Batasuna summit banned on eve of ETA talks

20 September 2006

MADRID — Spain’s leading anti-terrorist judge Baltasar Garzon banned a planned meeting by Batasuna, the proscribed political arm of ETA.

The meeting was to have taken place on Thursday in Llodio in Alava, northern Spain.

Garzon said on Wednesday that as a banned organisation, Batasuna was forbidden from holding meetings.

The party was declared a terrorist organisation in 2003 by Spain’s Supreme Court for its links to ETA.

The move came after an application by the Attorney General and the Association for the Victims of Terrorism.

On Friday it will be exactly six months since ETA declared its first ever ‘permanent ceasefire’ on 22 March.

Batasuna has claimed the government has not done enough to promote peace talks.

In recent days, street protests have started in the Basque Country, launched by youths loyal to ETA.

But Jose Lluis Rodriguez Zapatero has said talks will start with ETA ‘within the month’.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news