More On Egunkaria

As you read by now the official version is that the near death torture suffered by Peio Zubiria is now being called "suicide attempt".

Here you have an update on the Egunkaria case:

Former Egunkaria's director hospitalised

Official version: suicide attempt!

Everyone in the Basque Country and out of there too are following the situation with the paper day by day. Today, news of the former Egunkaria's director Pedro Zubiria's attempt has shocked us. For anyone knowledgeable of the practices with detainees while their stay in Madrid's High Court's cells, the fact that torture is used against all of them is something unquestionable. He's currently at the reanimation unit of the Gregorio Marañón Hospital (Madrid). No-one informed the family as the high Court decided to keep strict confidentiality about his situation. Zubiria suffers chronicle cervical rheum (Espondilitis Anquilosante) and so the family informed the authorities.

However, the case it was presented as an attempt of suicide. As we said, this explanation is not new whenever someone goes though the interrogation procedures at the Spanish High Court. Quite interesting to see again the different interpretations in the Spanish media, who all of them accept this explanation as the true one: according to El Mundo he tried to kill himself hanging himself with a sheet while for ABC he had tried to suffocate himself with a pillow case. The fascist La Razón went even further by presenting the Guardia Civil as the heroic forces whom managed to prevent Zubiria from killing himself (!!!). This papers called the police 'saviours' of Zubiria!! The relatives and wife of Pello Zubiria weren't allowed to see him, even though they went all the way from the Basque Country to Madrid, and the only explanation they were given was that he was alive. His solicitor presented the Habeas Corpus to get him released because of his health condition.

Meanwhile the hearings were carried out during yesterday's evening and morning and all of them were denied the right to a solicitor and had duty solicitors instead. After the five days, all the detainees remained incommunicado, which means that the anti-terrorist legislation was fully applied to them! This incommunication procedure has been constantly criticised by the UN and Amnesty International. After the hearing, judge Del Olmo has ordered the imprisonment of five of the detainees while he demands a fine of between E12,000 and E30,000. The detainees are: Martxelo Otamendi, Iñaki Uria, Luis Goia, Xabier Alegria, Xabier Oleaga, Pello Zubiria, Inma Gomila, Juan Mari Torrealdai, Fermin Lazkano and Txema Auzmendi.

The Basque regional government's funds to Egunkaria outrage Spaniards

In Spain the fact thet the Basque regional government led by Ibarretxe has assigned funds to Egunkaria of about £1 M after being closed down by the Spanish government has caused outrage; or at less that's the way Spanish papers want to present this information: 'The only funding assigned by the Basque government' (El Mundo), 'Ibarretxe plans to resuscitate Egunkaria' (La Razón), 'Ibarretxe defies the judge with funding of 1,7 million Euros to Egunkaria' (ABC). This funding was agreed by the Basque regional government following the 26th June Act for the support of media initiatives encouraging and promoting the Basque language.

We can remind you that this is the only paper in Basque, which started without any funding from either the Spanisgh government nor the Basque regional one, but due to its perseverance and commitment to Basque language and to the creation of a Basque media, and also due to it's somehow political neutrality, it enjoys respect (even from the Basque regional government who before the creation of this paper, wanted to create its own paper - it never happened while this initiative launched by some individuals managed to consolidate as the only entirely Basque paper. Funding to Egunkaria only started in 1994, five years after its creation). This concession of funded to this paper is the corroboration of the outrage experienced by Basques, who are witnessing the escalation of repression affecting every ground of their lives: media, education, politics, etc. At this point we have to remind the bad position that the Spanish government has placed the Basque regional government, making it to apply the banning of Batasuna that they didn't agree with. This position is the result if an on-going campaign by the PP to undermine the Basque regional government of PNV-EA-IU too, and every step by the PNV to move towards (so-seen) independentist positions. The tip of this conflict can be placed in the participation of PNV together with al the other Basque parties plus IU in the pro-separatist Lizarra Pact in 2000 and it has continued ever since.

The PP government is pursuing a policy of repressing everything related to the Basque separatist movement as a way of isolating ETA's bases, but actions like the closure of Egunkaria, harassment of the Basque education system, persecution of the Basque language in the province of Navarre, etc, together with arrests, imprisonment's or even torture (like it's the case now), are seen in the Basque Country as a general attack against the Basque culture, proving that the targeted field includes people from many other sectors. From the dynamics experienced in the last years, we can say that since the PP take-over of the Spanish government, Spanish fascism has consolidated and that this has had a reverse effect in the Basque Country by creating in many occasions a Basque-unity-reaction (with some ups and downs).

MASSIVE DEMO IN DUBLIN ON BEHALF OF EGUNKARIA

A massive demo on behalf of Egunkaria happened in Dublin, ending in the Spanish embassy of this city. The main banner read a simple 'Freedom of Expression - Egunkaria'. The demo was called by the Irish papers La (Day) (weekly) and Andersonstown News and supported by the Irish Journalist Union. La's director ask to the European governments to react against the Spanish government's decision in the same way that they had done to condemn Mugabe's papers closure in Zimbabwe. In the same way, and as paper using a minority language, La's editor lamented a new attempt to suffocate the achievements of minority cultures and say that Egunkaria was an example in Europe.

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