Operation Araña (Spanish: ''Operación Araña'') is the codename given to the 2014-17

Civil Guard Civil Guard refers to various policing organisations: Current * Civil Guard (Spain), Spanish gendarmerie * Civil Guard (Israel), Israeli volunteer police reserve * Civil Guard (Brazil), Municipal law enforcement corporations in Brazil Histori ...

operation in

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

against the defense of terrorism on

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

, mainly on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. The name ''Araña'' means Spider. Until now, it has consisted on four phases: *''Operation Araña I'' (April 2014), before the 2014 European Parliamentary Election. *''Operation Araña II'' (November 2014). *''Operation Araña III'' (May 2015), concurrent with the

2015 Spanish regional elections The 2015 Spanish regional elections were held on Sunday, 24 May 2015, to elect the regional parliaments of thirteen of the seventeen autonomous communities—Aragon, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castile and Leó ...

. Alfredo Remírez, a Twitter user arrested during this phase, was sentenced to prison for reiteration of defense of terrorism on social media on 1 November 2017. He was imprisoned on 4 November, three days later. *''Operation Araña IV'' (April 2016), before the

2016 Spanish general election The 2016 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 26 June 2016, to elect the 12th Cortes Generales of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 266 seats in the Senate. No party h ...

Criticism

Since its start, the operation has been heavily criticised.

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

, on their 2016-2017 report, mentioned the operation among the cases of unjustified restrictions of

freedom of information Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, indigeno ...

speech Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...

and

assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...

in relation with the recent reform of the

Spanish Criminal Code The Criminal Code is a law that codifies most criminal offences in Spain. The Code is established by an organic law, the Organic Law 10/1995, of 23 November, of the Criminal Code (''Ley Orgánica 10/1995, de 23 de noviembre, del Código Penal' ...

and the 2015 Enforcement of Citizen Security Spanish Law. In January 2017, Def Con Dos rap rock band member and spokesperson César Strawberry was sentenced to one year on prison because of a series of tweets related to

ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

and

GRAPO The First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups ( es, Grupos de Resistencia Antifascista Primero de Octubre, GRAPO) was a Spanish clandestine Marxist–Leninist group aiming for the formation of a Spanish Republican state. Besides its anti- ...

. In March 2017, a 21-year-old student was sentenced to one year of prison, due to a series of jokes about the

assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...

francoist Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spani ...

Prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Carrero Blanco Admiral-General Luis Carrero Blanco (4 March 1904 – 20 December 1973) was a Spanish Navy officer and politician. A long-time confidant and right-hand man of dictator Francisco Franco, Carrero served as the Prime Minister of Spain and i ...

. Both sentences generated criticism and raised a debate about freedom of speech and social media.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Operation Araña 2014 in Spain 2015 in Spain 2016 in Spain 2017 in Spain Law enforcement in Spain