NIEUWSOVERZICHT

WEEKLY UPDATE BASQUE INFORMATION CENTRE, WEEK 23, 29 June until 6 July

In Madrid the Basque political prisoner Jokin Zubieta, handed over in 2002 by the French authorities to the Spanish, is being released after an appeal at the High Court. Zubieta spent 7 years in prison.
At the 25th of June Baltasar Garzón of the Audiencia Nacional suspends all activities of the outlawed Basque organisation of city-councillors Udalbiltza for at least a period of two years, could be extended to 5 years. Also the total fortune of Udalbiltza is seized. Garzón outlawed Udalbiltza, an organisation who took the first steps towards selfdetermination, at the end of April.
At the 29th of June more than 5.000 protestors march in Iruñea against the coming flooding of the area Irati-Tales in the province of Naffaroa and against the building of a weir at Itoiz. The environmental group ‘Solidarios con Itoiz’ announces more actions.
In Madrid the Basque political prisoners José Félix Pérez, Gorka Arabulu and Rosi Arana are being released after spending two years in ‘detention in remand’. For this unjust punishment they can’t get satisfaction, because the 3 were arrested under the ‘anti-terror’laws.
At the 30th of June, the Basque regional government rejects once more the order from the Spanish authorities to remove the parliamentarians from Sozialista Abertzalak, because they don’t have any law to do that. Instead of removing them, they now cut of all subsidies. The Spanish High Court decided in the 19th of June that the refusal is a strong offence against the Spanish constitution and that measures will be taken against those responsible in parliament.
At the opening of a parliamentarian ‘national’ debate, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar fiercely attacks the plans of the Lehendakari (Basque regional president) Juan Jose Ibarretxe for more autonomy for the Basque Country. With an appeal to “national unity in the face of terror” Aznar declared, “that nobody could change for his own benefit something we created together” (…) “it’s an ethnic project” (…) and “this is the price we have to pay for the terrorism”. Aznar also said that with the outlawing of the Basque political party Batasuna “democratic dignity was restored and that the elections of the 25th of May were the dawn of a new era. The elections were more free”. The secretary-general of the social democratic PSOE Jose Luis Rodriguez agreed with Aznar “ that the national unity of Spain had to be guaranteed for everything.”
At the 30th of June Santiago Arrospide Sarasola and Rafael Caride Simon appeared for the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid for the bomb-attack on a shopping mal in Barcelona at June 1978, where 21 people were killed and 45 got wounded. The prosecutor wants punishment of 950 years for each. ETA declared after the attack that it was “a grave mistake”. Sarasola and Simon were removed from court when they refused to answer any questions. Sarasola, also known as Santi Potros, was captured in 1987 in France, where he served a 13-year prison sentence, before handed over in 2000 to Spain. He is already convicted to 174 years for alleged involvement in other attacks. Simon was also arrested in France and in March 2000 extradited to Spain. Two other members of the ‘Commando Barcelona’, where Sarasola and Simon are also reckoned to, Domingo Torres and Josefina Ernaga were arrested in 1997 and convicted to a sentence of 794 years. Last week a memorial was established in Barcelona to commemorate the victims. Some of them still didn’t get financial compensation.
At the first of July the trial against the German Petra Elser finally starts in Madrid. Elser was arrested in Paris in 1996 together with her young son and her heavily wounded friend Juan Luis Agirre. She was convicted there to 30 months in prison for ‘membership of a criminal group’. Because of a Spanish extradition order she spent another 17 months more in a Paris prison. After her release she lived and worked in Paris for one year, before suddenly being extradited to Spain. There she spent 19 months in ‘detention in remand’; the main charge in the extradition request (“involvement in an attempt to an attack by ETA”) was dropped, so that the only charge left was the ‘membership of a criminal group’ for which she was already convicted in France. In this case of ‘double punishment’ Madrid is not allowed to prosecute her for the same crime, and that happened on the second of July, when Petra Elser was acquitted of all charges. For this she spent 17 months in extradition detention in Paris, 19 in Madrid in ‘detention in remand’. The public prosecutor tried to give her an 8-year sentence, by putting up the removed charge from a second extradition request “the involvement in an attack by ETA on a bus with military relatives”, a multiple (19) murder attempt. The judge removed this and also all the appeals launched by Elsers lawyer during her detention for a speed trial. Petra Elser was not directly released, she was locked up in a cell in the court for “investigation whether she didn’t have any other charges filed against her”. They didn’t have time for that the last 3 years, apparently.
