From the BBC, 13 November 2007:
A court in Spain has convicted Manel Fontdevila, cartoons editor of the popular satirical weekly magazine El Jueves, and cartoonist “Guillermo” of “damaging the prestige of the crown“.
Both men received a hefty 3,000-euro (£2,100) fine.
Their offence was to have published a cartoon last July making ribald fun of the heir to the Spanish throne, and of the government’s scheme to encourage women to have more babies by giving mothers a special payment for each new birth.
It was a caricature of Prince Filipe [Felipe] having sex with his wife, Princess Letizia, and telling her: “Do you realise that if you get pregnant, it will be the closest thing to work I’ve done in my life?”
‘More censorship’
The cartoon is funny, but the issue raised by its banning is serious. The episode has worrying echoes of last year’s frenzied and violent protests against the cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad printed in European newspapers.
Now, it is 2018, and they are King Felipe and Queen Letizia.
Today, Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws reports on quarrels between King Felipe and Queen Letizia. That may lead to divorce (a no-no for fanatically Roman Catholic Spanish royals).
Two weeks ago, when she did a working visit, Queen Letizia was ‘welcomed’ by a crowd chanting: ‘Long live the republic!’
