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Euskal Herria Journal
http://www.freespeech.org/ehj

       Spain Maintains Dispersion of Basque Prisoners:
            21 prisoners to be moved to mainland jails
                   600-1200 km from Euskal Herria.

B.I. Euskal Herria, December 18, 1998

The Spanish government announced on Friday that 21 Basque political
prisoners will be transferred to prisons in the mainland far from their
homes thus ignoring demands from Basque society to end dispersion of its
nearly 600 prisoners and have them transferred to jails in southern Basque
Country.

The 21 prisoners were being transferred to the Spanish mainland from jails
in the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands and the north African enclaves
of Ceuta and Melilla, the Ministry of Interior reported.

Madrid and Paris have consistently violated national and international
principles for the protection of people in imprisonment: they have more
than 600 Basque political prisoners scattered in jails across the states,
far away from their homes and families. Basque political prisoners are
moved from prison to prison to make impossible for them to settle, held in
solitary confinement for long periods of time, and subject to violence by
prison guards and policemen during transfers and in the prisons. The
Observatoire International des Prisons have reported that medical care in
Spanish prisons is "almost unanimously to be highly inadequate" and that
"Basque political prisoners no longer have access to health care outside
the prison - despite the legislative provisions - since the introduction
of the policy of dispersion. They therefore depend exclusively on the
health care provided by the prison administration." Thirteen Basque
political prisoners have died since 1982 --- "suicides" or "natural
deaths" according to the government.

Current Spanish legislation provides for the release of prisoners with a
chronic illness, and of prisoners who have served three quarters of the
sentence but these rights are denied to the Basque political prisoners.

Mobilizations against dispersion and for the prisoners rights is led by
grassroots organizations, including Senideak and Gestorak and the platform
Presoak Euskal Herrirat.

The repatriation of the Basque political prisoners has been one of ETA's
key demands but not a condition to end armed struggle -- a 30-years
struggle for Basque independence and socialism.

The Basque armed organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland
and Freedom) implemented an indefinite, unilateral truce without
conditions on Sept 18.

Last month the Spanish government ruled out any political debate on Basque
self-determination in talks with ETA. Madrid said will only negotiate a
solution to its Basque political prisoners and terms for ETA to surrender
its weapons, but nothing more.

But the Basque political prisoners, as well as organizations within the
Basque National Liberation Movement, hold that the prisoner issue ought to
be resolved by dialogue between the Spanish government and the prisoners
themselves.

For a list of the prisoners to be moved see:

http://www.freespeech.org/ehj/html/bp21.html