Marbella rapper sentenced to two years over rap lyrics, says Spain is ‘returning to Franco regime’

A MARBELLA rapper has been found guilty of ‘glorifying terrorism’ by a court in Madrid.

Ivan Leszno, 25, and fellow members of the La Insurgencia rap group are facing two years and one day in jail, a €4,500 fine each and a nine-year ban from running for office.

They are appealing the ruling before the Supreme Court.

It comes a year after police summoned the group to court after seeing them performing on the street.

Their lyrics, according to prosecutors, praise the antifascist group Grupos de Resistencia Antifascistas Primero de Octubre (GRAPO).

But Leszno disagrees.

“Our music is written by young people who use hip-hop to express the rage of a generation who has been robbed of their future,” he said.

“They just want us to stop singing or start self-censorship.”

Some of the ‘offending’ lyrics come from songs like Pepe, in which the group praise Jose Balmon, the leader of the Communist Party of Spain who was imprisoned for alleged links to violent group GRAPO, which he denies.

The lyrics read ‘we will defeat them, we will win, we will do it for the fallen, Pepe.’

La Insurgencia added that the recent imprisonments of Catalan leaders showed a worrying trend in Spain of locking people up for their ideas.

“It does nothing but increase the list of prisoners who have been put behind bars for their ideas in Spain. The repression that has been raging and is taking place these days with the Catalans who demand a right as basic as voting, is the same repression that has been suffered by numerous groups, peoples, organizations, artists and activists since the Franco regime.”