Madrid President Advocates Censorship of Embarrassing Photos · Global Voices
Chris Moya

[All links lead to Spanish-language pages unless otherwise noted.]
Madrid regional president Ignacio González voiced his support during a radio interview for establishing “certain limits” on the publication of compromising images in the media, saying that “you have to be careful of the damage to people and to institutions”.
González, who was interviewed on Radio de Libertad Digital (Digital Freedom Radio) on April 4, 2013, made the claim for censorship only days after Spanish newspaper El País published a series of 20-year-old photos in which the regional president of Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, appears alongside notorious drug lord and current prison inmate Marcial Dorado.
Both González and Feijóo are members of the conservative ruling Popular Party (PP).
Spanish newspaper El Confidencial printed Feijóo's statement on the scandal:
Dije siempre que detrás de esas fotos no había nada, y que esas fotos eran eso, unas fotos, y dije también que estaba dispuesto a seguir explicando y explicar todo lo que se me plantease. De hecho, el próximo miércoles voy a comparecer en el Parlamento.
It was this “type of compromising images” that the regional president of Madrid was referring to when he suggested censoring the media in favor of preserving the reputation of government institutions. This becomes the latest attack against freedom of the press in Spain, which has increasingly found itself the target of Spanish politicians.
Reaction on social media was almost immediate, becoming a trending topic on Twitter in a matter of minutes:
*Thumbnail photo courtesy of PP Madrid and reproduced under licence CC BY-3.0.