- Lawyers complain that "there are pursuing ideas and political dissent" based on the interests of the State.
- Rally in Bilbao
NEWS :
Lawyers complain.
Lawyers who have participated in the procedures against the pro-amnesty movement, EHAK("Communist Party of the Basque Homelands") and EAE-ANV (Basque Nationalist Action) , have complained today that "they are prosecuting political ideas and political dissent in procedures whose sentences are handed down in advance”.
The lawyers Jone Goirizelaia, Haizea Ziluaga, Arantza Zulueta, Iñaki Goioaga, Kepa Landa and Ainhoa Baglieto gave a press conference to make a juridical reading of the latest legal rulings. All of them have participated in the proceedings against the outlawed pro-amnesty movement, EHAK or EAE-ANV.
According Kepa Landa, these recent court decisions "are not pursuing specific conducts, specific criminal conducts, nor specific attention is being given to specific groups or individual behavior." In his view, "what they are pursuing are political ideas and dissent." In all these procedures, added, "the schemes are the same" and "none of them transmits the existence of criminal behaviour of any kind, no abuse of law or legal right other than the state's interest to act in a certain way. "
Landa explained that with all this "they are trying to achieve the disappearance of a social and political space" thus avoiding "any intervention in society and politics of people who belong to that space."
"We win trials and lose sentences"
In addition, he has denounced that new cases against more than a hundred people has been announced, "which are going to come in the same parameters, criteria and the same expected results." "They announce procedures whose judgements are already written," he stressed.
The lawyer has also referred to his work as well as that of his peers in these proceedings, and says that "it is clear that doesn't matter what it is proved" in them. "No matter the proof, or legal practice, nor the laws. If necessary laws are stretched and twisted in such a way so that they can issue a court order in line with the whole orientation of the process."
It has also complained that “the Spanish state has enacted specific laws against Basque dissidence which increasingly pursue social aspects” . “In judicial practice, what is being done is to follow the guidelines set by the Police and the Civil Guard,” said adding that "everything goes through police reports." In addition, he has emphasized, "courts do not admit the evidence presented by the defence even if it is obvious, we win the trials but lose the judgements."
"To the Spanish political system doesn't matter at all to dispense with the appearance that this is a democratic state, to do without the rule of law and the most basic separation of powers," he explained.
Finally, has revealed that this is very serious and that "it is destroying an entire system of civil liberties and, in particular, those concerning many citizens of Euskal Herria".
More than 25,000 people demanding freedom in the streets of Bilbao. .
The requirement to the PSOE to put an end to the "state of exception" which has been imposed in Euskal Herria was endorsed by more than 25,000 people. The demonstration toured the streets of Bilbao in response to the call by the pro-amnesty movement two weeks ago . They reported that the Spanish government is making a political use of violence to attack political dissent and portend difficult times, but insisted on the need to continue working and struggling for the self-determination right.
Thousands of people yesterday in Bilbao responded to the call of the pro-amnesty movement to cope with the onslaught of repression with which the Madrid and Paris governments have launched a new political course. Such tactics, as reported, has known no limits and no end in recent weeks, following the same line in which the Spanish and French states have worked in recent decades with regard to Euskal Herria.
The march was led by a banner with the slogan "Salbuespen egoerari aurre eginez ... Euskal Herriak Askatasuna, which showed several familiar faces from Basque Counry politics. Some, like the case of Josu Beaumont and Jagoba Terrones, recently convicted by the Audiencia Nacional for taking part in the pro-amnesty movement; next to them, the president of EAE-ANV, Kepa Bereziartua, historical formation that has been placed outside the Spanish law a few weeks ago.
According to the census carried out by GARA, more than 26,000 people supported the call. During the march people chanted slogans against the PNV and demanded the repatriation of Basque political prisoners.
5 October 2008
2 October 2008
Judicial Abuse
- Another judicial abuse against fundamental political liberties in Basque Country.
- French Government attempts to ban Batasuna in France.
- Free Torture in Spain and Basque Country!.
NEWS :
- EAE - ANV and EHAK banned.
16th of September
Spanish Supreme Tribunal confirmed by unanimous decision, the illegalisation of EAE-ANV (Basque Nationalist Action) a historical Basque pro-independence party with a strong socialist tradition. A few days later, EHAK ("Communist Party of the Basque Homelands"), another pro-independence party was also banned.
