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Batasuna ''(Unity)'' is a Basque Political party based mainly in Spain but with a French Presence , which has traditionally acted as the political branch of the Basque illegal terrorist group ETA . It is part of the ''Basque National Liberation Movement'' which includes social organizations, trade unions, youth ( Jarrai and Gazteriak, now merged in Haika and Segi), and women's groups ( Egizan ). It has been banned in Spain since 2003 , ostensibly for failing to condemn the atrocities of ETA and for alleged ties between its members and the violent group, but is not illegal in France. It is included in the European Union List Of Terrorist Persons And Organisations '' Posición Común 2004/309/PESC del Consejo , de 2 de abril de 2004, por la que se actualiza la Posición Común 2001/931/PESC sobre la aplicación de medidas específicas de lucha contra el terrorismo y se deroga la Posición Común 2003/906/PESC.- Diario Oficial n° L 099 de 03/04/2004 p. 0061 - 0064.''
HISTORY AND OUTLINE The party was founded in April 1978 as Herri Batasuna ''(Unity of the People)'', a coalition of leftist nationalist political groups following the Basque region's rejection of the new Spanish Constitution . Its constituent parties had been called together by senior Basque nationalist Telesforo De Monzón in a 1977 meeting called "the table of Alsasua ." Herri Batasuna's founding convention was held in Lekeitio , home of Santiago Brouard who was then the leader of HASI (Herriko Alderdi Sozialista Iraultzailea or Revolutionary Socialist People's Party). The party won 170,000 votes (a 13% showing in the Basque Country) in its first General Election in March 1979 . '' (black eagle), Basque nationalist modern version of the ancient arms of Navarre.]] On November 20 , 1984 , Dr Brouard was assassinated by two members of the GAL while treating a child at his medical clinic in Bilbao. The killing is perhaps the only one performed by the Spanish government-directed Death Squad within Spain itself. In 1986 , the administration of Felipe González organised a referendum to keep Spain inside NATO . The Electoral law was to count only votes in Spanish, while votes in other languages would count as null and void. Herri Batasuna resented that rule, which it considered a ploy to prevent Basque nationalists from influencing the election, and called on its supporters to vote No in Spanish. When the Spanish administration changed the rules so as to count votes in the other languages of Spain as well, Herri Batasuna called for supporters to vote in Basque. The vote in the referendum was to keep Spain in NATO, but the majority of voters in the Basque Autonomous Community stood strongly against it. Herri Batasuna was not the only party asking for a no vote. From 1998 to 2001, Batasuna assumed the name Euskal Herritarrok (''We Basque Citizens''). The current party spokesmen are Arnaldo Otegi , and Joseba Permach Gorroño. Otegi was a member of the armed groups ETA -political-military (since 1977 or before, until 1981 ), and ETA-military (since 1981) and served several years in prison for bank assault. He is married and has two children. After having been brought to court early this year (2005) he was set free on parole. Another important member of Batasuna is José Antonio Urrutikoetxea , alias Josu Ternera, the main leader of ETA between 1987 and 1989 and accused of a number of Homicide s like the massacre of 21 people at Hipercor - a shopping center in Barcelona . He was imprisoned in France after 1989, released after finishing his sentence and was transferred to Spanish prisons, where he stayed for 2 more years until his release by the Constitutional Court, which stipulated that he had served his prison term in France. He was elected to the Basque parliament between 1999 and 2001,and was appointed as his party's representative in the Human Rights commission at the Basque Parliament . He disappeared when the Spanish courts decided to reopen his charges, and present new ones about his current membership in ETA. Presently he lives in hiding and is considered one of the leaders of ETA that are pushing for negotiations. On 14 November 2004 , during a mass meeting in San Sebastian the party leader Arnaldo Otegi asked for an end to the armed conflict in the region, which has been continuing for decades. Following the February 2006 deaths of was ordered to appear in court to answer for the bomb attacks and disruption, but delayed his appearance repeatedly on the grounds of illness. ELECTORAL PARTICIPATION Batasuna had around 200,000 voters and won 10% of the vote in the 2001 regional elections after boycotting the 2000 general election. Batasuna had representatives in the European Parliament and in the parliaments of Navarre and the provinces of the Basque Autonomous Community . It also ruled some 62 local councils {Link without Title} , and had members in many more. Currently, Batasuna has lost all its representatives in the Spanish Parliaments, since regaining some their seats in elections held after the banning of the party. While the party has been barred from formally taking part in elections since 2003 (see below), it has coordinated a variety of forms of participation (or quantifiable nonparticipation) in recent elections. After the May 2003 provincial and local elections, followers of the local lists protested claiming the council seats corresponding to the invalid votes (127.000, a 10% of the total vote in the Basque Country). In May 2004, a list named Herritarren Zerrenda ''(Citizens' List)'' was presented in Spain and France to the European Parliament Election, 2004 . Spanish tribunals rejected it, as a successor of Batasuna. However, the HZ list in France remained legal. HZ candidates in Spain then campaigned for using the French HZ ballot also in Spain, which was to be counted as Null Vote . There were more than 98,000 null votes in the Basque Autonomous Country and more than 15,000 in Navarre. HZ leaders interpret the high abstention rate, which was 12% of the total vote, to mean that most of the nulls were for HZ, since in the previous European elections the null vote was less than 1%, |