The program that hangs in the streets of Zarauz does not lack detail. The organizers call for a concentration at twelve noon on Saturday prior to a popular meal. Later, in the mid-afternoon, they plan to carry out a parade through the bars of the town and to end the day a concert and a festival have been scheduled until the wee hours of the morning.
They have baptized the day with the name of '184 taupada' (184 beats), in reference to the many other ETA prisoners who remain in prison, and to whom they intend to pay tribute. Behind the call is a group called 'Free Them All' (Free them all) that brings together 33 former ETA prisoners from the Gipuzkoa municipality.
Sources from Covite explain to ABC that it is a group that is trying to keep a "low profile" on social networks and that the call, for the moment, is limited to posters and banners installed in the municipality. In a letter in Basque published in a local magazine, the former ETA members explain that they are now organizing the tribute because, after the release of Ekaitz Sirvent at the end of May, there are no longer any ETA members from the town in prison. They take advantage of the letter to “thank” the neighbors for their support and launch an invitation to a massive participation next Saturday.
The call has scandalized the PSE that governs with the PNV in the Zarauz City Council. In a statement, unpublished until now before similar calls, the socialist Gloria Vázquez, second deputy mayor and direct collaborator of the mayor Xabier Txurruca, has directly requested the "suspension" of some events "more typical of the past" that, in her opinion, they only seek to "exalt ETA and the ETA members."
"It is unfortunate that there are those who still persist and seek to glorify those who have been convicted of murdering, threatening, blackmailing and belonging to or collaborating with ETA, after causing a large number of murders and injuries throughout the bloody criminal history of the terrorist group" , has added. And it is that the town of Gipuzkoa has been one of the hardest hit by the ETA scourge.
Terrorists have murdered 20 people in its streets, including the first female police officer, María José García. They have also attacked many others, such as the journalist Gorka Landaburu. Likewise, there have been "numerous" residents who had to leave the municipality due to "harassment, threats and blackmail by ETA."
It is especially bloody that some of those directly responsible for those attacks that spread terror in Zarauz are now among the conveners of the tribute. "If these acts are allowed, the risk that the ideas and values that legitimized the violence will return is high," the councilor warned.
However, members of Covite explain to ABC that it is practically impossible for justice to admit a preventive ban on the event. Until now, the National Court has always rejected precautionary measures against similar acts based on the "right to freedom of expression" and arguing that they cannot be prohibited before they are held. The only option would be for the organizers to decide to suspend the tribute voluntarily. A possibility, however, that the victims consider highly unlikely.
