In May 2018, the Ertzaintza identified a person in Donostia-San Sebastián accused of asking him to speak in Basque. For this reason, the Observatory sent a complaint to the Department of the Interior of the Basque Government, which in its reply stated that the citizen’s right to interact in Basque with the agents had not been respected. He also reported that the Ertzaines involved in the activity and the scorecard had been informed of the good practice. It was expressly requested to apologise to the citizen.

I am sorry, because now the citizenship of Donostia/San Sebastian has been fined with 600€ in full in Spanish. Sting the wound.

This has reminded us of what happened in summer 2018 with the Municipal Police of Bilbao. An agent of the Municipal Police asked Arkaitz Zarraga to identify himself, who asked the Municipal Police to head in Basque and had a discussion with the agent. The event was denounced by Arkaitz and received a harsh response from the City Hall. A few months later, a municipal police officer was asked for €900 to say that he had the right to speak in Basque.

So what legal certainty does the Basque have in order to be able to act in Basque before the authority? Who will ensure the linguistic rights of citizens?

More than one might think that these cases are rare. Not bad that it was. But the testimonies collected in the Observatory on Linguistic Rights show that the uncomfortable and unjust situations experienced by citizens are more common than is believed.

From here we would like to thank the citizens for their work. We also call on the agents of the Security Forces and those in their positions of command to eradicate the mistreatment and unfair suffering of citizens in relation to language.