Mrixol Iparragire, Basque political prisoners in Muret/Seysses in France is on hunger strike since 17 May. She demands improvement of her situation and accuses the traffic accident in which several members of her family were involved during their journey back home of one of her visits. Iparragire has to change her cell every month, gets no study books on her cell and is not allowed to take part in the activities in the prison. Her partner Mikel Albisu, alleged top man of ETA, started a solidarity hungerstrike in the same prison.

On 1 July another traffic accident happened, which brings the number of people getting wounded on their way to prisons and back home to 42. This time Irantzu Abad, a friend of the Basque political prisoner Jorge Urunuela, in prison in Madrid, fell into a coma after her car turned over and crashed into a wall. She is hopitalized with broken arms and a heavy concussion.

In the night of 4 and 5 of June Canada extradited the political prisoners Gorka Perea and Eduardo Plagero to Spain. They are accused of street violence, the so called 'Kale Borroka', during 1992. After their arrests they were abused and so they decided to run away. They have a 6 resp. 7 year punishment pending. The two were living in Quebec were they asked for political asylum. After 2 years of prison they were released in 2003 on bail, but were arrested again in 2004 to be extradited.

In Uruguay the Basque political refugee Juan Jose Urrutia died after a long lasting disease. He run in 1992 from the Basque country and was in prison for 18 month, but not extradited. Since December last year he was in hospital.

On 4 June 50.000 people demonstrate in Bilbao behind the banner 'Orain herria, orain bakea, 'Now the people, now peace', as the peace proposal of Batasuna is called. The dispersion of prisoners was accused and many were wearing a black bond because of the death of Jon Idigoras one day ago. Idigoras was co-founder of the left basque trade union LAB and Herri Batasuna. He was spokesman of the last until 1995. He was a representative in the Spanish government for a long time, was kidnapped in Ecuador in 1985 and extradited, was arrested a couple of times (because of singing the 'Eusko Gudariak' in 1981 when the Spanish king Carlos visited Gernika).He had 75 court investigations started against him, he had to show up 200 time in front of the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid and survived 2 attacks on his life.

On the same day 250.000 people (according to the police, the media and the organizers between 500.000 and a million) follow the call of the Union of victims of terrorism (AVT) and the Partido Popular to demonstrate against the given mandate to the government of Zapatero to start a dialog with ETA. Slogans like 'Aznar for president','you feel it, you know it, Aznar is here'. The main banner had the slogan 'For the victims and for everyone, no negotiations in our name'. The spokesman of AVT, Fransisco Jose Alcaraz, called Zapatero a 'betrayer of the dead'.

After the elections in Galicia on June 19 the way is free for the PSOE to wield a more couragous politics in the regions, especially in the Basque country. The Pardido Popular of Manuel Fraga, founder of the PP and protector of Aznar and Rajoy and former minister under Franco lost power. The PP tried to scare the inhabitants of Galicia with the local left-wing nationalism by saying that 'ETA will be imported to Galicia by them'. The PSOE and the left-wing nationalists will govern Galicia the coming 4 year.

On 22 June Ibarretxe is elected again as Basque president; EHAK gave 2 of her 9 voices to Ibarretxe, which received 34 voices in total, with support of her coalition partner EA and the IU. Patxi Lopez, the candidate of the Basque PSOE received support of his own party and of the PP and got 33 in total. Aralar, the split fraction of Batasuna voted blank and the 7 leftover members of EHAK wrote 'democracy and peace' on their voting card; by doing so their votes became invalid. The new Basque government of EAJ-PNV, EA and IU are starting with a minority but an ambitous agenda; It support the will of Zapatero to negotiate with ETA and and wants to launch a referendum about the political status of the Basque country during its ruling period. During the inauguration of Ibarretxe in Gernika the members of parliament of EHAK were absent.

