Many people injured and five arrested are the result of the banning of the annual demonstration in Donostia’s regatta-day in favour of Basque political prisoners. Twenty one Ertzaintza’s anti-riot vans and more than a hundred policemen in the streets. Furthermore, a secret-agent used his gun and shooted in the air, being the second using of real fire during the last 10 months.
SUMMARY
Javier Balza, the Basque autonomic government’s interior minister, and autonomic police, the Ertzaintza, fulfiled the expectations. Last week they banned a peaceful demonstration in Donostia in favour of Basque political prisoners, for the freedom of those who have served their sentences or are seriously ill (92nd article of Spanish Penal Code).
Yesterday, after the regattas of Donostia (‘Kontxako Estropadak’), the demonstration began at 13.30. Twenty one vans of the anti-riot section of Ertzaintza and dozens of policemen waited on Donostia’s Boulevard. Other two vans were prepared to transfer arrested people, and a helicopter overflied the city. The demonstration began with people shouting “Presoak kalera, amnistia osoa!” (“Prisoners on the street, total amnesty!”). Hundreds and hundreds of posters with different topics: prisoners faces, pro-amnesty, against the continuous ’state of emergency’ in the Basque Country, against the banning of political parties…
When people arrived to where police-forces were, these ones began pushing and hitting demonstrators. Then, people began shouting against the PNV (Partido Nacionalista Vasco – Basque Nationalist Party) and the Ertzaintza, and also in favour of the freedom for all the Basque political prisoners, who are more than seven hundred. That was the moment when the first two demonstrators were arrested; then, hooded groups began throwing bottles and stones against the police, who responded shooting plastic-bullets.
However, the demonstration continued when hundreds of people joined and walked through streets near the Boulevard, until they got to Okendo street, where the Ertzaintza attacked and separated them. When the Boulevard seemed to be relaxed, riots continued near from there, in the Alde Zaharra (the ‘Old Part’), which was full of people (not only demonstrators, also tourists, inhabitants and people in the taverns) because of the regattas. Then was the third arrest, when policemen violently took a young man from a bar. In Constitución Square, the police had to run away from the riots.
Later, a secret-policeman was identified by demonstrators, who shouted ‘txakurra’ (‘dog’, a typical nickname used for ‘policeman’). He had been discovered, so he used his gun and while pointing people, he shooted eight real bullets in the air. Two more people were arrested and more than five were hurt -one of them was hurt by a plastic-bullet in the head, which made him bleed from his ear, being immediately evacuated by the anbulance-. Finally, at mid-afternoon, the Ertzaintza left the city, so peace and party came back to the streets of Donostia. Arrested people were released at night, but they’ll have to go to tribunals because of ‘public disordering’.
