It’s been a week after the scandal that placed former Spain's king Juan Carlos I at the epicentre of a corruption case following the publication of his 100 million dollar bank account in Switzerland, and the 65 million dollars from the total amount that was allegedly given to Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. However, the main news is still that there is no news about it in the Spanish mainstream press. As it happened in past eras of censorship, one has to look outside the major print newspapers for any information on the topic or read foreign media, such as Le Monde, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Frankfurter, to name but a few, which do publish widely the information as it is disclosed.
Some digital media, some radio stations and, to a much lesser extent, some television channels have reported an event that cannot be hidden from society, since it affects the person who was Spain’s head of state from November 1975 until his abdication in June 2014. It is obvious that there is a will for as much opacity as possible, which explains why it was the Swiss justice that opened the issue and had to request information from Spain’s National Audience court.
In the Spanish regime, there is such fear of what may come to light that the El Mundo newspaper called on Saturday for a closing of the ranks with the Spanish Crown through an editorial entitled "The Crown is not in question" and directly pointed to Catalan pro-independence forces as being responsible for what they consider to be a persecution of the Spanish monarchy. It also demanded absolute media silence until justice issues a resolution.
It is quite shocking that those who have pioneered disinformation campaigns and absolutely false stories about the Catalan pro-independence movement and so many other public figures are calling for media silence. Moreover, a newspaper asking for media silence is exactly the opposite of what its social function is. The same is true of the commissions of inquiry that have been petitioned in the Spanish parliament and which the majority formed by PSOE and PP, with the support of Vox and Ciudadanos, have rejected. This is not the best way for public representatives to fulfil their parliamentary function and apply the principle that all citizens are equal before the law and none are above it.
Even more so because there is no legal case open in Spain against Juan Carlos I - there are legal cases in three countries, a serious risk to his fortune -, so no interference can be alleged and a parliamentary commission of inquiry could clarify the origin of his assets.