Protests Erupt Over Banning of Basque Party
Local police in Spain’s Basque Country fired rubber bullets at demonstrators and defused a bomb Tuesday after a judge ordered a Basque political party shut down for its links to the separatist group ETA.
The regional police force, the Ertzaintza, closed the main offices of the Batasuna party in the cities of Bilbao, San Sebastian and Vitoria. The raids marked the first Basque-on-Basque confrontation since Monday, when Judge Baltasar Garzon ordered the party shut down for three years.
The judge accused Batasuna of collaborating with ETA, which has killed 836 people since it began its campaign in 1968 for independence for the northern region of 2 million.
The order put the region’s self-rule administration in an uncomfortable position, but a government spokesman said the Ertzaintza would “comply with the law.”
In Bilbao, police dragged away protesters and smashed down a reinforced door after sawing through chains that Batasuna members had used to lock themselves in the party’s office.
Violent clashes were also reported in San Sebastian. However, an Ertzaintza spokesman said no one was hospitalized or arrested.
Earlier, the Ertzaintza defused a package that contained 22 pounds of explosives placed outside a courthouse in Tolosa near San Sebastian. Authorities blamed ETA.
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