Ban On Independent Candidates

The Apartheid measures against Basque society keep piling up. Finding a courage they don't really have in the full support they are getting these days from Bush and Blair, the members of the Spanish political elite led by Aznar are taking this opportunity to launch an all-out attack against Euskal Herria. First it was Batasuna, later it was Egunkaria, then Udalbiltza and now, independent candidates.

All they need to do is to cry wolf (in this case, cry terrorist) and voila, they have full permission to do whatever they please to do against the Basque people.

Here you have the latest, from the heavily biased Yahoo News:

Spanish Court Bars Basque Separatist Candidates

Sat May 3, 6:02 PM ET

By Inmaculada Sanz

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Supreme Court barred hundreds of Basque independence candidates on Saturday from running in municipal elections this month on grounds they were successors to an outlawed Basque nationalist party.

The state attorney this week challenged 249 lists of candidates standing in regional elections in the Basque country, alleging each contained one or more members of the Batasuna party, outlawed in March for failing to condemn violence by the separatist ETA guerrilla group.

Justice Minister Jose Maria Michavila argued the lists contained candidates who were "clones" of Batasuna standing under new party names to circumvent the ban. He alleged that the 249 lists included 1,500 former Batasuna members.

The Supreme Court said in a statement it had upheld the challenges over 241 of the lists, meaning those candidates could not participate in the May 25 municipal elections.

Eight of the party lists were given clearance.

Candidates barred from running in the elections have until Monday to appeal to the constitutional court against the ruling.

Spain's center-right government, backed by the opposition Socialists, led the push to ban Batasuna, accusing it of supporting ETA.

Earlier, the regional head of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party said the May 25 elections would be the "first in which ETA will not be present in the institutions of the Basque country."

"This is a success for Spanish democracy, this is a success for the maturity of Spanish society, this is an expression of justice," said Jaime Major Oreja.

But for Basque regional premier Juan Jose Ibarretxe, the official crackdown on Batasuna and its alleged successors had radicalized political and social life in the region.

"How far will they go to get a handful of votes for the Socialist Party and the Popular Party? By putting under suspicion the whole of Basque society, bishops, universities, newspapers, the media?" Ibarretxe said before the ruling.

"Is everyone who doesn't think like them in the service of ETA in this country?"

By the way, Ibarretxe, you need to do more than that.

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