Radical Basque paper closed
By Norm Dixon
The Spanish government launched another serious attack on the democratic rights of the Basque people when it forced the closure of the left-wing Basque daily newspaper Egin and its sister radio station, Egin Irratia.
On July 15, a National Court judge ordered Egin and Egin Irratia shut down.
In scenes reminiscent of the Franco dictatorship and its flagrant attacks on freedom of expression and information, more than 350 agents of the Spanish National Police, in a pre-dawn raid, entered and occupied Egin's headquarters and newsroom in the town of Hernani (in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa), as well as the newspaper's offices in the cities of Irun (Navarre), Bilbao (Bizkaia) and Gasteiz (Araba).
Eleven members of the newspaper's administrative council were arrested. Some days later, Egin's director, Jabier Salutregi, was also arrested.
Spain's interior minister, Jaime Mayor Oreja, said Egin and Egin Irratia were closed because "there is proof that there are close and stable ties" between Egin and the Basque resistance organisation Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom).
Like all other newspapers in Spain, Egin has published excerpts of ETA communiqués. Unashamedly supportive of the Basque people's right to self-determination, Egin has interviewed ETA leaders, as well as leaders of the radical left-nationalist party Herri Batasuna.
Egin is the only Basque newspaper that provides a forum to debate social, cultural, economic and political issues affecting the Basque Country.
Egin now publishes a makeshift 16-page edition under the name Euskadi Informacion.
Since winning office in 1996, Spain's right-wing Popular Party (founded by Franco's interior minister, Manuel Fraga) has disregarded democratic freedoms in its efforts to defeat Basque dissidents. It has pursued the illegal ETA and the legal Herri Batasuna with equal vigour.
Last December, the entire leadership of Herri Batasuna was sentenced to a total of 161 years in jail for having distributed for public debate a proposal for a peaceful, democratic solution of the conflict between the people of the Basque Country and the Spanish and French states.
Egin is published daily on the internet at <http://www.contrast.org/egin>. For more information about Egin's closure and the Basque solidarity movement, visit <http://osis.ucsd.edu/ehj/html/ecensore.html> or <http://www.basque red.net/eginclosed/egineng.htm>.