ETA, an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, was an armed Basque nationalist and separatist terrorist organization in the Basque Country. The group was founded in 1959 and later evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group engaged in a violent campaign of bombing, assassinations, and kidnappings in the Southern Basque Country and throughout Spanish territory. Its goal was gaining independence for the Basque Country. ETA was the main group within the Basque National Liberation Movement and was the most important Basque participant in the Basque conflict.
Batasuna was a Basque nationalist political party. Based mainly in Spain, it was banned in 2003, after a court ruling declared proven that the party was financing ETA with public money.
Basque nationalism is a form of nationalism that asserts that Basques, an ethnic group indigenous to the western Pyrenees, are a nation and promotes the political unity of the Basques, today scattered between Spain and France. Since its inception in the late 19th century, Basque nationalism has included separatist movements.
The Communist Party of the Basque Homelands was a communist Basque separatist party in the Basque Country, Spain. The party was outlawed by the Spanish Supreme Court in 2008 after it was judicially proven to be part of Batasuna and, ultimately, ETA.
Gestoras pro Amnistía was an organisation formed in 1979 to campaign for the release of ETA prisoners and to support their interests. Its predecessor was La Gestora Pro Amnistía, which was closed in 1977 after its demand for a general amnesty was met.
Ógra Shinn Féin is the youth wing of the Irish political party Sinn Féin. Ógra Shinn Féin is active and organised throughout the island of Ireland.
The Basque National Liberation Movement was an umbrella term that comprised all social, political and armed organizations orbiting around the ideas of the illegal armed organisation Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), proscribed internationally as a terrorist organisation.
Basque Nationalist Action is a Basque nationalist party based in Spain. Founded in 1930, it was the first Basque nationalist political party to exist running on a socialist program. On 16 September 2008, the party was outlawed by the Spanish Supreme Court based on ties with ETA. The Spanish ruling was appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which, after reviewing the question, upheld the Spanish courts on the matter.
The Association of Victims of Terrorism is a Spanish association created in 1981 by victims of terrorist attacks. Its members include those injured by ETA, GRAPO, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Al Qaeda, as well as their families. It does not, however, include victims of extreme right Spanish groups such as GAL, Warriors of Christ the King and others. Its membership exceeds 6,000.
Askatasuna is a Basque political party registered on 31 August 1998, outlawed in 2009 by the Audiencia Nacional under the 2002 Political Parties Law.
The Basque conflict, also known as the Spain–ETA conflict, was an armed and political conflict from 1959 to 2011 between Spain and the Basque National Liberation Movement, a group of social and political Basque organizations which sought independence from Spain and France. The movement was built around the separatist organization ETA, which had launched a campaign of attacks against Spanish administrations since 1959. ETA had been proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Spanish, British, French and American authorities at different moments. The conflict took place mostly on Spanish soil, although to a smaller degree it was also present in France, which was primarily used as a safe haven by ETA members. It was the longest running violent conflict in modern Western Europe. It has been sometimes referred to as "Europe's longest war".
EH Bildu, short for Euskal Herria Bildu is a left-wing, Basque nationalist, pro-independence political coalition active in the Spanish autonomous communities of Basque Country, Navarre and Burgos Province.
Basque National Liberation Movement prisoners are all those people who have been imprisoned, placed on remand, or otherwise kept in custody due to their illegal activity in support of the Basque National Liberation Movement.
David Pla Marín is a lawyer and Basque activist, who Spanish authorities believe to have been one of the three leaders of the Basque separatist group ETA at the time of the group's ceasefire declaration in October 2011. In 2000 Pla was condemned to six years imprisonment for planning an attack against the Mayor of Zaragoza, José Atarés. Pla is believed to be one of three people who read out the October 2011 ETA ceasefire declaration. He had previously been the leader of Basque separatist youth organisation Jarrai in the 1990s and had stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for Herri Batasuna in the 1995 local elections.
Etxerat is an association of family members of people who have been imprisoned or exiled because of their activity in support of the Basque National Liberation Movement. Most of those prisoners and exiles are members, or former members, of the Basque armed separatist organization ETA. Others were not members of ETA but have been jailed for collaborating with it, or have been convicted of other crimes such as belonging to illegal organizations like SEGI or Gestoras pro Amnistía, belonging to or trying to rebuild banned political parties such as Batasuna and Askatasuna, participating in Kale borroka, or for the "public glorification of terrorism". Etxerat's primary activities are to support those family members, and to campaign to defend the rights of their imprisoned and exiled relatives.
The Grupos Armados Españoles (GAE) was a Spanish neo-fascist paramilitary organisation active from 1979 to 1980, primarily in the Basque Country. A report by the Office for Victims of Terrorism of the Basque Government in June 2010 attributed 6 murders to the group, and linked it to the National Police Corps, SECED and the Civil Guard.
Joxe Pernando Barrena Arza is a Basque politician, former member of the Parliament of Navarre and former member of the European Parliament for Spain.
Maria Angeles Beitialarrangoitia Lizarralde is a Basque journalist and politician. She was previously a member of the Congress of Deputies of Spain and Basque Parliament, and mayor of Hernani.
Hasier Arraiz Barbadillo is a Spanish politician from the Basque Country. He was the first president of Sortu, and a member of the Basque Parliament.
Genoveva Forest Tarrat was a Spanish far-left activist, writer and political prisoner. Born into an anarchist family in Barcelona, she studied medicine in Madrid. During the 1970s, she supported the Basque separatist group ETA in their resistance to the government of dictator Francisco Franco. From 1974 to 1977, she was imprisoned for alleged complicity in the Cafetería Rolando bombing (1974) which killed 13 people in Madrid. After Spain's transition to democracy, she served a term as a senator from 1992 until 1993. The wife of the Spanish writer Alfonso Sastre, she died in May 2007.
