Zorionak Txema!

Certainly he deserves it.

He works hard to ensure that Euskara and Basque Culture find new spaces where to take root and flourish, making him a prime target for the repression and the hate by mental midgets like Baltasar Garzón and Juan del Olmo.

With the power of the pen as a weapon, many Basques fight for self determination every single day, it is time we start ackowledging their peaceful efforts.

Txema Auzmendi receives Gipuzkoa Human Rights Award

The prize, which has been awarded by the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa this year for the first time, has gone to Txema Auzmendi “for his work in support of rights”

Editorial Staff – DONOSTIA (San Sebastian)

Txema Auzmendi, the journalist, Jesuit and one of the indictees in the Egunkaria case, will receive the Gipuzkoa Human Rights Award for 2004. The department for Human Rights, Employment and Social Integration of the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa is awarding this prize for the first time this year; it has gone to Auzmendi for, among other things, his work “carried out anonymously and on a day-to-day basis in favour of all rights for all human beings”. Auzmendi will receive his award on December 15 at 19.00 hours during a ceremony to be held at the Kursaal Concert Hall in Donostia (San Sebastian).

Among Txema Auzmendi’s merits the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa has highlighted his work in support of people who are marginalized by society and who, as a result, suffer restrictions in their civil rights. The panel of judges says Auzmendi’s nomination fully coincides with the philosophy of the Gipuzkoa Human Rights Award. “Through his unobtrusive social work Auzmendi has supported economic, social and cultural rights.”

The panel of judges has five members: Mari Carmen Marin, member of the Provincial Government responsible for Human Rights, Employment and Social Integration; Txema Urkijo, head of the Human Rights Department of the Basque Autonomous Community Government; Francisco Javier Caballero, Philosophy of Law Professor; Carmen Etxaniz, head of the School for Social Work of the University of Deusto; and Jose Antonio Mendikute, dean of the Humanities and Education Faculty of the Mondragon University.

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