Protests over disappeared during Basque conflict

Earlier this month a Basque campaigners demanded answers to the issue of political activists who disappeared in Spain and France over the past over forty years. August 30th is International Day of the Disappeared.

This report (originally from Mediabask) from Breton site 7seizh:

http://7seizh.info/2018/09/06/sept-disparitions-non-resolues-dans-le-con...

The Celtic League has been an active campaigner for Basque rights and has highlighted abuse of prisoners and extrajudicial killings.

In July 2010 the Celtic League Annual General Meeting, held on the Isle of Man called for an independent inquiry into the mysterious death of a Basque nationalist in France in 2009.

Jon Anza Ortuñez, a former member of ETA, left his home in the Basque country in April 2009 and took a train to Toulouse. Eventually, after he had failed to contact his family for several days, they notified French police that he had disappeared. His body turned up ten months later apparently having lain unidentified in a mortuary in Toulouse. There has been speculation that French and Spanish special police may have been involved in his death and/or colluded in the cover-up.

A resolution adopted by the AGM at the time said:

“This AGM: Concerned at the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Basque nationalist, Jon Anza Ortuñez, calls on the French government to convene an independent international inquiry into the cause of his death.”

Ortunez death and the fate of the Basque and Galicians mentioned in the 7seizh article remain unresolved.

Image: Protest about the fate of Jon Anza Ortuñez.

Bernard Moffatt