(IFJ/IFEX) – The following is a 20 February 2003 IFJ media release: IFJ Says Press Freedom is the Victim as Police Close Basque Language Daily The closure of the Basque language newspaper Egunkaria because of alleged links to the separatist terror group ETA is a blow to press freedom in the Basque country of Spain, […]
(IFJ/IFEX) – The following is a 20 February 2003 IFJ media release:
IFJ Says Press Freedom is the Victim as Police Close Basque Language Daily
The closure of the Basque language newspaper Egunkaria because of alleged links to the separatist terror group ETA is a blow to press freedom in the Basque country of Spain, said the International Federation of Journalists today.
The newspaper – the only Spanish daily in the Basque language – has vigorously denied tipping off the terrorist group about police movements, which the Interior Ministry says are why 300 Civil Guard police arrested 10 people and closed the newspaper’s offices in Andoain.
“When the only Basque language paper is closed like this it casts a shadow over press freedom within the Basque language community,” said Aidan White, General Secretary of the IFJ, the world’s largest journalists’ group. “Journalists on all sides of the community are concerned about the implications for free journalism.”
A witness said the headquarters of the Basque language newspaper in Bilbao were sealed off with police tape. Witnesses at the newspaper office in Andoain said police were taking computers and other confiscated equipment out of the building.
The closure is the latest action in a three-day police sweep in the region, which has led to multiple arrests across the northern Basque country. ETA, which has supporters in the area, is responsible for the deaths of more than 800 people in a bombing and shooting campaign since 1968 to back its demands for an independent Basque state.
The group’s main media supporter, the newspaper Egin, was closed down in 1998, but a number of other sympathetic and pro-separatist publications have sprung up in its place. “Egunkaria is seen by many as more independent than other journals which are sympathetic to Basque radicals,” said Aidan White. “At the same time, there are concerns that this is an all-out assault on the Basque language, one of Europe’s oldest.”
The IFJ represents more than 500,000 journalists in more than 100 countries.
