Last week, Spain's Guardia Civil - the Civil Guard or gendarmerie - detained 21 social media users for allegedly "glorifying terrorism" on Twitter and Facebook. Fifteen of them were apprehended in the northern Spanish regions of Navarre and the Basque Country, an area that has long harboured separatist aspirations. Two were minors.
If convicted, the tweeters and Facebookers will face up to two years in prison. Among the alleged glorifications of terrorism, apparently, was a tweeted map of the Basque Country, emblazoned with the Basque word for independence.
Given the nutty news content that has become the norm in this country as of late, many Spaniards perhaps did not bat an eye. First there were the headlines surrounding the proposed Citizens' Security Law, which prescribes fines of up to 600,000 euros ($835,500) for unauthorised street protests - and up to 1,000 euros($1,400) for losing one's identity document more than three times in five years.
Then there was the news that the Spanish interior minister had taken it upon himself to bestow the country's top policing medal on the Virgin Mary. In addition to generally being reserved for human recipients, the award is intended to honour policemen who have been killed or wounded in the line of duty. (The ministry of the interior has now been dubbed the "monastery of the interior" by certain media, and apetition has surfaced at change.org requesting a similar medal for Spiderman.) READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.