- In application of the Moorish Law, the City of Bilbao has imposed a penalty of 900 euros on Arkaitz Zarraga. On August 27, a local police officer asked him to identify and when Zarraga told him that he had the right to speak in Basque, he held a discussion with the agent and was fined. When he denounced the facts, it had a great impact and received a harsh response from the City Hall.
“The situation is truly Kafkiana,” explains Arkaitz Zarraga. In application of the Moorish Law from the City Council of Bilbao they ask for 900 euros to say to an agent who had the right to speak in Basque. He is charged with two fines, one of EUR 600, for not having identified himself, and another of EUR 300 for insulting a municipal police officer.
According to Zarraga, none of the fines is justified. He says that both are based on lies and cannot believe what is happening: “I didn’t tell him any insults and I identified with the driver’s license,” he explains to ARGIA.
Zarraga sent a written complaint to the City Council of Bilbao in connection with this year’s summer event. In a plenary session, Mayor Juan Mari Aburto accused him of lying and, the following day, the City Council responded in writing, diverting the issue from the realm of linguistic rights. The City Council indicated that the agent identified as such was a woman, suggesting that Zarraga's performance had been a male chauvinist.
It has become “very painful” to this Euskaltzale, which since last August has explained the fatigue caused by the return to the subject, and has underlined that the form of communication that the City has had so far with it has been more aggressive than the language used by the administration.
You can read, for example, in the answer that the City Council responded to your October complaint: “In the case at hand, the issue of language has to be in the background, because in reality the important thing is something else: its behavior with the agent (…) demonstrates the enormous courtesy it has and its responsibility as a citizen”.
Asked why he will face the fine, Zarraga explained that the first thing he has to do is to assimilate the coup, but that he intends to resort to the fine. He says that he is receiving messages that encourage him to stay and follow both privately and on social networks, and that he has had the support of the comparsa Hau Pittu Hau at all times.
Based on his case, he has also made a more general reflection on the attitude of the administration towards the Basque country: “Euskaraldia and other similar initiatives are very good at promoting the use of language, but the role of the administration is different, it is up to it to guarantee linguistic rights. The Administration cannot be Belarriprest, it must be Ahobizi.”