Reuters:

Spanish media on Saturday poured scorn at a judge’s decision to pull a satirical magazine that published a cartoon of the heir to the throne having sex, saying it trampled freedom of expression in a first world democracy. On Friday, Juan del Olmo ordered police to round up copies of El Jueves, whose front page carried a drawing of Crown Prince Felipe having sex with his wife and commenting on a government plan to give parents 2,500 euros (1,700 pounds) for each child born. “Just imagine if you end up pregnant,” Felipe says to his wife, Letizia, who is kneeling on the bed in front of him. “This will be the closest thing to work I’ve ever done in my life.” Under Spanish law, anybody who insults the royal family can face up to two years in prison. Media tend to steer clear of reporting anything more than the royal family’s official engagements — a world apart from Britain where any royal pecadillo is pounced on by the press — but on Saturday they railed against the El Jueves decision. “The El Jueves cartoon is crude and in bad taste but it’s hard to say it intended the sort of damage that would make it a crime,” top-selling El Pais wrote in an editorial. Right-leaning El Mundo said the cartoon could offend people but insisted it was “within what is permissible in a society where freedom of expression is a fundamental value”.