Covite registers 547 acts of support for ETA in 2022, 319 more than the previous year, and only one 'ongi etorri' to prisoners

Demonstrations in favor of amnesty for ETA prisoners have increased by 190% compared to 2021

SAN SEBASTIAN, Dec. 29 (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Collective of Victims of Terrorism, Covite, has registered a total of 547 acts of support for ETA throughout 2022 in its Radicalization Observatory, which is 319 more than the previous year (139%), in which registered a total of 228 acts of support for ETA.

However, he has highlighted the "good news" that means that the number of 'ongi etorris' to ETA prisoners during 2022 has been the lowest since they began to publicly denounce this type of act, at the end of 2016, having only occurred an act of this type this year, the one carried out on Ibai Aginaga on March 13 in Berango (Bizkaia) by "the ETA dissidence".

"Hopefully in 2023 we no longer have to document a single 'ongi etorri'", said the president of Covite, Consuelo Ordóñez, who has attributed the disappearance of these acts of welcoming prisoners to her "constant work of documentation and public denunciation of this type of humiliating and unworthy acts".

In his opinion, all of this has resulted in "the rejection of the 'ongi etorris' by the majority of Basque, Navarrese and Spanish society, as well as the condemnation of the majority of the institutions and political forces, with the exception of EH Bildu".

The group has lamented, however, that "the cult of ETA through other types of acts is far from disappearing." Thus, he pointed out that the "exponential" increase in acts of support for ETA is also explained because Covite "has invested more effort this year in documenting them, given the disappearance of the 'ongi etorris'".

Of the total number of events carried out, 197 have taken place in Bizkaia, 192 in Gipuzkoa, 69 in Navarra, 47 in Álava, 14 in other provinces -8 in Catalonia, 2 in Madrid, 2 in Castilla y León, 1 in Galicia and 1 in the Canary Islands- and 28 in the French Basque Country.

Regarding the type of acts in support of ETA, 226 have been the appearance of graffiti and banners "explicitly extolling ETA and its prisoners", 174 have been demonstrations in which "amnesty - not the approach to Basque jails- of the imprisoned ETA members", 47 popular festivals held "specifically to exalt ETA or harass the Civil Guard" such as the 'Ospa eguna' in Alsasua or the 'Gudari eguna', 44 of "public tributes to ETA members dead".

The remaining 55 acts have been classified in the 'Other' category, since they could not be classified in any of the previous categories. Covite has cited as an example of other acts "Christmas dinners on public roads with photos of imprisoned ETA members, to symbolize that they cannot have dinner with their relatives on Christmas Eve because they are in prison."

The type of act that has increased the most compared to 2021 has been that of demonstrations in favor of amnesty, specifically 190% compared to 2021, the year in which 60 were documented. The rest of the categories of acts have also increased of support for ETA: in 2022 there were 43% more graffiti and banners than in 2021, the year in which the collective located 164. As for tributes to dead ETA members, in 2022 there were 44 and in 2021 25 were produced, representing an increase of 76%.

Covite has insisted that the data collected for its Radicalization Observatory show that "the defense and public legitimization of ETA terrorism in the streets of Euskadi and Navarra is not far from disappearing, far from it."

The president of Covite recalled that "the streets and public spaces in Euskadi and Navarra have always been a showcase for the demands of the nationalist left, and they still are today". "Hundreds of young people are growing up with the idea that the ETA members are heroes. Demanding amnesty for those who are in jail for very serious crimes may be legal, but it is a clear symptom of moral and democratic abnormality. Do we see hundreds in France of people in the streets asking for the release of jihadist terrorists?" Ordóñez asked himself.

In this sense, from Covite they have lamented that "despite the fact that the phenomenon of violent radicalization in favor of ETA in the Basque Country and in Navarra does not diminish", the institutions "continue without treating this issue with the seriousness and urgency it deserves ".

Thus, he has criticized the fact that efforts to prevent radicalization, including the National Prevention Plan, "have focused all these years on jihadism and have ignored the main focus of radicalization that we had and still have in our country."

Covite has also stressed that "despite the fact that the 'ongi etorris' have disappeared, this does not mean that the Abertzale left has condemned its past of complicity with ETA and has made the necessary ethical journey to contribute to the consolidation of peace and free coexistence in Euskadi and Navarra".

"EH Bildu may have been able to renounce carrying out more public 'ongi etorris', but he has done so without condemning them and without having renounced continuing to transmit hate towards anyone who does not share his fanatical thought. If they have stopped doing them, it is because they have had no other choice because of the social and political pressure they have received, not because they have made an ethical reflection on it," he insisted.

Covite has held the politicians of the Abertzale left responsible for being "those who contribute the most to this violent radicalization, calling the murderers of our relatives 'political prisoners' and ETA members fugitives from justice 'refugees'."

Finally, Consuelo Ordóñez denounced that this same year, on the occasion of the anniversary of the end of ETA terrorism, Arnaldo Otegi "insisted that ETA prisoners are just as much victims as those killed by ETA and that the solution for coexistence lies in their release, that is, due to impunity, because they have always believed and continue to believe that killing or helping or killing was not wrong, and that for this reason they do not deserve to be in jail".