From the past of La Box to the future of the City of Bilbao, a demonstration in favour of the Basque political prisoners chained over and over in the most basic human dialectic that affects all people. On a Sunday at noon, thousands of people responded again to the call of the former prisoners. The paradox is that the issue with the greatest capacity to mobilize in the Basque Country continually clashes with the political will of Spain, without the necessary force to tear it apart. There are, therefore, two significant truths on the subject of prisoners and exiles, one of the most painful heirs to the conflict today: much force, still insufficient.

It is going to take more, that is, more to open up gaps in prison policy than the impulse of this large social space on the Abertzale left. In addition to the mobilization, in the coming months there will be changes in three different areas s.Lo first that prisoners can do is what they can do, using all the loopholes in the law, taking measures that were
not previously approved, now inevitably. The political apparatus of the Abertzale left, the former prisoners and the EPPK have already paid the land, now they will have to take concrete measures or are already taking them, because many of them will not have much public impact. Prisoners have all the support of their social space on that cowardly path.

The second area is the Government of Spain. The key is the new government that will be set up and whether or not prison policy will be made more flexible. So we'll have to wait a little bit. There are indications that several positions are becoming more flexible. The most significant are those in the judicial area, such as the case of Segura or the end of the Aztnugal case: the defendants have accepted the crime because they have no choice and the prosecution – behind this there is always a government – has imposed the lowest penalty not to go to prison; there are others, such as the embargo of the Herriko Tabernas decreed in summer 2015, which has not yet been implemented. It seems that he is making a way, but in prison policy it has not yet been reflected at the same level.

The third area is in the Basque institutions. Their momentum is also key, but here too the commitment to unlocking the issue of prisoners is very small, at least if we start from what you see. The issue has its technical point of view – Hitzeman, etc. – but above all the key is political will, and what can be deduced from this is that the main institutions do not look at the suffering that exists today in the world of prisoners, but in the softest assessment that can be made is a thorny issue of obtaining votes and that is ignored. The measures taken in the area of torture, for example, are very different.

For the Basque Government, in the harsh reality of a few hundred prisoners and their families, there is no right to a violation of rights that protects, socialises and shows a proactive attitude towards this reality. Time and time again, ETA’s disarmament and left Abertzale’s lace only in the perspective of the past says everything.

At the beginning of the legislature there was a level of hope in what the Basque Government could do in the area of peace: it was one of the three main themes for lehendakari Urkullu, along with the crisis and self-government. In addition, Jonan Fernández was in charge of directing the process. At the end of the legislature, however, the assessment of the Basque Government is very limited in relation to what has been the peace process; it is more deficient in relation to the work carried out in the field of Basque prisoners, especially when in the Basque Parliament or in the General Boards positions against the dispersal and release of sick prisoners are clear.

But what we have is that, without a greater degree of commitment on the part of the main institutions, dedicating the issue of prisoners is going to give more time. The task of the Abertzale left, which has the greatest interest, is to increase the commitment of the institutions and to seek a new level of complicity.

Mobilization, prisoners, the Government of Spain and the Basque institutions. Four areas and several keys. But without the impulse of the first, the other three cannot, that is the fundamental value of mobilization.