The 184 Basque political prisoners with sentences of 30 years or more can only be released earlier if they offer their excuses to the victims, collaborate with the authorities and declare that they are sorry for their deeds by writing. This is made possible by a change in law and only applies to prisoners that already served 4/5 of their 30 years sentence.

The Basque political prisoner José Mari Sagardui holds the European record of being longest in jail; he is hold in a strong regime for 26 years now. 20 hours a day he has to stay in his cell and is not allowed any contact with other prisoners. He is not allowed to do sports, use a computer or join the dinner hall. Sagardui did some protest and solidarity actions in prison and it seems he is being punished extra hard for that. Other comrades of his that were arrested 26 years ago together with him are released already a long time ago.

The Spanish High court sentenced Javier Carcia Gaztelu (40) to 82 years of prison for alleged involvement in the murder of Fernando Herzog, the brother of the Spanish minister that constructed the dispersion of prisoners, in Donostia in 1996. Gaztelua was already convicted for 50 years for the kidnapping and killing of PP-council member Miguel Blanco. There is an investiation going on at the moment if he can be convicted for the murders of PP-politican Gregorio Ordonez, the chief of the municipial police Alfonso Morcilla and the police officer Mariona de Juan. The High court wants to prosecute his girl friend also because she refuses to declare anything at the court.

On July 6th the first of the long expected series of talks in relation with the peace process between the Basque PSE(the sister party of the Spanish ruling party PSOE) and Batasuna started. Later on talks between Batasuna and Aralar and the PNV to negotiate the consistence of the 'political round table' in the Basque Country will follow.

A balance of repression against Basque citizens, 3 month after the permanent ceasefire of ETA: Every 3 days 1 arrest, 35 in total, of which 23 people were detained 'incommunicado' where some declared to be mistreated and threatend. Six Basques were extradited to Spain. 23 people were summoned to the the High Court in Madrid and several Basque political prisoners, which should have been released soon, received extra sentences. None of the political prisoners were transfered to prisons in the Basque country. The dispersion politic lead to 29 wounded family members and friends of political prisoners, caused by traffic accidents, that were on their way to prison visits. A Herriko Taberna('Peoples tavern' of Batasuna) was shut down, a press conference was prohibited and raided. A manifestation of the Basque youth movement SEGI was attacked and the police controls on high ways are increased. And last but not least: the mega process '18/98' against the Basque independence movement is still going on.

On 15th of July Pablo Munez (65), the director of the newspaper group Noticias (and former director of the closed down paper EGIN) and Jesus Iruretagoiena (66), a former political prisoner and ex refugee, are arrested. The arrests were issued by the investigation judge Baltasar Garzon, who returned to his former post just 15 month ago, and were both related to the investigation of payments by industrialists to ETA. According to Garzon, Muoz is the negotiator for the industrialist Marticorena from Naffaroa. Iruretagoiena is released on probation one day later, even though the accusation against him ('collaboration with ETA') stands and he has to report to a police station every week. Munoz is place in 'incommunicado'-detention and released on bail (4000 euro) on the 15th with an accusation of 'collaboration with ETA'.

At the end of July was pointed out again how many armed police officers and soldiers are stationed in the Basque country at the moment. The region is the most militarized of whole Europe. In 82 barracks are 6117 members of the Guardia Civil, in 13 police stations are 2865 police officers of the Spanish police, 7988 Basque cops of the Ertzainza, in Naffaroa 638 cops, the Spanish army is with 2049 soldiers a bit less present than the French army (2200) and there are 7988 bodyguards working for the police in the Basque country.

End of July the Spanish prime ministers Zapatero does a speech in front of the Spanish parliament considering his dialog with ETA. He says that 'the governement shall respect the result of an eventual referendum in the Basque country, that is made in liberty and without violence.' On July 6th a majority of the parties in the European parliament is supporting a resolution that supports the initiative of Zapatero.

According to the 10th of July issue of left-wing newspaper GARA there were negotiations between ETA and the Spanish state in the period of June 2005 until February 2006 about compromises and guarantees that led to a permanent ceasefire in March. Two points of the agenda were/are the prisoner question and the demilitarization. The Spanish government is be said to accept the results of a referendum in Naffaroa and that there would be no more arrests by the Basque, Spanish and French(!) police. The last point was not put in practice, as can be seen in point 3 of this overview here.

It became known end of June that the preparations of the negotiations are coordinated via the Centre Henri Dunant in Geneva and that this organization was busy already since 2004 to initiate talks. It is said that the negotiator on the side of ETA is Josu Urrutikoetxea, even though he is on the 'European list of terrorist people'.