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The impact of the Spanish government campaign against the Basques

Basque Observatory of Human Rights | 17.03.2004 16:13 | Analysis | Repression

As we feared, the campaign against the Basques organised by the Spanish government and amplified by the mass media has had a big impact in the enjoyment of the human rights of some Basque citizens. The tense situation has exploded in some concrete actions:

As we feared, the campaign against the Basques organised by the Spanish government and amplified by the mass media has had a big impact in the enjoyment of the human rights of some Basque citizens. The tense situation has exploded in some concrete actions:

Angel Berroeta shot dead

Today Angel Berroeta, Basque citizen has been shot by a Spanish National Police in the bakery where he works, in Iruñea, Pamplona. He has been arrived death to the hospital.
Angel Berroeta was a member of Gurasoak –Parents-, Basque organisation of father and mother in defence of the rights of young people. After a discussion with the wife of the Police that demanded to Berroeta to place a poster against ETA, the agent came to the bakery and shoot four times against Berroeta. Two bullets hit in his body, becoming dead quickly.

Friends and relatives of Berroeta came to the place to protest spontaneously and the police has brutally attacked the group.

Basque Prisoners

Some Basque political prisoners too has received strong attacks inside the prisons in Alcalá Meco, Ocaña, Villena and Burgos. The dispersal policy has provide the vulnerability to the prisoners and the impunity to the attackers.
In Alcalá Meco three women prisoners where attacked by other prisoners with the consent of the guards. The prisoners showed wounds in different parts of the body. After the attack they were placed in isolation cells to “avoid the attacks”.
In Alcala, in the men´s block, some prisoners attacked the Basque Political Prisoners with stones and sticks. Some of them elaborated a short of petrol bomb to throw them to the prisoners.

In Villena, Eider Pérez, woman prisoner was assaulted in front of the guards and Ainara Esteran, woman too had to be sent to the infirmary due to a anxiety attack as he witnessed the beating.

In Burgos all the Basque prisoners had sent to isolation cells without any reason, just as an arbitrary punishment. In Ocaña and Aranjuez too, the Basque prisoners are in isolation and the visits had been cancelled.

Kontxi Santxiz

Kontxi Santxiz, age 58 from Hernani, Gipuzkoa, was participating in a protest demonstration to denounce the killing of Angel Berroeta. The Basque autonomous police attacked the demonstration and dispersed the people using anti-riot material. At this moment, Kontxi Santxiz fell flat to her back unconscious due to the big tension. Her relatives attended her but aware of the seriousness of the heart attack asked to the Basque police to help them and attend the victim. Their response, as some witnesses reported was: “I couldn´t care less”. Kontxi died some minutes later.

Basque Observatory of Human Rights
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- Homepage: http://www.behatokia.info

Comments

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ETA prisoners are not political prisoners

18.03.2004 14:58

Basque political prisoners?What the hell are u talking about?They are not political prisoners,that kind of prisoners are prisoners that are in jail because of their political thoughts,the ETA prisoners have killed about 800 hundred people,many of them civilians that their only crime against human rights were living or walking very near to a soldier or a policeman,they have killed also many children!!!.It´s true that their bomb targets are not civilians but they don´t care a fucking shit if they kill several civilians on their bomb attacks.They are killers,terrorists,they have also killed too many civilians in Madrid in the last 8 years and they made a giant bomb attack on a supermarket and in a mail office 20 years ago that killed lots of inocent people.

The terrorism is not the way to fight for your rights,it´s useless and the only thing that it brings is repression and pain for too many people,the basque people have only gone back with their rights since ETA didn´t stop killing after Franco´s dictatorship.

It´s true that we have to make diferences between abertzales(socialist people who want the indepence for Basque country) and ETA,but we have to say also that ETA are fucking KILLERS,the abertzale´s people are not killers and many of them are against ETA,they are the people that are suffering repression,they are normal people like Berrueta and Kontxi that have been killed because of that crazy 4 days in Spain,but they are too many less people than the inocent people killed by ETA.

But talking about this we are missing one very important thing: In the Basque country the half of the people are basque nationalists:abertzales and right nationalists(more than abertzales,they are extremely capitalists,they have the government in the basque country);the other half of basque people are people who don´t want the Basque country to be out of Spain.So why killing one to each other? nobody here want the Basque country to be like Northern Ireland even when ETA is trying to do it,we don´t want hate one to each other and the basque people have given us loads of solidarity these days because we are brothers,and we don´t hate them we just hate ETA and the pople here don´t like that 2 deaths in Nafarroa and Hernani,we gave them our solidarity and we give it today also,killing people is not the way of getting more rigths even when they are policemen,soldiers,politicians or fascists,that is the Ulster´s way of living in the last forty years(because of English army and IRA),i´ve been living in belfast for one month and we don´t want the same situation for the Basque Country.

Greetings from Madrid,Solidarity for abertzale´s people and all the people that are fighting without violence for a better world.We´ll see ya on the 20th March!!!!!!!!

Fernando(Anarchist from Madrid)