Protests in Ireland in solidarity with banned Basque Youth movement

international | rights, freedoms and repression | feature Sunday March 13, 2005 00:33 by sally - Irish Basque Committees irishbasques at hotmail dot com

From the newswire:

(Ireland, 12th March 2005) Forty people in Dublin, sixty in Belfast, fifteen in Galway and twenty in Derry gathered to express their solidarity with 42 Basque Youth activists of the Basque pro-independence left youth organizations Jarrai, Haika and Segi and who have been brought to courts in Madrid for a show trial and who are facing a total of 654 years in prison for their political work defending Basque youth rights and Basque Country's right to self-determination.

The judge and the state prosecution allege that "these organizations are all ETA".

Trials against the political party Batasuna, two anti-repression organizations, two newspapers, one magazine, a publishing house, etc. are to follow. All these organizations and media have been banned in the last 7 years.

Judge Garzon became famous worldwide for his attempt to extradite Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet from London to Spain a few years ago, but he looks elsewhere when Basque detainees are brought in front of him covered in bruises or with signs of deep psychological shock after the customary five day incommunicado period of interrogation (4 Basque detainees have died in police custody since Spanish "democracy" began).

In the last 7 years Judge Garzon has been dismantling various nationalist left organizations and Basque media, arguing that at the end of the day they are all ETA. He has arrested and put in jail some 200 people. No matter how little evidence he has to support his comprehensive theories, the trial had to begin last month, since under Spanish law the authorities can hold a prisoner on remand for up to four years. In fact, nine of the accused youths had to be released from jail last Friday, for they completed their remand period without being tried. They are now awaiting the result of this show trial together with another 33 youths. They are all accused of belonging to their respective youth organizations, which the judge argues are part of ETA. They could get up to 654 years in total.

Since freedom of association was finally recognized by the Spanish state in the late seventies after dictatorship, the Basque nationalist left youth organization Jarrai and its successors Haika and Segi have been working for better conditions for the youth, for promoting alternative ways of life like the Gaztetxes (self-managed centres for the youth), against conscription, etc.

This is not a criminal case but a political one where the accusations are collective, not based on individual acts. By Judge Garzon's standards tens of thousands of Basque people could be imprisoned any time. So far he has got some of the more determined and committed to achieve a free Basque Country. Ironically, some of those 200 people to be tried in the near future have publicly criticized ETA through the years.

In Belfast, the spokeswoman for the campaign asked for international support to stop the Spanish ad French States ferocious repression against Basque civil and political rights activists and Basque left wing pro-independence movement.

At the same time she denounced the silence of the Irish government and the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern during the time that Ireland held the European Union Presidency last year. The EU should not support such illegal and antidemocratic policies within the union but it should rather help to initiate a peace process in the Basque Country aimed to bring justice and freedom.

These protests were coordinated by the Irish Basque Committees-Coistí na mBascach-Éireannach and Ógra Shinn Féin and supported by numerous people and groups like ex-republican political prisoners, Belfast Socialist Youth and Irish Republican Socialist Party.

We want to thank everybody for coming along.

The solidarity campaign will keep going strong for the next few weeks with more events. These issues are of concern to anyone who stands for human rights such as freedom of organization and expression. Anybody who wants to join the campaign can contact us through: irishbasques@hotmail.com

protesters in Dublin