Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, met with Basque Senator Urko Aiartza Azurtza, and two political activist colleagues from the Basque Country, to discuss the increasingly aggressive attacks by the Spanish state on Basque political activists, including police raids on human rights groups and NGOs.<\/p>\n
The delegation held numerous meeting during their visit. They met with Sinn F\u00e9in TDs and Senators, Sinn F\u00e9in members in Dublin, members of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee.\u00a0 They also travelled to Belfast for more cross-party meetings with MLA and other Sinn F\u00e9in organised meetings.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank Urko and his two colleagues for coming to Ireland to brief Sinn F\u00e9in members and politicians about the current challenges they are facing in their peace process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe actions of elements of the Spanish state are completely undermining the peace process in the Basque Country, and we share their concerns and outrage at these actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis month two political trials against 76 members of the Abertzale Left will start in the Spanish National Court. The charges against these activists for their political work and the determination of the Spanish state to continue with the political trials, is a clear sign that some in positions of authority want to move backwards and undermine the peace process.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast Monday the Spanish police arrested 18 members of Herrira, the Basque prisoners\u2019 support group. Up until now Herrira have played an important role in defending the human rights of Basque prisoners and in promoting a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the Basque Country and there is cross-party outrage there at these arrests.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet the Spanish state has arrested these 18 campaigners on the ludicrous grounds that ETA also supports prisoners\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is evident that powerful elements of the Spanish state don\u2019t want the peace process to work and are trying to ensure its destruction with harsher laws and arbitrary political arrests.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Spanish state needs to release these activists and show some indication that it is committed to peace and democracy, and that it will respect human and political rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cIreland and the EU cannot stand idly by while the peace process is being undermined and hollowed out by selected arrests and a political paralysis that is preventing any new initiatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, met with Basque Senator Urko Aiartza Azurtza, and two political activist colleagues from the Basque Country, to discuss the increasingly aggressive attacks by the Spanish state on Basque political activists, including police raids on human rights groups and NGOs. The delegation held numerous meeting during their visit. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,14,50,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basque-country","category-foreign-affairs","category-human-rights","category-reconciliation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1009"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1111,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009\/revisions\/1111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}