Basque solidarity movement
Between the 5th and 10th of January, more than 200 relatives and friends of Basque political prisoners are going to carry out a hunger strike in different European cities: Berlin, Geneva, Copenhagen, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona and Milan.
This initiative has been organized by Etxerat, an association of the relatives and friends of Basque political prisoners. Through it we will try to get the attention of all types of social, political, humanitarian organizations, the media…and the international society in general so as to highlight the extremely harsh conditions of imprisonment that the Basque political prisoners suffer in Spanish and French jails along with torture, isolation, dispersion, etc.
Nowadays there are nearly 700 prisoners dispersed throughout 90 jails in the Spanish and French states. Only 8 prisoners are located in Basque jails. This policy of dispersion is the bases of the violation of their rights: right to communicate with their relatives, right to education, to speak their own language, right to access to a legal defense… and in general this serves as a cover for their degrading treatment and even direct physical aggressions.
During this symbolic hunger strike, we want to express not only the suffering of the prisoners with this policy, developed by the Spanish and French states, but also that of the relatives and friends of Basque prisoners. The 14 fatal traffic accidents in the last few years due to the long distances that every weekend hundred of Basques must travel to visit their imprisoned relatives, are the most bleeding expression of this policy. The awareness of the World society to these circumstances is the first step to its solution.
