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In this article published by The Guardian you will learn about the authoritarian measures that the Spanish government is implementing in its attempt to suffocate the Basque right to self determination. Counting with the complicity of the PSOE (after all, they are grateful Felipe Gonzalez was spared from facing a court of law for creating and deploying the state sponsored terrorist group GAL) the ruling party PP has been able to pass a new "Law of Political Parties", a law that allows the Spanish government to ban any political party that goes against their designs.

Here you have it:

Spanish MPs vote to ban pro-Eta party

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Guardian

Thursday June 6, 2002

The radical Basque political party Batasuna, which is seen as the Basque equivalent of Sinn Fein and wins up to 200,000 votes, was on the road to being banned yesterday after the Spanish lower house overwhelmingly backed a controversial bill controlling political parties.

The bill, tailor-made to ban Batasuna, was the personal project of the conservative Popular party prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, who won the backing of the Socialist opposition. It is expected to get final approval by the senate later this month.

Both parties accused Batasuna, whose representation in the 75-seat Basque regional parliament fell from 14 to seven last year, of acting as a front for the armed separatist group Eta.

The party historically takes 10-20% of the Basque vote. It boycotted the last general election to the Spanish parliament, where it had two deputies. It also has one euro MP.

The law, carried by 304 to 16, was criticised by moderate Basque nationalists and by the Basque bishops council. The bishops of Bilbao, San Sebastian and Vitoria said at the weekend that it would bring increased confrontation.

Mr Aznar accused them of "serious moral and intellectual perversion". The Papal Nuncio in Madrid was called in by the foreign minister, Josep Pique, yesterday to be told of the government's "disgust and unease".

Mr Aznar congratulated parliament on backing the law. "It was a properly democratic expression of support and something indispensable in the fight against terrorism," he said.

But Basque nationalists and the hard left accused him of further dividing the Basques and said the law would help push radicals into clandestine activity. "This just adds fuel to the fire," Luis Carlos Rejon of the communist-led United Left party said.

Josu Erkoreka, of the moderate Basque Nationalist party, said: "A democracy that distinguishes between first-class, second-class and third- class democrats has a one-way ticket to nowhere."

Batasuna denies that it is part of Eta, and that it takes orders from the group, fighting for an independent state made up of four Spanish provinces and part of south-west France.

"Batasuna will keep on working because it has good proposals that will bring solutions," one of its regional deputies, Jone Goirzelaia, said.

Batasuna's leaders routinely refuse to condemn Eta killings and, occasionally, openly express sympathy for the organisation: for example, Eta prisoners receive homage at the party's rallies.

"The armed fight of Eta is not an attempt to impose ideas but to defend the legitimate rights of the Basque people," another deputy, Jon Salaberria, told the regional assembly in Vitoria recently.

An attempt to prosecute its leader, Arnaldo Otegi, in Madrid for allegedly shouting his support for Eta during a rally in France failed this week.

But Mr Otegi has been banned from France, where Batasuna and a number of other Basque groups have bases.

In recent years the Basque radicals' daily newspaper, Egin, has been closed and its youth wing, Segi, and prisoners support group, Gestoras Pro Amnistia, declared illegal.

The bill will enable parliament to ask a special court of 16 senior supreme court judges to ban the party for giving "tacit" support to terrorism, "fomenting civil confrontation", "paying homage" to terrorists or having too many ex-terrorists on its electoral lists.

The Basque regional parliament, of which Mr Aznar's Popular party failed to win control in last year's elections, says it will refuse to kick out the Batasuna deputies, who have already changed their official name to Socialist Nationalists.

"It would take tanks," its president, Juan Mari Atutxa of the Basque Nationalists, said.

Another bill is being prepared to withdraw public funds from parties which refuse to back municipal council or regional assembly motions condemning terrorism.

Now, the author Giles Tremlett needs to learn about a principle in law called "presumption of innocence". Aznar and his underlings are accusing Batasuna of being ETA's political wing, therefore, it is the Spanish government the one that has to prove it, until then, Batasuna is innocent of any charges.

The measures taken by Spain against the Basques amount to what can be compared to the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

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