Miss Louise ARBOUR
Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights
UNOG-OHCHR
1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland

Dear Miss ARBOUR,

In his report of 21 March 2006 to the Commission on Human Rights on “Civil and Political Rights, including the Questions of Detention and Torture” - page 63, paragraph 292 - Mr. Manfred NOVAK, Special Rapporteur on Torture, referred to the prisoners of ETA as “ basque political prisoners ”.

We consider it unacceptable that, in the XXI century, representatives of the United Nations, in this case the Special Rapporteur on Torture, ignore the real situation of a State visited by the UN organ, and consider as “political prisoners” persons who are terrorists.

As it has been stated by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe in his Report on his visit to Spain and the Basque Country, on 5-8 February 2001 (CommDH(2001)2), the Basque Country is defined as:

”4… an Autonomous Community, with a population of 2,098,628, governed by a statute granting autonomy (Law 3/1979 of 18 December) which provides for autonomous governmental institutions (the government and parliament of the Autonomous Community), which have a very broad range of exclusive powers (education, health, transport, roads, industry, culture and many others too numerous to mention in full, which are recognised in the constitution and statute, without forgetting the powers transferred in recent years by means of over 90 decrees). Moreover, this Autonomous Community, under an agreement with the central government, is authorised to levy its own taxes, have its own Basque autonomous police force (the “Ertzaintza”), set up to cover all aspects of police work, and Basque public radio and television stations broadcasting in the Basque language, which has the status of an official language. Education is through the medium of Basque and Spanish, although in certain schools, including those which are subsidised, teaching takes place primarily through the medium of Basque. The net result is that this Autonomous Community today has more powers than a German land, to quote just one example of an advanced federal state”.

In spite of this, the terrorist organization ETA practices terrorism. As underlined by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe in his Report:

“1. There is no doubt that the action taken by ETA is a direct interference with the most fundamental of human rights – the right to life, and also the right to the freedom and safety of individuals (the criminal kidnappings are pure acts of torture for the victims, their families and their friends), the freedom of thought, assembly and association. The attacks on non-nationalist politicians and journalists have made it extremely difficult for those who are not nationalists to carry out political and party action or exercise the right to information, to such an extent that personal police protection is required for journalists under threat to be able to carry out their profession and for the municipal councillors and members of parliament concerned to fulfil their representative roles.

To give an idea of the extent of ETA terrorist action, according to official statistics, since 1968 and up to late 2000, this organisation has carried out 782 murders and assassinations, 709 of which took place after the adoption of the 1978 constitution (the Association of Victims of Terrorism – COVITE – puts this figure at 719 up to 1998, in the context of 2789 attacks causing 1867 casualties), i.e. since the democratic regime has been re-established, the autonomous communities instituted, and, of course, after the amnesty for all political crimes decreed at the advent of the new stage in Spanish democracy.

However, since the beginning of 2000 (according to figures relating to the period from 21 January 2000 to 26 January 2001 supplied by the office of the Regional Minister for Internal Affairs of the Basque government) the action taken by ETA has, with 25 murders (today this has risen to 27), become more targeted, focusing on elected representatives (municipal councillors and members of Parliament of diverse political parties, in particular the People's Party and the Socialist Party), journalists, university professors, newspaper editors, heads of companies who refuse to pay the money demanded of them under threat of death, and of course military personnel, state security forces, and often the Basque autonomous police itself”.

Miss ARBOUR, it becomes crystal clear that Mr. NOWAK is professionally obliged to know the real situation of Spain and its status as a democratic State without political prisoners, as well as the condition of terrorists of the prisoners of ETA. Specially, existing reports of competent International Organizations on human rights that might be useful to him.

Behaviours like that one of the Special Rapporteur Mr. NOVAK, bring the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations to discredit. This is why we ask you for taking all necessary measures to prevent these regrettable situations before they happen again and we ask you to rebuke Mr. NOVAK for his negligence.

Yours sincerely.