The dismissal of the honorary Finnish consul to Barcelona, Albert Ginjaume Egido, at the request of the Spanish government, falls within a much wider general context. In Barcelona alone, he's the fourth consul dismissed due to pressure from Mariano Rajoy's Spanish executive, and this is just a small example of everything happening internationally.
My personal experience shows that the zeal for censorship runs deep in Spanish authorities. After publishing my book Draumen om Catalonia ("Catalonia's dream") in Norwegian in 2015, and especially following the events in Catalonia in autumn 2017, the Spanish embassy in Oslo has not stopped monitoring my articles and talks. They've tried to influence editors and organisers with comments about how the situation in Catalonia should be interpreted, always from the españolista Spanish nationalist perspective.
At the start I thought of such involvement from Spanish diplomats as almost a fable, but recent events have demonstrated my naivety. British weekly The Economist is very clear in defining the Spanish government's attempts to manipulate public opinion as censorship. They refer specifically to the artwork by Santiago Sierra (whom they describe as a "professional provocateur") on political prisoners like Oriol Junqueras and the 'Jordis', a work withdrawn from the Contemporary Art Fair in Madrid (ARCO). The Economist's article is entitled "Why Spanish courts censor art, speech and rap lyrics" and explains that the case of Santiago Sierra coincided with two other acts of intolerance, referring to the sentencing of Mallorcan rapper Valtonyc and the legal order to withdraw Nacho Carretero's book Fariña, about the drug trade in Galicia.
The Spanish embassy in Oslo has not stopped monitoring my articles and talks
From my point of view, the 2015 law on the protection of public security, popularly known as the "ley mordaza" (gag law), is also part of the collection of restrictions on freedom of expression around Spanish territory. The law includes fines for protests, spontaneous political and social demonstrations organised via social networks and other non-violent actions like trying to stop an eviction.
As for its impact on me personally, the Spanish embassy's monitoring isn't actually anything that serious, and does nothing more than encourage me to continue spreading my view of the Catalan "process". That said, as an example, let me translate from the Norwegian a fragment of a comment made by the Spanish ambassador to Norway on a previous article of mine in Norwegian digital newspaper Framtida: "In the first place, it's not useful to speak of 'political prisoners' in Spain, a completely democratic country in which nobody is persecuted for their political ideas, which can be freely expressed in all areas/forums". In other words, beyond judicialising politics, current Spanish authorities refuse to accept the term "political prisoners" to describe people imprisoned for political questions.
In the society described by George Orwell in his novel 1984, everyone is under strict surveillance by the authorities and people are constantly told "Big Brother is watching you". This is the feeling I have when I reflect on the facts mentioned in this article. For that reason, I believe the reactions in the independent international press to the current wave of censorship by the Spanish government and the support of the 94 consular representatives in Barcelona to their dismissed Finnish colleague are important and positive.
A question which has been stuck in my mind is: has there also been pressure on the English FA (Football Association) by Spanish authorities to force Pep Guardiola to stop wearing his yellow ribbon?
Johannes Nymark is associate professor of Spanish at NHH Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen. He's the author of the book 'Draumen om Catalonia' (Catalonia's Dream).