On the occasion of the imminent Holy Week, the Spanish Government has granted five pardons. The decision was published by the BOE yesterday. Four of the pardons are at the request of the Holy Week brotherhoods. As detailed by the Civio portal (specialized in controlling what the BOE publishes every day), “this decision annuls the sentence that they have pending and, therefore, they can be released from jail and parade in processions.”
Everything to be able to parade in the processions. The stratagem is splendid and gives good results; widely distributed, as people say on Christmas lottery day. “The highest penalty pardoned is that of a man convicted in Malaga for drug trafficking, who was serving three years in prison. In Granada, the pardon goes to a sentenced to one year and three months for a crime against intellectual property. In Salamanca, for a woman sentenced to one year in prison for robbery with force. And, in León, for a man sentenced to a year and a half in prison for robbery with force.” For those who, like me, do not know what a “theft with force in things” is, we will say that it is a “crime or misdemeanor that consists of seizing, for profit, someone else’s movable property with intimidation or violence against people or making use of force on things”.
That pardons are granted on the occasion of a religious celebration shows to what extent Spain, anchored in a medieval world, is not a secular state. I hope that, immediately, Najat Driouech ben Moussa, deputy in the Parliament of Catalonia for Esquerra Republicana, raises an energetic protest to whoever corresponds and demands that, in fair parity, the Spanish Government also grant them pardons on the occasion of the celebration of Ramadan. They are already late, because it started on Thursday of last week.
