- Criminalisation
- Prisoners
- Disenfranchised
- International Condemnation
- Links
Criminalisation
Over the last 11 years the Spanish state has launched a broad offensive against those who are working for self-determination and independence for the Basque Country.
According to the Spanish authorities, everyone who agrees with the ETA objectives of independence for the Basque Country is part of ETA. This crackdown on civil society organisations in favour of self-determination has intensified within the framework of the so-called global “war on terror”.
In recent years, the Spanish authorities have closed down two newspapers, one radio station and two magazines, and arrested, tortured and imprisoned their editors and staff members.
They have banned hundreds of pro-independence local election candidates and four political parties, human rights organisations, grassroots movements and cultural and youth groups. They have closed down dozens of companies, bars and clubs.
Civil and political rights are under constant attack. Freedom of speech, association, assembly and electoral rights are being breached on a daily basis.
Prisoners
250 people have been arrested, imprisoned and many of them tried and sentenced to between six and 29 years in prison for their political, public and peaceful work in all these groups.
There are now 765 Basque political prisoners, the highest number since the death of dictator General Franco in 1975. They are spread out in 85 prisons across Spain and France — on average about 600km from the Basque Country, far from their families, friends and homes.
The return of prisoners to the Basque Country has long been a central demand of the Basque people.
Dramatic testimonies of torture emerge every time someone is arrested.
The Basque human rights NGO, Group Against Torture (TAT), has listed testimonies of torture from 62 people in 2008, all of whom had been held incommunicado. The torture and abuse they were subjected to include beatings, sexual assault, plastic bag asphyxiation, food and sleep deprivation, use of stress positions, and threats to rape or kill detainees or their family members.
Disenfranchised
Over the past few years Spain’s Law of Political Parties has been used to ban several left-wing pro-independence Basque political parties. For example, in the recent elections to the Basque Autonomous Community regional parliament held on March 1, the banning of several left-wing pro-independence political parties resulted in a situation where the Basque people who generally vote for these parties – up to 200,000 people or about 15-20 per cent of voters – were completely disenfranchised and now have no representation in parliament.
As a direct consequence of this disenfranchisement, the mainstream Basque Nationalist Party, which received the majority of votes in the recent elections but failed to win an outright majority of seats, has been ousted from power by an alliance between the two main Spanish parties – an alliance formed on the basis of their shared opposition to Basque self-determination.
Clearly, through using this law, it is not the tactics but the political goals of the pro-independence political parties that the Spanish government is aiming to crush.
This month, the Spanish government banned a left-wing electoral ticket comprising candidates from across the Spanish state – International Initiative – Solidarity of the Peoples (II-SP), which supports the rights of the Basque, Catalan and Galician peoples to self-determination – from participating in the upcoming European elections. On appeal, the Constitutional Court finally ruled in favour of II-SP
International condemnation
All these attacks haven’t gone unnoticed. These breaches of human rights have drawn the attention and condemnation of the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the European Democratic Lawyers’ Association, among others. All of them have published reports and documents expressing their concerns about the treatement by the Spanish state of the Basque people, and the violation of their human, political and civil rights.
In a report published in December 2008, UN human rights special rapporteur, Martin Scheinin, expressed concern that Spain’s Law of Political Parties defined “terrorism” so vaguely that it “might be interpreted to include any political party which through peaceful political means seeks similar political objectives” as those pursued by armed organisations.
Also in the UN report, the special rapporteur stated that the law against “glorifying terrorism” “should include the requirements of an intent to incite the commission of a terrorist offence, as well as the existence of an actual risk that such an offence will be committed as a consequence”.
The report also slammed the fact that all the political cases are judged by Audiencia Nacional (National Court), a Diplock-style political court descended from fascist dictator General Franco’s Public Order Tribunal. The Supreme Court has only a limited ability to review the court’s judgements.
For more information on the Spanish government’s abuse of the human rights of the Basque people, visit the links below.
