US movie star Helen Hunt, far from her country on its Independence Day, 4th July, decided to celebrate by sending a tweet. The locally-taken photo she included with her message showed, appropriately enough, a large banner with the word Democràcia - Democracy. It was, in fact, written in the Catalan language, and in her photo an estelada - a Catalan independence flag - is also visible. But some Spanish Twitter users didn't like the way this Oscar-winning actress presented this side of their country - the Catalan struggle for independence and democratic rights. The star received a number of attacks on Twitter.
"Happy Fourth from Spain", said Hunt in her tweet, without knowing that some Spanish nationalists would take it badly. She added a flag of Portugal (apparently by mistake), with the 'stars and stripes' alongside it. She also added a couple of slogans showing concern about a specific political issue from her homeland, the current controversy about separating immigrant children from their families:
"I'm sorry to tell you that supporting that cause is like supporting the independence of the state of California," came one reply. "The ten prisoners that resulted from the process, disobeyed the constitution."
"It is even worse: you have a federal constitution that has a legal way for leaving. Spain, for several historic and economic reasons doesn't," said another.
A third reply came out in defence of democracy in Spain, with the argument that the country has voted quite a lot - "since 1978".
Translation: Thank you US friends.Here we have voted quite frequently since 1978 (and taking into account the democracy index we are better than you are there) ...Mrs Hunt has the same knowledge of Spanish democracy as of its flag.
Some comments are simply insults, and cannot be reproduced.
Some Catalans, for their part, came out in defence of the Hollywood star.
The Helen Hunt case is, in fact, one more instance of famous Americans taking photos of Catalan independence symbols, such as those of Kimbal Musk, brother of entrepreneur Elon Musk, who was married in Catalonia last weekend. But on a previous visit to the area, he got close to the locals and shared a number of images, on a very special date - the October 1st independence referendum: