Police Brutality in Santurtzi

A Basque riot police officer aims his gun at pro-Basque separatist group ETA symathizers during a banned march in Santurce, northern Spain, Saturday March 4, 2006. Several hundred supporters of the violent Basque separatist group ETA clashed with riot police while protesting the deaths of two jailed ETA members, one through suicide and the other through suspected heart failure. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

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A Farewell to Igor

Supporters wave basque flags as friends and family members carry the coffin of Igor Angulo Iturrate to a cemetery in Santurtzi, northern Spain, Wednesday, March 1, 2006. Iturrate, who was serving a sentence of 34 years for being a member of the armed separatist Basque group of ETA, was found hung to death in a prision of Cuenca last Monday. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

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Momotxorros in Altsasu

Two young boys dress up as Momotxorros, a local mountain animal, as they run across a field during a carnival celebration in Alsasua, northern Spain, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)

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Igor Angulo

We received this information from the Belfast Basque Committee:

Basque political prisoner Igor Angulo (Bilbao 1974) was found dead today hanging from his cell window in Cuenca's jail (more than 600 kilometers from the Basque Country). He was the only Basque political prisoner in Cuenca. Because of the Spanish dispersal policy before he was transferred to Cuenca in 2001. He was kept in six different jails all around Spain. He was locked in his cell for 18 hours a day. He was tortured when he was arrested in 1996.

He is the third Basque political prisoner to be found dead in his cell in the last year and we want to make clear to everybody that this is a consequence of the merciless and brutal Spanish and French governments’ prison policy against Basques. More than 700 Basque political prisoners are kept in 80 prisons all around France and Spain suffering beatings, isolation, medical mistreatment, dispersal and being denided the most basic rights like education, speaking in Basque...etc.

If the Spanish and French governments are to be considered seriously about their aims towards a political resolution of the conflict they have to change radically their cruel policy against Basque political prisoners and stop treating them as political hostages.

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Presoak Is Not ETA

There is nothing I hate more than lazy reporting by so called photo-journalists.

Check the text that goes with this picture:

Villarreal's goalkeeper Javier Lopez Vallejo saves a penalty during a Spanish league soccer match against Athletic Bilbao at the San Mames stadium in Bilbao, Spain, Sunday Feb. 26, 2006. The game ended 1-1. Athletic Bilbao fans in background can be seen with banners supporting the Basque separatist group ETA, urging the return of all ETA prisoners to the Basque country. (AP Photo/Juan Manuel Serrano)

No matter what Juan Manuel Serrano wants to say, Presoak is not ETA.

Presoak is a human rights organization working in behalf of the must basic rights of all the Basque citizens jailed in Spanish prisons. What they do is to demand from Madrid to stick to Spain's own laws which dictate that prisoners must remain in jails nearby their towns as to ensure that their relatives, friends and loved ones are not taxed with extra expenses when it comes to visiting them in jail, which is one more of their rights.

Every year dozens of Basques are involved in traffic accidents up and down the Spanish geography in their attempt to visit those in jail. Many deaths have been caused in these accidents.

The policy of dispersion practiced by the Spanish judiciary represents a form of state sponsored violence. It is also a clear example of the state of exception aimed at the Basque society. Laws and regulations that apply to the Spaniards, do not apply to the Basques. Such thing is a violation of the UN's Human Rights Charter.

And I haven't even mentioned that many of those Basques jailed in Spain are political prisoners that have never been part nor ever supported ETA, they are in prison for the sole crime of being Basques and loving their ethnic and cultural identity.

Which comes to prove just how wrong this individual Juan Manuel Serrano is when he says that the Athletic de Bilbao fans are displaying banners in support of ETA.

Which begs the question, is he in the pay roll of the Francoists and Falangists that form the Partido Popular?

I think you know the answer.

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A Goodbye to Zarra

Athletic Bilbao's players observe a minute of silence for Spanish striker Telmo Zarra, who died on Thursday, before their Spanish first division soccer match against Villarreal at Bilbao's San Mames stadium, northern Spain February 26, 2006. The match ended in a 1-1 draw. REUTERS/Victor Fraile

Actually, he was a Basque player, a Basque sport's legend.

But oh well.

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More Aviar Birds

A stork rests on the lightning conductor of an antenna, in the northern Spanish Basque Village of Arkaute. More wild birds found dead in eastern France were victims of the lethal strain of H5N1 bird flu, Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau said, as Hong Kong joined Japan in banning poultry imports from France.(AFP/File/Rafa Rivas)

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Today in Ziburu

Batasuna supporters demonstrate under a banner reading in Basque language 'It's enough, respect the decision of Basque people' in downtown Ciboure, southern France February 25, 2006. Thousands tried to protest in front of French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie's house demanding the French government to take part in the Basque peace process. REUTERS/Pablo Sanchez

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Ikurriñas in Madrid?

Here you have Mariano Rajoy, the fella that lost the presidential race due to the lies him and his party (the PP) told the Spaniards and the world after the attacks in Madrid, waving and smiling to the camera.

He led the file and rank of the most backwards members of the Spanish society that today marched in Madrid to demonstrate against the efforts by Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to achieve a peace treaty that would ensure a cease fire from ETA.

But wait, those are not Spanish flags right next to him!

Correct, those are Ikurriñas, Basque flags.

What was that all about?

One could think that the Falangists were displaying the emblems of those they conquered.

But no, what moved the to to such thing was their desire to legitimize their demonstration by showing a fake concern for the Basque society.

It is amazing the extremes they can go to in their efforts to appear as something they are not.

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Falangistas March Against Peace

Thousands of people, including relatives of those killed and injured in ETA bomb attacks, participate in a rally in Madrid, Saturday Feb. 25, 2006 to press the Socialist government not to negotiate a peace deal with the armed Basque separatist group. The demonstration, led by the Association of Victims, has been backed by some 80 social and political groups including main conservative opposition Popular Party. (AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

Update: If you want to read the classic piece of American propaganda that usually supports the actions by the right wingers in Spain, read the one called "Massive Madrid Protest Against Zapatero's Surrender to Terror" by not-the-sharpest-tool-in-the-shed Gateway Pundit, who doesn't appear to know what a pundit is. Oh, and you are going to love the comment by Basque-phobe Barcepundit.

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