Cita en Bilbo para arropar a los jóvenes independentistas

Oihana LLORENTE

Original article:

The parents and many friends of the 34 young people arrested claim that the only crime that they have committed is being ‘young independence fighters’. They wish for the rest of the population to think about ‘what type of future awaits the Basque country if young people have their rights so easily taken away from them’

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The angst ridden and anxious atmosphere in Usurbil could be felt yesterday afternoon. Many family members could not help but cry, their thoughts surely returning to the Spanish capital’s jails where their loved one’s where being kept at that very moment. Some family members mentioned that they have ‘no idea where or how’ their loved ones are but they sent a loving hug knowing full well the reality that ‘incommunicado detention and torture are synonymous’

‘We want to send our sons and daughters, wherever they are, our unconditional love’ told Larreta, ‘they are not thieves or criminals, they are happy youth and workers who have only committed one crime: to love and fight for their land’.

Family members and friends highlighted the fact that there is no freedom of expression, freedom of thought, nor freedom of assembly in the Basque Country, and young people who defended these rights where ‘arrested, enduring incommunicado detention and jail time’. The family members pleaded the Spanish government to ‘put an end to incommunicado detention and to abandon their practice of torture’

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The youth organization Segi, the very same organization that the Spanish media and government claims to have beheaded, alerted the minister of home affairs today, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, that their [Segi’s] ‘direction is controlled by young Basque people’. In this case, the press release states it will be difficult to ‘behead a youth organization that is so integrated in youth culture and society’.

The Segi press release stated that the latest police arrests only highlight the ‘impotence of the PSOE’ and reminds the Spanish State that in the thirty-year history of youth organizations in the Basque country, repression from the State has always been present ‘but for every time we are crushed we rise again’. The press release reconfirmed Segi’s goals to ‘construct day-by-day an independent Basque Country’, and highlighted that in today’s political climate ‘young people’s contributions are only important if they fit’. A big hug was sent to all the arrested youth also.

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48 hours after the arrests, the only known information is that the 34 young people are being kept in Madrid. They have not been able to talk with a lawyer nor have they been able to see a doctor. The judge Grande-Marlaska prohibited family members from being told where their children were. Lawyers can do nothing but wait until the incommunicado detention is lifted.