Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday criticized Spain's imprisonment of a rapper for controversial tweets as an "authoritarian act" and called for his release. Pablo Hasel, 32, was detained last week and taken to jail to serve a nine-month sentence after being convicted for glorifying terrorism, slander and libel against the crown and state institutions. The case involves a series of tweets calling Spain's former king Juan Carlos I a mafia boss and accusing police of torturing and killing demonstrators and migrants. "It is an authoritarian act for a musician to be put in prison for a composition that supposedly insulted the king," Lopez Obrador said at his daily news conference. Hasel's imprisonment has sparked angry street protests in Spain and raised concerns about free speech. sem-dr/ft