ETA documentary row flares again

7 May 2004

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA – A row over a controversial ETA documentary which was aired the day after the 11 March attacks flared Friday.

The documentary was shown the day after the Madrid massacre, prompting claims the former government had ordered it to be shown to support its claims that ETA carried out the bombings.

Francisco Campos, general director of Radio-Television Galicia (RTVG), justified broadcasting a report on ETA last 12 March because he claimed it supported two hypotheses concerning the previous day’s terrorist attack on Madrid.

He claimed it showed either ETA terrorists or al-Qaeda could have been authors of the attacks.

MP Eduardo Gutiérrez accused RTVG of “using a government channel to give a distorted view of the information provided”, which was one of the keys to the outcome of the 14 March election.

But Campos stressed that every Spanish television channel modified their broadcasts and reminded Gutiérrez that on 12 March Forta, the association of autonomous broadcasters, commissioned reports on both ETA and al-Qaeda.

He also pointed out that RTVG was the first Spanish television channel that broadcast al-Qaeda’s press release claiming responsibility for the massacre.

Another MP, Bieito Lobeira, demanded an explanation for the “pathetic use of the Galician language”, in the broadcast, which described the Moslem habit of wearing “fundamentalist robes”, and included statements such as “democracy is the fundamental enemy”.

Campos said that if they had received the material earlier they could have polished the text, and recognised it should never have been broadcast.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news