Title
Country Report - Spain
Publisher
Country
Publication Date
6 January 2010
Cite as
Reporters Without Borders, Country Report - Spain, 6 January 2010, available at:
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4b7aa9a13ae.html [accessed 3 September 2010]
Country Report - Spain
Area: 504,782 sq. km.
Population: 46,157,822
Languages: Spain, Catalan, Basque, Galician
Head of state: José Luis Rodriguez-Zapatero
Press freedom is guaranteed in Spain. Journalists reporting on the Basque country continue
to come under pressure from the terrorist movement Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) and some
journalists have been forced to live under police protection. ETA has for a number of years
figured on Reporters Without Borders' list of press freedom predators. Spain also suffers
from an inability to regulate media coverage of its elections, which regularly prompts
debate within the leading countries of the European Union.
Fifty years after its creation, the terrorist movement ETA, which wants independence for the
Basque country, has still not been eradicated. Not all media suffer ETA intimidation to the same
degree, but all journalists are subjected to a climate of hostility. They can receive threatening
letters in reaction to their articles, media can find themselves on blacklists of "enemy" media,
reporting gets interrupted, demonstrations are held outside media offices, petrol bombs
thrown, attacks launched against television distributors and posters appear in the street giving
the names and addresses of "enemy" journalists. Some journalists have police protection or
personal bodyguards. A car bombing in Bilbao on 31 December 2008 against the headquarters of
Basque television and radio EiTB, and several other media (El Mundo, Deia, Onda cero, Antena
3, Expansion and Marca), underlined the fact that ETA militancy against the media is still a
threat.
Less violent, but just as persistent is the problem of media coverage at election time, which
arose again at general elections on 9 March 2008. The long list of press problems include limited
access to candidates, a ban on recording candidates' speech at rallies, completely controlled
debates, press conferences without questions, official obstacles and complications. Attempts to
establish a law regulating the role of the public media during election campaigns have so far got
nowhere. The demands made by some political parties or their media advisors relegate
journalists to the role of spectators and turn editorial freedom into political propaganda.
While the acquittal was welcome in December 2008 of two satirical cartoonists, Josetxu
Rodriguez and Javier Ripas of the weekly Caduca Hoy, and the journalist Nicola Lococo of the
newspaper Gara prosecuted over a cartoon of King Juan Carlos, cartoonists Guillermo Torres and
Manuel Fontdevilla of the daily El Jueves are still waiting for the outcome of their case. They
should benefit from the same ruling given the similarity of the two cases.