RIVADULLA DURÓ v. SPAIN DECISION right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 10 § 1 of the Convention. The Court is further satisfied that the interference was prescribed by law (see paragraph 16 above) and pursued a legitimate aim, namely the national security and public safety, within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention. The question is therefore whether the interference was “necessary in a democratic society” (see, for example, Otegi Mondragon, § 49, and Perinçek, §§ 196-97, both cited above). 44. The Court notes that it may happen that the exercise of the right to freedom of expression interferes with other rights safeguarded by the Convention and the Protocols thereto. In such cases, the Court examines whether the national authorities struck a proper balance between protection of the right to freedom of expression and other rights or values guaranteed by the Convention (see Perinçek, cited above, § 274). If the balancing exercise has been carried out by the national authorities in conformity with the criteria laid down in the Court’s case-law, the Court would require strong reasons to substitute its own view for theirs (see Delfi AS v. Estonia [GC], no. 64569/09, § 139, ECHR 2015, and MGN Limited v. the United Kingdom, no. 39401/04, § 150, 18 January 2011). 45. Referring to the applicant’s conviction for slander against the Head of State, the Court notes that the present case, while containing apparent similarities with Otegi Mondragon (cited above), must be clearly distinguished from that case because of its substantial differences. In Otegi Mondragon the Court found that there had been a breach of Article 10 of the Convention on account of the sentence of one year’s imprisonment imposed on the applicant for having described the former King as “in charge of the torturers”. 46. The Court took into account, firstly, the capacity in which the applicant had made the statements, as a political representative elected by the people (see Otegi Mondragon, cited above, § 51); it also considered the context in which the controversial statements had been made – at a press conference – and noted that they were oral statements and that the applicant had been unable to reformulate, refine or retract them before they had been made public (ibid., § 54). Furthermore, the Court considered that the statements did not call into question the King’s private life. Lastly, it gave particular weight to the severity of the penalty imposed, namely one year’s imprisonment (ibid., §§ 58 and 59). 47. In the present case the circumstances are different, thus leading to a different conclusion. The applicant is not a political representative elected by the people but a singer (see paragraph 2 above). His messages were conveyed in writing and his song was written and recorded before the video of it was published, which presupposes that they were the result of a thought process such that the assertions they contain cannot be justified by the immediacy of the context. Indeed, many of the tweets constitute serious accusations and allegations of serious offences without any evidence beyond the applicant’s 15