The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that two Spaniards who set fire in public to a picture of the Spanish king and queen were exercising protected free speech. The Strasbourg court ruled on 13 March that the protest by Enric Taulats and Jaume Capellera during the king’s visit to Girona in 2007 was political and amounted to a "permissible degree of provocation." The pair were initially sentenced to 15 months in prison for insulting the Crown, although the sentence was later reduced to a fine.