NORTH OF IRELAND:
Background >>
Video / Audio >>
BASQUE COUNTRY:
News >>
Video / Audio >>
Archive >>
Statement on the detention of seven members of Askapena 28.09.2010 | Euskal Herriaren Lagunak - Friends of the Basque Country Germany
We were horrified this morning hearing the news about the detention of seven political activists of the Basque organisation Askapena.
For decades Askapena has been active promoting international solidarity, in Latin America and elsewhere. On the other hand Askapena organizes solidarity for the Basque Country. We are collaborating with Askapena in this, for example with an annual Week of Solidarity with the Basque Country, organized by Askapena on a world wide basis.
The detainees are political activists, well known in the Basque Country for their public and open activities. To them and to their families we send our warmest solidarity greetings. We demand their immediate release! By now they have been transferred to Madrid and are still in incommunicado arrest. We are deeply concerned, that they might be abused as so many before them.
In recent years we noticed campaigns by Spanish media trying to portrait Askapena as the international wing of ETA and thus justify police actions against them. The good international contacts of Askapena have angered the Spanish Government for a long time, because this creates international awareness about the situation in the Basque Country. From our point of view the police raid has been a cynical attempt to hinder international contacts of Basque activists and to use massive opression to silence the recent and growing demands of the Basque citizens for democratic rights and a peace process.
We send solidarity greetings to all those in the Basque Country, who have been working so hard within the last weeks and months for creating conditions for peace. It is time for the Spanish Government to recognize that human rights violations will not be tolerated any more, not in the Basque Country, not in Europe and not world wide!
Euskal Herriaren Lagunak - Friends of the Basque Country Germany, September 28th, 2010
Askapena Website >>
Further Information (German language, but links to English language websites):
Info Baskenland >>