During the course of the year 2.000 the number of repressive actions by the various apparatus of the Spanish State (Judicial, Police and Legislative) against the population of the Basque Country has progressively increased. Consequently basic rights of citizens have been seriously restrained and have even disappeared in some situations.

We can and we should talk about a repressive offensive divided into three principal fields.

The first is the police State that is being endured in the streets due to the massive presence and activity of police agents. They impede the free circulation of traffic on the streets and roads, being searched or interrogated in a totally illegal manner which often include threats and aggression. They impede the putting up of posters with the threat of being arrested or fined. They interrupt demonstrations and one expresses oneself freely with the risk of being injured by police bullets, being arrested or being severely fined... What they impede, in short, is the exercise of free expression and circulation, apart from the tension caused by the continuous and massive presence of police and military agents in the whole of the physical geography of the Basque Country.

In second place comes Judicial activity against Basque social and political collectives, which are totally legal and public bodies. Charges have been brought against these groups of membership of an armed group, without the slightest piece of evidence to support the charge. That is, beginning with government declarations against these collectives, the judiciary then have to elaborate false reports which will allow for the detention and imprisonment of people related to these groups. Thus, a serious lack of independence of the judicial power with regard to the mandates laid out by the Madrid Government can be seen. There is also a lack of guarantees to protect the free exercise of social and political work. This is bringing us directly to the installation of a totalitarian system, in which the fact of thinking differently and working publicly for these ideas is resulting in the imprisonment of those involved.

In spite of the fact that the last two sections have made clear the existence of a exceptional situation for Basque citizens, the Spanish legislative have just approved a series of reforms of the present Penal Code which will complement the special laws that already exist. This reform includes articles on the imprisonment of youths of as young as 14 for periods of up to 10 years, the prohibition of the rights to demonstrate in support of certain ideas, whether this be through demonstrations, through the press, or in public acts etc... In this way the State of Exception has been legalised in the Basque Country, with special military and police measures, with special trials and special courts, and with special laws.

Curiously all these special measures were put together and contemplated during the period when the activity of armed organisations had ceased (‘98-99) and the objective of which is not the activity of armed organisations but the demands for sovereignty and respect of civil rights, which distinct sectors of Basque society develop in public life. Spanish political forces (principally the Popular Party and the Socialist Party) have opted for reinforcing their efforts in maintaining an undemocratic situation using all the repressive tools at their reach.

This fact, far from achieving a solution or a reduction in tension in the existing conflict aggravates it and places it in direct confrontation with the Basque people, who are the real and principal victims. The gravity of the situation can be summed up in a question. What option is left to a very important part of Basque society when they don’t have option of expressing themselves freely or when there doesn’t exist the conditions for their political project to be respected in the equality of conditions with the rest? The Basque people are hardly supposed to resign themselves to living in a dictatorship camouflaged as democracy?

Arrests made

Reason	Number	Imprisoned	Released
Accused of Terrorism	253	134	119
Putting up Propaganda	4	1	3
In demonstrations	364	3	361
For refusing to do Military Service	2	2	0
To fulfil a sentence	12	12	0
Requests and presentations in front of the court	49	37	12
Total	687	189	495