Batasuna - Outlawed in Spain

Outlawed in Spain

The party denied any links to ETA. However, proponents of the party's illegalization point to a coincidence of Batasuna and ETA's strategies. A significant number of Batasuna leaders have been imprisoned because of their activities in ETA. The party has never condemned any attack by ETA and its leaders have referred sometimes to the ETA members as 'Basque soldiers', and justified their actions: "ETA does not use the armed struggle as a mean to defend this or that political project but to give democratic channels that enable the popular will to be expressed in full freedom." It is also common to refer to ETA militants as Gudariak, soldiers in Basque language.

Since the 1980s there had been talk of attempts to ban the party, which resulted in Batasuna frequently changing its name as part of the effort to avoid this, from the original Herri Batasuna, then becoming part of the Euskal Herritarrok coalition in the 1990s and, finally, Batasuna. Members of the Basque left consider the Spanish government's efforts against Batasuna and its successors to be part of an organized campaign targeting the social support for the independence movement. They point to government crackdowns against the newspaper Egin, the radio station Herri Irratia and the network of pubs that were gathering places for the independentist left.

In 2002 started the first serious attempt by the Spanish government to ban the party. In June the parliament passed legislation that outlawed parties under certain conditions, on the grounds of their support for terrorism. In July Batasuna was fined € 24 million for vandalism and street violence in 2001. Following an ETA car bomb attack on August 4 the Spanish parliament was recalled. The party was suspended for three years by Judge Baltasar Garzón on August 27 to allow him to investigate the party links to ETA. Garzón and the government presented 23 arguments for the ban, focusing on the party's refusal to condemn ETA attacks, its reference to detainees as political prisoners, collaboration with other banned abertzale forces, and ETA's support in communiqués for Batasuna's political strategy.

In 2003, Batasuna was declared illegal in Spain by a court ruling of the Spanish Supreme Court, then confirmed by the Constitutional Court of Spain. The decision automatically cut them off from the state funding received by all legal political parties. In spite of legal text forbidding its reorganization under another name, its members have tried to use, ever since the outlawing, a plethora of local lists. Most of these lists were considered to be a front for Batasuna by the Spanish Supreme Court. This decision was confirmed by the Spanish Constitutional Court. The ban prohibits their representatives from contesting elections, holding public demonstrations or rallies and freezes their assets. On the 26th the Spanish parliament voted for an indefinite ban, 295 to 10. The party's main offices in Pamplona were closed by the police and further offices in San Sebastián, Bilbao and Vitoria-Gasteiz were targeted.

Still, party activity did not cease completely, as proved by the fact that on October 4, 2007 twenty-three top members of Batasuna were arrested as they left a secret meeting in Segura (Guipúzcoa), accused of holding an illegal political meeting.