At the first of July the Basque regional police, Ertzaintza, disables a car bomb in Bilbao. There was a telephone call made by somebody speaking on behalf of ETA, who warned for the bomb and said the time and location. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs the bomb was meant for the Ertzaintza and had to go off while dismantling it. The Ertzaintza’s found a document that explained they were the targets. They also found the names Urko and Zigor written on the explosive. Urko Aranbarri and Zigor Gerrikabeitia died in Bolueta (Bizkaia) in August 2000.
At the second of July Iñigo Elkoro the spokesman of the Basque committee against torture, declared that the protocol which was implemented by the Basque Region Government for the support of victims of the notorious incommunicado-detention, “enables the Basque police Ertzaintza only to continue torture”. At the 17th of June the Ertzaintza arrested 6 people for “street violence” and at the 24th of June they arrested two more. Four days later all of them declared to be tortured and one of them had to got to hospital four times. These were the first statements of torture since the implementation at the 11th of April. According to Elkoro the Ertzaintza uses different measures of torture than occur in the protocol, ones that leaves no traces. So the daily visits (of court appointed doctors) are of no use. One of the doctors, Benito Morentin, declared: “We can’t establish physical of psychological torture which leaves no traces. But that doesn’t mean that torture didn’t occur”.
Since the first edition of the new Basque Daily Berria at the 21th of June was for sale, 22.000 copies were daily sold. That is the highest score a daily newspaper entirely in Basque has ever got. The aim is to sell daily 25.000 copies.
At the 4th of July journalists, workers and sympathisers in cities all over the Basque country protest against the ‘strangle’ measures that are used against the leftwing Basque newspaper GARA to close it down. GARA declared that they won’t pay the 5.1 million Euro, for which they are hold responsible by Spanish authorities, as the never proven successor of the for 5 years closed leftwing daily Egin. Judge Garzón should instead close down Real Madrid, who have debts up to 50 million Euro, but still spent 25 million Euro to buy David Beckham.

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WEEKLY UPDATE BASQUE INFORMATION CENTRE, WEEK 23, 29 June until 6 July
In Madrid the Basque political prisoner Jokin Zubieta, handed over in 2002 by the French authorities to the Spanish, is being released after an appeal at the High Court. Zubieta spent 7 years in prison. At the 25th of June Baltasar Garzón of the Audiencia Nacional suspends all activities of the outlawed Basque organisation of city-councillors Udalbiltza for at least a period of two years, could be extended to 5 years. Also the total fortune of Udalbiltza is seized. Garzón outlawed Udalbiltza, an organisation who took the first steps towards selfdetermination, at the end of April. At the 29th of June more than 5.000 protestors march in Iruñea against the coming flooding of the area Irati-Tales in the province of Naffaroa and against the building of a weir at Itoiz. The environmental group ‘Solidarios con Itoiz’ announces more actions. In Madrid the Basque political prisoners José Félix Pérez, Gorka Arabulu and Rosi Arana are being released after spending two years in ‘detention in remand’. For this unjust punishment they can’t get satisfaction, because the 3 were arrested under the ‘anti-terror’laws. At the 30th of June, the Basque regional government rejects once more the order from the Spanish authorities to remove the parliamentarians from Sozialista Abertzalak, because they don’t have any law to do that. Instead of removing them, they now cut of all subsidies. The Spanish High Court decided in the 19th of June that the refusal is a strong offence against the Spanish constitution and that measures will be taken against those responsible in parliament. At the opening of a parliamentarian ‘national’ debate, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar fiercely attacks the plans of the Lehendakari (Basque regional president) Juan Jose Ibarretxe for more autonomy for the Basque Country. With an appeal to “national unity in the face of terror” Aznar declared, “that nobody could change for his own benefit something we created together” (…) “it’s an ethnic project” (…) and “this is the price we have to pay for the terrorism”. Aznar also said that with the outlawing of the Basque political party Batasuna “democratic dignity was restored and that the elections of the 25th of May were the dawn of a new era. The elections were more free”. The secretary-general of the social democratic PSOE Jose Luis Rodriguez agreed with Aznar “ that the national unity of Spain had to be guaranteed for everything.” At the 30th of June Santiago Arrospide Sarasola and Rafael Caride Simon appeared for