The U.N. comite against torture reported that the Spanish government violated a couple of articles of the convention and is giving them 90 days to make an end to the practice of torture. The verdict is based upon the case of Kepa Urra Guridi, who filed a complaint at the UN on 8 February 2002. He was arrested by the Guardia Civil was tortured heavily so that he had to be taken to the hospital. He filed a complaint against the officers. The High Court in Bizkaia sentenced 2 officers of the Guardia Civil in 1997 to 4 and 6 years of prison. In a higher appeal that sentence was brought down to 1 year only. During the appeal there 'was evidence that during the interrogation violence was used to press a testimony, but that 1 year is equal with the gravity of the crime.' On 17 July 1999 the council of ministers let them go. The UN-comite regards this as a 'lack of punishment', not sufficient to prevent a repetition of violation.'

Begin of June the complaint of Unai Romano, a young Basque that was heavily tortured in 2001 and whose picture (before and after the 'treatment') became famous, was denied by a judge from Madrid. He even thinks of accusing Romano of the falsification of medical evidence.

On June 8 Arnaldo Otegi and Jon Salaerria of Batasuna have to appear again in the High Court of Madrid. Now they are accused of 'ETA-leadership'. After hearing his accusation Otegi is allowed to leave again, remarkable for an 'ETA-leader'.

Against Salaberria an international arrest was issued a while ago, so he did not show up 4 of the 27 people that are accused in the case against the Pro-Amnestia-movement, that were arrested in 2001, are released on 14 June on a bail of 10.000 euro. But the demands of 10 years of prison against Julen Zelarain, Gorka Zulaika, Josu Beaumont and Iñaki Reta are still standing. Reta was arrested on 5 February 2003, in an operation against the anti-repression organization Askatasuna.

On 20 June the 4th chamber of the Spanish National Court made a verdict in the case against the left Basque organizations 'Jarrai-Haika-SEGI', where 28 young people are charged with 'membership in a terrorist organization'. The court decides the the youthorganization is ideologically close to ETA, but that it does not use weapons, so there could not be spoken of a terrorist organization. But 16 young people are charged with 'membership in an illegal organization' and sentenced to 3,5 years of prison. 8 are sentenced to 2.5 years because of 'active membership', 4 were not sentenced and 5 were already released earlier. Because the final sentences are lower than their pre-arrest-period (some were improsent for 4 years already) all of them are released, execpt Markel Ormazabal, Ibon Meñika and Igor Chillon. They probably have to stay in prison longer when the sentence is definite, because the charges against them are highter than the pre-arrest-period. Those charges remain absurd, since there was no proof of any criminal acts commited by the accused. All of them have to pay 5 euro everyday for the coming 20 month and also pay their proces costs. The chairman of the PP, Mariano Rajoy turns the facts upside down by commenting that SEGI is a terrorist organization after all, because they appear on the European list of terrorist organization. SEGI was placed on that list with a big helping hand of the PP; To do such a single pre-investigation in their own country was sufficent. SEGI remains an illegal organization in Spain, by the way.

On new years-eve 2000 the barracks of the Guardia Civil in Galdakano is attacked with molotowcocktails, which resulted in property damage of 45.000 euro and a cop with burn marks on his head. Three young people, Ugaitz Pérez, Iker Lima en Jon Crespo are charged with 'Kale borroka' and sentenced by the High Court in Madrid to 22 years of prison each for this action.

On 11 June a grenade of ETA explodes near the airfield of Zaragoza, that is close to a military base. ETA released a warning one hour before the attack through the Basque paper GARA; 1 grenade exploded after being fired with a grenadelauncher, one did not. No one was wounden, some flights were canceled. In a statement in the left Basque newspaper GARA on 17 June ETA says that 'a solution is possible' and that they 'would be completely available to reach this solution'. Further ETA claims 9 attacks, one of them against the grave of Franco, that was build by slaveworkers during the Spanish Civil war.

On 15 June a new statement of ETA is sent to the Basque papers GARA and Berria and the Basque television station EiTB; ETA declares to stop with deadly attacks against elected members of Spanish political parties.

ETA detonates a bomb on 25 June at the symbol of Spanish attemps to get the Olympic games in 2012, the stadium of Peineta in Madrid. The Spanish road recovery services and the Basque newspaper GARA received warning calls. The damage was limited and no one got hurt, the smoke column was big. Representatives of the OIC were visiting Almeria in Andalusia in that moment, by the way.