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Basque Info 11/11/09
Submitted by admin on Or, 2009/11/13 - 00:03
Amnesty International denounces police impunity.
Six months of illegitimate government in the Basque Autonomous Region.
Weekend celebrations show the strength of Basque social movement.
Prisoners’ relatives harassed.
BBSC calls for case against Inaki de Juana Chaos to be dropped.
www.irishbasquecommittees.blogspot.com
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-Amnesty International denounces police impunity.
Last week AI published a report where it highlighted the impunity of Spanish police in torture cases. The damming report says there is no political will to put measures in place to prevent torture. AI describes the current system of investigation and punishment of torture as a “black hole”.
The report suggests several procedures and actions to the Spanish and Basque Autonomous Region’s governments to end torture. These include the creation of an independent body to investigate the complaints (up until now it’s the same police accused of the abuse who “investigate” the accusations), setting up video and audio systems in interrogation centres and ensuring that the police wear identification numbers or names on their uniforms.
For many years now AI has asked the Spanish authorities to stop torture and to end the incommunicado period during which it usually happens. The Spanish authorities have continuously ignored AI’s recommendations.
Just two weeks ago the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions spoke against the imprisonment of Batasuna’s spokesperson Professor Landa. The report was initially ignored by the Spanish government but last week judge Baltasar Garzon rejected it and accused the UN body of lack of information on the case.
-Six months of illegitimate government in the Basque Autonomous Region.
Six months ago the Spanish Labour Party/PSOE took over the three western Basque provinces' regional parliament with the support of the Spanish Conservative Party/PP.
It was the end of 30 years of Basque Nationalist Party/PNV government. The change was possible as a result of the banning of the pro-independence left. In this way the political apartheid imposed by the Spanish authorities reached one of its objectives.
The same type of government is in place in the other Basque regional parliament of Navarre where the Spanish unionist right wing holds power thanks to the support of the Spanish Labour Party and the banning of the pro-independence left.
These strange coalitions show the nature of the state pact against the Basque people’s will for change and democracy.
During the first six months of the Basque Autonomous Region’s government political tension has increased with an extremely repressive summer against all displays of solidarity with political prisoners, the banning of demonstrations and the efforts to make Basque national symbols disappear from public places.
The latest controversy came about last week when the regional Education Minister expressed her aims to make all references to the Basque Country as a nation disappear from the curriculum. She went on to say that Basque language medium education was offensive for 80% of the population.
The objectives of the pro-Spanish political offensive are clear: to turn the three western Basque provinces into a “normal” Spanish region and to make the unionist vision of the region the “neutral” vision in opposition to the “biased” nationalist vision.
-Weekend celebrations show the strength of Basque social movement.
Last Saturday thousands of young people took over the streets of Arrasate to celebrate the National Student’s Day. The day of events was organised by Ikasle Abertzaleak/Nationalist Students, the largest student organisation in the Basque Country with local groups in secondary schools and universities.
This year's event, organised under the slogan “Drawing the future”, saw debates during the morning around the capitalist and patriarchal system’s effects in education. In the afternoon there was lunch and a demonstration followed. At the end of it speakers from the Basque Country, the Catalan Countries and Ireland spoke about their different student struggles. The day ended with a music festival.
Also on Saturday the Basque international solidarity organization Askapena/Liberation organised its annual Internationalist Day. 300 people gathered in Altsasu for a day packed with events, with a special focus on solidarity with Palestine and the boycott campaign against Israel.
Last weekend also marked the 30th anniversary of the creation of Euskal Herrian Euskaraz/In the Basque Country in Basque. For the last three decades this grassroots organisation has been working hard in defence of, and to promote, the Basque language.
In a press conference they announced many events will be organised in coming months to celebrate the anniversary but more importantly to strengthen the organisation and the two fundamental axes of their work: denouncing and defending the movement against the attacks and the development of a strategy that will lead to a Basque Country that will live in Basque.
Last Saturday more than 1,000 members of the largest trade union Basque Workers Solidarity/ELA gathered in the south of Navarre to pay tribute to the more than 3,000 people executed by the Spanish fascist forces during the 1936-39 war in this Basque province. Among the executed were socialists, anarchists, communists, nationalists...and many ELA members also. This tribute is part of a broader process of recovering the historical memory set in place by many different grassroots organisations created over the past few years across the Basque Country.
-Prisoners’ relatives harassed.
Last weekend many Basque political prisoners lost their right to visit their loved ones after refusing to submit to being searched by guards in dozens of Spanish jails. It seems like this is another step up by the Spanish authorities in the harassment relatives have to endure to visit the 742 Basque political prisoners.
Friends and relatives have to travel hundreds of miles every weekend to visit them in 85 jails across France and Spain putting their lives at risk on the road. Two of them had to be taken to hospital last weekend and 16 have lost their lives during the past 20 years.
Even the prisoners’ relatives association has been recently targeted in a criminalisation campaign by the Spanish authorities and media.
Prisoners in different jails started protests against these new searching measures.
-BBSC calls for case against Inaki de Juana Chaos to be dropped.
The Belfast Basque Solidarity Committee has called for the cases brought against two members of the Basque community living in Belfast, Inaki de Juana, and Arturo Villaneuva to be dropped. The case, being heard today and tomorrow is an attempt by the Spanish prosecution service to see Inaki de Juana returned to Spain.
Speaking today a spokesperson for the group, Kevin Morrison, said:
"The case against Inaki de Juana being heard in the High Court in Belfast over the next two days is based on pressure being brought by the Spanish authorities and victims groups in Spain. It is purely a political act by the Spanish to see Mr de Juana incarcerated once again.
Instead of allowing Mr de Juana to live his life following his release, the Spanish authorities have pursued him on the spurious charges. This arises from a letter allegedly written by Mr de Juana read at a rally that he was not even in attendance at, stating the phrase ‘kick the ball forward’. This is the term that the Spanish authorities state is a political phrase that endorses terrorism.
Clearly this is a politically motivated charge as is the extradition campaign against Arturo Villanueva, who the Spanish are also seeking to extradite.
We need to be clear. This is part and parcel of the persecution faced by many within the Basque Country and further afield which has seen political, social and community groups banned along with newspapers and radio stations closed.
The Spanish authorities need to pull back from these extraditions and actively seek, in unison with the representatives of the Basque people who they have recently imprisoned, a meaningful and inclusive dialogue in order to resolve the conflict. Such actions as this today are not ways to engender a peace process, and to build confidence. They only serve as a retrograde step, and continue to undermine any possible moves forward between all sides of this conflict.
