The editor of a satirical magazine is due to appear in court in Spain over a tongue-in-cheek article that suggested the riot police deployed to stop the Catalan independence vote had snorted the region’s entire supply of cocaine.

On 5 October, four days after the Catalan government’s unilateral independence referendum was marred by police violence, El Jueves published a story entitled: “The continuing presence of riot police exhausts Catalonia’s cocaine reserves – Colombian cartels have warned they can’t keep up with such high demand.”

The piece included quotes from a made-up drug dealer, who complained: “I haven’t got a gram left, mate. No speed either. They’ve had it all. And you can’t sell this lot any old shit – they’re professional junkies!”

It also said officers billeted on the famous Tweety Pie ferry – a ship featuring a painting of the cartoon character that was used to house the police – were appealing for grateful Spaniards to send them cocaine rather than ham, and reported that Spain’s interior minister was worrying that police might turn to MDMA instead: “How are we going to maintain order if some officers are more interested in stroking their own bodies?”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Martínez-Vela sketches a cartoon for El Jueves. Photograph: Álvaro Rincón Sanz/Und R Construction

The article was retweeted almost 15,000 times and even came to the attention of the national police force, who tweeted: “We support and defend freedom of expression – but don’t you think you’ve crossed the ‘line’? #RESPECT.”

However, five Spanish police unions argue the piece was disrespectful, dangerous and possibly defamatory and have filed a complaint with prosecutors.

Legal proceedings have been initiated and Guillermo Martínez-Vela, the editor of El Jueves, summoned to appear in court on Wednesday in Barcelona to respond to the allegations.

Martínez-Vela said part of the problem was that the article had been retweeted so much that it had reached those who were not accustomed to El Jueves’s strident brand of humour.

“It seems that those who were most shocked were a bunch of police unions, who pushed for a complaint to be filed – and then one was,” he told the Guardian.

“We’ve been doing this for more than 40 years at El Jueves. We mix humour with current events and everything we do is fiction: we take elements of the news to make up funny fiction. Our readers get that completely. But it seems that someone got offended in this case. Still, as Ricky Gervais says, ‘Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right’.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Spanish police try to disperse pro-referendum supporters in Barcelona on 1 October. Photograph: Manu Fernandez/AP

The United Police Union (SUP) disagrees. Its spokesman, Ramón Cosío, said the union and others had sought legal action because the article had come while tensions were running high and officers were facing intimidation following the referendum.

“You’ve got to remember that just days before El Jueves published the article, police officers in Catalonia were being harassed,” said Cosío.

“It was a very complicated and dangerous situation and for someone to trivialise it was just wrong; it was a simple lack of respect. Some of the officers were Catalan and felt they and their children were at risk. If [El Jueves] had waited a few weeks, it would all have been very different.”

This is not the magazine’s first brush with the courts. Ten years ago, Spanish police were ordered to enter newsagents across the country to remove copies of El Jueves that featured a cartoon of the then heir to the throne having sex.

“These things happen from time to time, but right now there’s a rather tumultuous political climate,” said Martínez-Vela, who has edited the magazine for 18 months.

“I guess the police are checking social media a little more closely given that their recent actions didn’t make a very good impression on people. But that’s not our fault. We’re only doing what we’ve always done.”

The editor said the legal action appeared to be part of a wider, if belated, crackdown on social media.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Tweety Pie ferry used to house police reinforcements in Catalonia, which was mentioned in the satirical piece. Photograph: Jon Nazca/Reuters

In March, a 21-year-old student was given a year’s suspended sentence for tweeting jokes about the assassination of the former Spanish prime minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, and the lead singer of rap-rock group Def Con Dos was sentenced to a year in prison for tweeting jokes about the Basque separatist group Eta and giving the king “a cake-bomb” for his birthday.

Human rights groups and the UN have criticised the Spanish government’s controversial “gag law”, arguing that it represents a threat to the rights of freedom of assembly and expression.

“It’s all a bit closing the stable door after the horse has bolted,” said Martínez-Vela. “You can say whatever you want on social media, but they’re keeping an eye on things.”

But perhaps more worrying, he added, was the fact that people were now looking to satirists to keep power in check.

“The bigger problem here is the general press failing to do its job – which is working to hold politicians to account. A lot of time, people say, ‘You’re the best we have’. But we don’t do serious political criticism. We do jokes and satire.

“Maybe in times like these, satire is more useful than political criticisms from a media that is very controlled and close to power. Humour gives us a freedom that other media don’t have.”

