History of censorship in Spain

Image: Black Spain

We can say that all the countries of the world have at some time carried out censorship on the freedom of expression of their citizens, thereby managing to avoid some of the activities carried out by the government that could put them in trouble in front of the citizens and even at the level international. In this lesson from a TEACHER we bring you a summary of the history of censorship in Spain stopping at the most important moments of this and seeing the main characteristics of each period.

Index

1. The modern age
2. The Contemporary Age
3. Franco's censorship

From 1481 a new stage was opened in the kingdom of Castile and Aragon in which the Holy inquisition, an ecclesiastical organization in the hands of the monarchy to be able to control the movements of all the people of the kingdom.

At first it did not have so much power but with the arrival of Carlos V, and especially under the reign of Felipe II, said institution

All this came from the hand of the Counter ReformationAfter the Hispanic monarchy became the defender of the Faith, the Inquisition began to work on an ambitious project to prevent the spread of the various heresies in the kingdoms Spanish people. Thus the known would be born in the kingdom index of prohibited books that little by little they were updated. Through this, the ideas of certain clerics were vetoed because of the presumption of guilty in the office of heretics.

Many Spanish authors, some from the Golden Age, suffered some "reworkings" or "amputations" in their works so that they could pass the sieve of the royal institution. This was due to the fact that they also looked for a prudent language when writing, that is, not everything was allowed, because, although the work did not deal with topics religious, it could not reach the point of being obscene, in fact, there were many problems that the authors of picaresque books had to publish his work.

In the same way, scientific content also suffered great persecution, because on some occasions it went against the ideals of the Church; although it is true that many of the authors were also ecclesiastical. The last index was created in 1790 although there was one more supplement in 1805.

Image: Pablo Chami

Continuing with our summary of the history of censorship in SpainWe now turn to talking about the liberal era. Starting in 1833, Spain began a period of openness to the entry of liberal systems that, in principle, were very reactionary to great changes, Except for some groups that we can consider republicans, who directly sought a great revolution that would completely change Spanish society along with the politics.

Along with these types of governments journalism was born and with it the creation of a great number of newspapers each one related to a political movement. In this way, the ruling party would be praised by its newspapers while the opponents would launch huge accusations against it.

One of the best known cases was those that occurred between the years 1931-1936, years of government of the Second Republic. At the beginning of this new system of government, the authorities censored, among others, the newspaper ABC, which was of monarchical tradition and therefore contrary to the recently established regime. For this reason, together with other "autonomous" parties, their freedoms were cut back, many of them eventually disappearing.

To articulate this, the Public Order Law, for which they wanted to control everything that was said regarding government decisions. This law has been widely criticized by both Spanish historians and international members for being a true interference with freedom.

Image: The Newspaper

Continuing with our summary of the history of censorship in Spain, we must talk about what happened during the Franco dictatorship. After the military victory over the republican troops, the military government established by Francisco Franco can be divided into two major stages:

From 1939 to 1959

During those years, the most widely disseminated means of communication was the radio and the newspaper, being the Spanish Broadcasting Society (SER) the most important and the most popular events, sports and shows. All this was promoted by the government to create a culture of the masses, by which society was entertained in other matters, rather than worrying about the situation in the country.

On your own, the Church had its own radio station, COPE, from where they broadcast the news related to the Church, in addition to having another series of cultural programs.

1959-1975

Those were the years of the television boom and with it the birth of the TVE, the most prominent programs being stories to not sleep and the documentaries of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, along with to a series of programs for children as well as for adults or for the whole family who were looking for total entertainment.

Newspapers during the dictatorship

We will dwell on how newspapers were used throughout the dictatorship. Since 1938 the Press Law existed that on many occasions it forced publishers to put some titles and remove others if necessary.

In the year 1939 another step was taken creating the Official Register of Journalists and in 1941 the Official School of Journalism that to access one had to be registered in the FET or in the JONS, that way they would better control what was published or not in the newspapers.

The only thing that was little watched were the magazines, which were used to satirize the society of the moment, although on occasions we will find that they were harshly persecuted.

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