Charges against the editors of Egunkaria have been dropped

2010-04-13

A court in Madrid dropped all charges against the editors of the Basque newspaper Egunkaria on April 12th. According to the ruling, the accused had no ties with Basque terrorist organization ETA. The judges also ruled that the banning of the newspaper was arbitrary.

The court’s opinion was that the accusations were made based on the false supposition that anything related with Basque culture and using a Basque language to promote the cultural values of the Basque community is under the influence of ETA.

The case reaches back to 2003, when Spanish authorities banned Egunkaria, tortured its editors for five days without the possibility of seeking legal counsel and started legal proceedings against them. Now the accusation that the journalists supported ETA which is officially considered to be a terrorist organization has become unfounded. The accusations turned out to be unfounded.

One of the editors absolved, Martxelo Otamendit was the guest of the minority intergroup of the European Parliament on March 3rd. Following the hearing DAHR’s MEP Csaba Sógor condemned the persecution of the representatives of minority press. The Hungarian MEP from Transylvania said that in his opinion the case of the physically tortured journalists is a grave human- and minority rights issue that needs to be denounced by not only the minority, but the majority as well.

Vissza