the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid for the bomb-attack on a shopping mal in Barcelona at June 1978, where 21 people were killed and 45 got wounded. The prosecutor wants punishment of 950 years for each. ETA declared after the attack that it was “a grave mistake”. Sarasola and Simon were removed from court when they refused to answer any questions. Sarasola, also known as Santi Potros, was captured in 1987 in France, where he served a 13-year prison sentence, before handed over in 2000 to Spain. He is already convicted to 174 years for alleged involvement in other attacks. Simon was also arrested in France and in March 2000 extradited to Spain. Two other members of the ‘Commando Barcelona’, where Sarasola and Simon are also reckoned to, Domingo Torres and Josefina Ernaga were arrested in 1997 and convicted to a sentence of 794 years. Last week a memorial was established in Barcelona to commemorate the victims. Some of them still didn’t get financial compensation. At the first of July the trial against the German Petra Elser finally starts in Madrid. Elser was arrested in Paris in 1996 together with her young son and her heavily wounded friend Juan Luis Agirre. She was convicted there to 30 months in prison for ‘membership of a criminal group’. Because of a Spanish extradition order she spent another 17 months more in a Paris prison. After her release she lived and worked in Paris for one year, before suddenly being extradited to Spain. There she spent 19 months in ‘detention in remand’; the main charge in the extradition request (“involvement in an attempt to an attack by ETA”) was dropped, so that the only charge left was the ‘membership of a criminal group’ for which she was already convicted in France. In this case of ‘double punishment’ Madrid is not allowed to prosecute her for the same crime, and that happened on the second of July, when Petra Elser was acquitted of all charges. For this she spent 17 months in extradition detention in Paris, 19 in Madrid in ‘detention in remand’. The public prosecutor tried to give her an 8-year sentence, by putting up the removed charge from a second extradition request “the involvement in an attack by ETA on a bus with military relatives”, a multiple (19) murder attempt. The judge removed this and also all the appeals launched by Elsers lawyer during her detention for a speed trial. Petra Elser was not directly released, she was locked up in a cell in the court for “investigation whether she didn’t have any other charges filed against her”. They didn’t have time for that the last 3 years, apparently. At the first of July the Basque regional police, Ertzaintza, disables a car bomb in Bilbao. There was a telephone call made by somebody speaking on behalf of ETA, who warned for the bomb and said the time and location. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs the bomb was meant for the Ertzaintza and had to go off while dismantling it. The Ertzaintza’s found a document that explained they were the targets. They also found the names Urko and Zigor written on the explosive. Urko Aranbarri and Zigor Gerrikabeitia died in Bolueta (Bizkaia) in August 2000. At the second of July Iñigo Elkoro the spokesman of the Basque committee against torture, declared that the protocol which was implemented by the Basque Region Government for the support of victims of the notorious incommunicado-detention, “enables the Basque police Ertzaintza only to continue torture”. At the 17th of June the Ertzaintza arrested 6 people for “street violence” and at the 24th of June they arrested two more. Four days later all of them declared to be tortured and one of them had to got to hospital four times. These were the first statements of torture since the implementation at the 11th of April. According to Elkoro the Ertzaintza uses different measures of torture than occur in the protocol, ones that leaves no traces. So the daily visits (of court appointed doctors) are of no use. One of the doctors, Benito Morentin, declared: “We can’t establish physical of psychological torture which leaves no traces. But that doesn’t mean that torture didn’t occur”. Since the first edition of the new Basque Daily Berria at the 21th of June was for sale, 22.000 copies were daily sold. That is the highest score a daily newspaper entirely in Basque has ever got. The aim is to sell daily 25.000 copies. At the 4th of July journalists, workers and sympathisers in cities all over the Basque country protest against the ‘strangle’ measures that are used against the leftwing Basque newspaper GARA to close it down. GARA declared that they won’t pay the 5.1 million Euro, for which they are hold responsible by Spanish authorities, as the never proven successor of the for 5 years closed leftwing daily Egin. Judge Garzón should instead close down Real Madrid, who have debts up to 50 million Euro, but still spent 25 million Euro to buy David Beckham.
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