Basque prisoners | Thousands of people demonstrated yesterday in Bilbao for the rights of Basque prisoners – El Salto
Put an end to the exceptionality in the treatment of the prisoners who made up the extinct ETA, and, in short, that the ordinary penitentiary law is applied to them. This was the main claim of the tens of miles of people who walked the streets of Bilbao for another year yesterday, on a rainy and unpleasant day.
“Euskal presoak, etxera” (Basque prisoners home), was chanted yesterday throughout the tour. Relatives of the prisoners advanced at the head of the march. The call —which filled Autonomía street continuing to the City Hall— was attended by a broad political representation, beginning with members of EH Bildu, such as Arnaldo Otegi, Oskar Matute, or Arkaitz Rodríguez; but also with referents of the Catalan independence movement, such as Joan Tarda and Carmen Forcadell, from ERC. The ELA and LAB unions have also been represented, while CC OO had disassociated itself from the mobilization.
This Saturday’s march took place in a new stage, in which the end of the dispersal policies is celebrated —although around fifteen prisoners will remain outside the Basque country, along with a similar number imprisoned in France—, beyond In what is considered a triumph of the fight for the rights of prisoners, the platform calls for the end of other differential policies towards ETA prisoners, such as blockades and setbacks in third degrees.
As a consequence of the changes in their demands, Sare has changed the flag with which they demanded the rapprochement of the prisoners, with the word Etxera. During the reading of the manifesto, the spokesman for Sare, Joseba Azkarraga, stressed that the march shows “the will of an important part of Basque society, which demands an end to the violation of the rights of prisoners. We are coming out of a long, complicated stage that we have won after 34 years. It has cost us, but we have won together. Finally, the distancing policies have come to an end but we have a long way to go to bring them home.
The spokesperson for the platform demanded that “judges and prosecutors stop twisting the laws and adjust to the moment we are living in.” Azkagarra assessed that if this exceptionality did not persist, 64% of the Basque prisoners would already be enjoying the third degree, and pointed out that in order to achieve coexistence it is necessary to seek solutions both to the “problem of the victims” and to “the situation of the prisoners”.