Madrid: Two Catalan nationalists who burned photos of Spain's king and queen were convicted today of insulting the royal family and fined USD 4,000 each. The ruling was handed down by Judge Jose Maria Vazquez Honrubia of the National Court, the same magistrate who last week fined two cartoonists who depicted Crown Prince Felipe having sex with his wife in a drawing that ran on the cover of a humour magazine.

This time, the judge said the two defendants, Jaume Roura and Enric Stern, committed "grave insults" to the Spanish crown by burning photos of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia at an anti-monarchy and Catalan separatist rally in Girona as the royal couple visited that Catalan city on September 13.

"They can have whatever ideas they want, but they cannot attack the basic institutions of the state," Vazquez Honrubia said. The defendants admitted burning the photos, Stern doused them with gasoline and Roura set them on fire, and said they did so as a protest against the monarchy.

Like other Spanish regions, Catalonia has its own language and distinct culture and is home to strong nationalist sentiment. One of the parties in the regional government is outright pro-independence. The judge interrupted the proceedings at one point because the two men insisted on speaking Catalan rather than Spanish in answering questions from their lawyer and the prosecutor.

Source : PTI