Thursday, December 14, 2006

Remember Egunkaria?

Remember how they shut down the Basque news paper Egunkaria?

How the Spanish occupation forces arrested, tortured and incarcerated Martxelo Otamendi, its director?

How many members of the staff were jailed and had to pay large amounts as ransom in order to obtain their freedom?

Well, check this out, it was published at EITb:

Judge Juan del Olmo's ordered to shut down the Basque-language daily Euskaldunon Egunkaria. On February 20, 2003 Spanish Civil Guard entered the premises of the newspaper and closed off the building. Furthermore, ten people were arrested within the same operation charged with illegal association with the armed band ETA: Xabier Alegria, Txema Auzmendi, Xabier Oleaga, Martxelo Otamendi, Joan Mari Torrealdai, Iñaki Uria, Pello Zubiria, Inma Gomila, Luis Goia and Fermin Lazkano.

After eight days held incommunicado, Gomila, Lazkano, Otamendi and Goia were released and the judge ordered the imprisonment of the other six. The others have been released later paying their respective bails off and have been awaiting trial.

Many associations and institutions have requested to close the file on the proceedings judge Del Olmo started. Those charged also brought an appeal to the Spanish High Court, but it has not been solved yet.

Interview with editor on third anniversary of shutdown

The former editor of the daily, Martxelo Otamendi, was interviewed in the radio station Euskadi Irratia on the third anniversary of Egunkaria's shutdown, on February 20, 2006. He voiced his opinion, that the judicial process was continuing and apparently wouldn't close the file on. "The attitude of the public prosecutor is crucial in these cases, and this time he has said he will go on," he highlighted. Nevertheless, the attitude seems to have changed.

According to Otamendi, there were clear parallelisms between the macro-trial against 56 Basque leftwing nationalist activists (18/98) and the trial against Euskaldunon Egunkaria, because both of them "are initiatives of conservative PP" and "want to smash projects that arise in the Basque Country."

Asked about the "new willingness" of the president of the Spanish Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Otamendi answered that he hadn't noticed any changes.


Yes, and then there is the baboons who claim that Spain is a democracy and that the Basques are a violent lot.

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