ANV was the first Basque Nationalist political party to exist that presented itself on a socialist platform, it played a crucial role during the Spanish Civil War but maintained a low key profile during transition to democracy. Together with EHAK ("Communist Party of the Basque Homelands"), they became prominent again when they decided to take up the baton in the struggle for independence from other previously banned parties such as Batasuna. The Spanish Government, using a completely submissive judicial system, has thus eradicated the possibility to fight for an independent Basque Country by peaceful and democratic means.
This only comes days after the Constitutional Tribunal banned an open consultation on the future of Basque Country and the end of violence, which was organised by the autonomous Government. We invite you to condemn the lack of judicial independence and the active role that Spanish high courts are taking in the suppression of fundamental liberties in the Basque Country.
- French Judiciary jumps on the bandwagon of banning civil liberties.
Thirteen people were arrested last month in different locations in the French Basque Country in an operation presented as a result of the investigation into an act of sabotage against the tourist resort of Alain Ducasse. However, the number and mix of detainees, as well as the registration of two venues that belong to the pro-indpendence movment, raises doubts about the reasons for this police raids. The operation seemed to have a broader objective: to punish the independence movement.
What the police sources could not explain was the direct involvement of each one of those arrested with this action, or other acts of sabotage against tourism and real estate developments in recent times. With the passage of time, official sources acknowledged that three of the arrests, of Urtzi-García, Gorka Betolaza and Oskar-Bizkaia, occurred by chance. They happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But the question that all the arrests were justified under the umbrella of the investigation into the sabotage of Ducasse was still not clear, as noted by the local radio station France Bleue, which expressed its surprise about the mix and nature the detainees, some of them known for their public political activity.
The operation led by the magistrates Laurence Le Vert and Marie-Antoinette Houyvet appeared as a punitive operation against the pro-independence movement.
- Free Torture in Spain and Basque Country!
At least 33 civil guards and policemen convicted for torture had been pardoned by the various Spanish governments since the nineties. The vast majority of them, as many as 27, had abused Basque pro-independence activists. Moreover, almost all agents convicted in related cases in the Basque Country were eventually pardoned or failed to meet their sentences.
A study published in December 2004 by Amnesty International noted that between 1980 and that year there had been some 450 rulings relating to torture, which resulted in little more than 90 convictions. In total, in that period of time, about 220 agents had been convicted. According to analysis conducted by Basque newspaper GARA, from all those convictions, only 40 agents were involved in arrests of Basque pro-independence activists which constitutes a extremely low conviction rate compared to allegations from prisoners unrelated to the Basque Independence Movement. At least 27 of them ended up being pardoned. It is not known if they came to serve their sentence, since in more than one case, we have found that officials, that should have been disqualified, were still working at another job or had even been promoted.
The Civil Guard never dispensed, for example, with the services of Captain Jose Perez Navarrete, his colleague Jose Antonio Hernandez del Barco and agents Emilio Parar Moreno, Alejandro Blanco and Julio Iglesias Saavedra Mariño. All were convicted of torture to Juana Goikoetxea in 1987 to four months imprisonment and four years' disqualification. In February 1993, were pardoned by the government of Felipe González. Justice Minister Tomas de la Quadra-Salcedo, justified the pardon granted to the civil guards on the grounds that "the discourse of rehabilitation 1" must be global. The Minister added that after almost twelve years that these agents have continued serving in the same positions (after torturing Goikoetxea), it would not make much sense to apply the penalty of disqualification from their professional activities to which they were convicted.
There are also those who had been pardoned by up to two occasions. The civil guards Jose Dominguez Tuda, Manuel Macias Ramos and Antonio Roman Rios were convicted in 1990 of torturing brothers Victor Jesus, Joxe Mari and Lucio Olarra and Iñaki Olaetxea, and pardoned in early 1991. At the years following the 22nd of September of 1992, the same Jose Dominguez Tuda, was sentenced again, this time for torture to Jokin Olano in 1983. In March 1995, a new justice minister, Juan Alberto Belloch, pardoned him again for this crime, like the agent Manuel Caballero, also condemned for the mistreatment of Olano. The then minister of Justice and Interior said that the two Civil Guards pardoned “have demonstrated in the past eleven years of service in research work of terrorism that they are effectively reintegrated”.
1
(This was a controversial policy applied to ETA members designed to divide prisoners and reject their political status)
- French Government attempts to ban Batasuna in France.
- Free Torture in Spain and Basque Country!.
NEWS :
- EAE - ANV and EHAK banned.
16th of September
Spanish Supreme Tribunal confirmed by unanimous decision, the illegalisation of EAE-ANV (Basque Nationalist Action) a historical Basque pro-independence party with a strong socialist tradition. A few days later, EHAK ("Communist Party of the Basque Homelands"), another pro-independence party was also banned.
