Tens of thousands fill streets of Bilbao, protesting for rights of ETA prisoners in Spain

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Around 20,000 people filled the streets Saturday in the Spanish city of Bilbao to protest for the rights of ETA prisoners, according to police.

ETA was a Basque terror group that carried out a violent campaign of bombings and assassinations in a fight to gain independence from Spain.

The group disbanded in 2018 but 134 ETA members are in Spanish prisons, eight are in French prisons, and around 20 are exiled abroad, according to Spanish news agency, Efe.

In the annual march in Bilbao, the largest city in the Basque Country, located in northern Spain, protesters demanded the release of the prisoners and for authorities to respect their human rights.

"We seek to end the cycle of violence … implementing a culture of human rights and peace that would be a genuine guarantee that it (violent struggle) won’t happen again,” said Joseba Azkarraga, spokesperson of Sare, the group that organized the event.

“To those who say there were ‘winners and losers,’ we say that is a false idea -- one that goes against the desire for peace, which is something shared by the vast majority of Basque society,” he told the crowd, according to Efe.

Protesters accuse Spain of treating ETA prisoners worse than others and called for an end to “laws of exception” that allow the treatment to occur.

Conditions have improved for ETA prisoners in recent years.

In 2023, all Basque inmates were returned to prisons close to their homes. Previously, many were serving time in prisons hours from home, spread around Spain, making it difficult for family and friends to visit.

“We will keep working to let them go free. We haven’t brought them back here to keep them imprisoned,” added Azkarraga.

Between 1968 and 2010, ETA killed more than 820 victims and injured thousands more.

But with its support waning and membership weakened, the group eventually laid down arms and entirely dissolved.

Some of its previous supporters have joined mainstream Spanish politics, with the EH Bildu party still trying to achieve Basque independence, but now through peaceful means.