Spanish Court Convicts Woman for Terror Tweets

 

A Spanish court has convicted a woman who made threats to a number of politicians via Twitter.

Alba González Camacho, 21, posted messages calling for a far-left terrorist organisation to return to arms and kill politicians.

The national court ruled that she is responsible for what she writes, and convicted her of inciting terrorism using a social-media network - the first such case in Spain.

According to the New York Times, "The case is also one of a recent few that have pushed social media into courtrooms worldwide and raised issues of the limits of speech in the ether of the Internet. In January, two people received prison sentences in Britain for posting threatening messages against a prominent feminist campaigner. The same month, a federal judge in the United States sentenced a man to 16 months in prison for threatening on Twitter to kill President Obama."

Camacho claims she has no connection with any terror groups or political organisations, despite calling on a group known as the GRAPO - which killed more than 80 people throughout the late 1970s and 1980s - to take up arms once again.

One of the tweets called for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to be shot in the neck.

The judge agreed with a prosecutor who said González Camacho had tweeted messages with an ideological content that was "highly radicalised and violent," and therefore violated an article in the Spanish Constitution that prohibits any apology for or glorification of terrorism.

Ms. Camacho was sentenced to one year in prison but will avoid jail time under a plea bargain since she has no prior criminal record.

The event has seen Camacho's number of Twitter followers jump to 14,000.