ANV was the first Basque Nationalist political party to exist that presented itself on a socialist platform, it played a crucial role during the Spanish Civil War but maintained a low key profile during transition to democracy. Together with EHAK ("Communist Party of the Basque Homelands"), they became prominent again when they decided to take up the baton in the struggle for independence from other previously banned parties such as Batasuna. The Spanish Government, using a completely submissive judicial system, has thus eradicated the possibility to fight for an independent Basque Country by peaceful and democratic means.
This only comes days after the Constitutional Tribunal banned an open consultation on the future of Basque Country and the end of violence, which was organised by the autonomous Government. We invite you to condemn the lack of judicial independence and the active role that Spanish high courts are taking in the suppression of fundamental liberties in the Basque Country.
- French Judiciary jumps on the bandwagon of banning civil liberties.
Thirteen people were arrested last month in different locations in the French Basque Country in an operation presented as a result of the investigation into an act of sabotage against the tourist resort of Alain Ducasse. However, the number and mix of detainees, as well as the registration of two venues that belong to the pro-indpendence movment, raises doubts about the reasons for this police raids. The operation seemed to have a broader objective: to punish the independence movement.
What the police sources could not explain was the direct involvement of each one of those arrested with this action, or other acts of sabotage against tourism and real estate developments in recent times. With the passage of time, official sources acknowledged that three of the arrests, of Urtzi-García, Gorka Betolaza and Oskar-Bizkaia, occurred by chance. They happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But the question that all the arrests were justified under the umbrella of the investigation into the sabotage of Ducasse was still not clear, as noted by the local radio station France Bleue, which expressed its surprise about the mix and nature the detainees, some of them known for their public political activity.
The operation led by the magistrates Laurence Le Vert and Marie-Antoinette Houyvet appeared as a punitive operation against the pro-independence movement.
- Free Torture in Spain and Basque Country!
At least 33 civil guards and policemen convicted for torture had been pardoned by the various Spanish governments since the nineties. The vast majority of them, as many as 27, had abused Basque pro-independence activists. Moreover, almost all agents convicted in related cases in the Basque Country were eventually pardoned or failed to meet their sentences.
A study published in December 2004 by Amnesty International noted that between 1980 and that year there had been some 450 rulings relating to torture, which resulted in little more than 90 convictions. In total, in that period of time, about 220 agents had been convicted. According to analysis conducted by Basque newspaper GARA, from all those convictions, only 40 agents were involved in arrests of Basque pro-independence activists which constitutes a extremely low conviction rate compared to allegations from prisoners unrelated to the Basque Independence Movement. At least 27 of them ended up being pardoned. It is not known if they came to serve their sentence, since in more than one case, we have found that officials, that should have been disqualified, were still working at another job or had even been promoted.
The Civil Guard never dispensed, for example, with the services of Captain Jose Perez Navarrete, his colleague Jose Antonio Hernandez del Barco and agents Emilio Parar Moreno, Alejandro Blanco and Julio Iglesias Saavedra Mariño. All were convicted of torture to Juana Goikoetxea in 1987 to four months imprisonment and four years' disqualification. In February 1993, were pardoned by the government of Felipe González. Justice Minister Tomas de la Quadra-Salcedo, justified the pardon granted to the civil guards on the grounds that "the discourse of rehabilitation 1" must be global. The Minister added that after almost twelve years that these agents have continued serving in the same positions (after torturing Goikoetxea), it would not make much sense to apply the penalty of disqualification from their professional activities to which they were convicted.
There are also those who had been pardoned by up to two occasions. The civil guards Jose Dominguez Tuda, Manuel Macias Ramos and Antonio Roman Rios were convicted in 1990 of torturing brothers Victor Jesus, Joxe Mari and Lucio Olarra and Iñaki Olaetxea, and pardoned in early 1991. At the years following the 22nd of September of 1992, the same Jose Dominguez Tuda, was sentenced again, this time for torture to Jokin Olano in 1983. In March 1995, a new justice minister, Juan Alberto Belloch, pardoned him again for this crime, like the agent Manuel Caballero, also condemned for the mistreatment of Olano. The then minister of Justice and Interior said that the two Civil Guards pardoned “have demonstrated in the past eleven years of service in research work of terrorism that they are effectively reintegrated”.
1
(This was a controversial policy applied to ETA members designed to divide prisoners and reject their political status)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)