criticism, it is fundamental for freedom of expression,” he said.
In July, Spain’s high court ordered the seizure of all copies of the magazine which featured the cartoon, sparking a debate about press freedom in Spain.
The court said it had acted after it received a complaint from the state prosecutor’s office which argued the cartoon was “defamatory, and possibly an offence.”