“If you are sent a letter, and it is not scented, it is from the Civil Government.” If the friends of Kojon Prieto and the Huajalotes continued to sing in the 21st century, I am sure they would remember Carlos Urquijo. As has been pointed out to hundreds of Basque citizens, organisations and municipalities, which have been the subject of appeals and sanctions by the Spanish Government’s delegation to the CAV. The truth is that at ARGIA it was a surprise to read that we had to give it EUR 601 in exchange for doing our work. Moreover, to see that, in total solitude, with the Mordaza Law that only the PP supports, it was going to punish us. And, of course, in addition to that of the Basque Country, throughout the Spanish State he received such a beautiful letter when it was known that we were the first journalist and media.

A small and independent media in Basque is the first point of the exceptional legislation of the Government of Spain. It was March 3 of last year, a week after the 13th anniversary of the closure of Euskaldunon Egunkaria. Restored arguments. The “submission to ETA before”; “with the threat of ETA and the movements of Ospa and Alde Hemendik in force, to put at risk the physical security of police officers and their family”, now through a tweet. Minister Ángel Acebes, who now speaks on behalf of Iberdrola, said in Congress: "It is a joke that we say that in Spain we have a problem of freedom of expression or the right to demonstrate," says Mariano Rajoy in Congress. It seems that Basque journalists still do not understand the flow of important people from Madrid.

The solidarity and support of the Basque media have not changed in recent years. Journalists are privileged, attacks on journalism in general have more scope than violations of the rest of the citizenry. But the key has been to collectivize the problem. The ARGIA working group accelerated the collective response by saying from the first second that we would not pay the unjust fine and that we were willing to disobey the Gross Law. Subsequently, the excellent response of the Basque media and journalists provided a springboard for news to jump to the international community in a few hours. Thus, an administrative fine of EUR 601 imposed on Argia was broadcast by the media The New York Times or Al Jazeera, which are thousands of kilometres away. From that moment on, we saw how the news multiplied: Mexico, French State, Russia, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Australia, etc. For our particular history there will be the listening of ARGIA in the Congress of Spain, with the help of Onintza Enbeita, or the invitation to participate in the Salvados program of Jordi Évole. At the last moment, the producers went back.

They were also the ones who decided to shut up. Little, but big fish. While The Guardian reported condemnation of a Basque citizen, the best-selling newspapers here did not say a single word. Or an interview never published in El País, in which the Madrid journalist asked me if I had any link or relationship with the Abertzale left. Let me give you two dark examples. The same position has been maintained even when we have won the case.

Thanks to Eleak/Libre’s colleagues, following the impetus of the Hekimen media, the Basque Association of Journalists paved the way, first for most of the Spanish State’s journalists’ associations to join us and, hence, to face the International Freedom of Expression, which brings together 100 non-governmental organizations from all over the world.

We go to the place where the law is made with a proposal not to comply with the law. It is an example of the wonderful madness that reigns in our headquarters in Lasarte-Oria. Like the former politicians stunned by the thrust of the revolving doors, we had difficulties when they made us aware of not feeling great in our smallness. The General Meetings of Gipuzkoa and the Parliament of Navarre not only welcomed the failure to comply with the Mordaza Law, but also the Gasteiz Parliament, which controls a police officer, almost unanimously approved our proposal.

Unfortunately, time was right for the only person who voted against the ARGIA proposal. “You are making non-legislative proposals meaningless because you know very well – with your gaze on the representatives of the PNV and the PSE-EE, Carmelo Barrio – that today you are not going to comply with what you have approved.” Since then, the Ertzaintza has confirmed the popular in 2,857 occasions and the Interior Minister, Beltrán de Heredia, on one occasion: A simple “we are to comply with the law”.

The day the professor of political science explained that “what has been said in Parliament often remains within Parliament” we did not go to class. And, timidly, we believed that it would be enough for the majority of the citizens, the social partners, the political parties and the parliament to change the attitude of the police forces.

History of what?
Since we were fined, the Government has turned a deaf ear to the statements of journalists ' associations and other important actors of international rights. The PP militancy in the Spanish Ombudsman, the popular Soledad Becerril, has not helped him either, and Rajoy rejected the request to repeal the ARGIA fine. However, when six days were short for the trial, they decided to reverse. Javier de Andrés, who has caught the rod of Urquijo, has claimed problems in the way of annulling the fine. In order not to bite the case, and with one of the usual legal arguments, remove the 'brown' from the top. No one doubts that the decision is more linked to the political situation of each moment than to justice and the guarantee of rights. They do not want to see the right to record the Moorish Law and the Police now in court and, according to the bad languages, our case did not help the dialogue between the PSOE, the PNV and the PP to continue with sweetness.

We know that this is not going to be a legal precedent, because the fundamental issue has been avoided. Some sanctions which have the same or more lack of arguments have not been suspended.

In addition to the attempt to paralyse the Mordaza Law by judicial means, the end of this one-year story has a more beautiful setback. That, if you want, can be a precedent. As a result of silence, one can win dressed in arguments and with smallness as a stimulus rather than a limit, thanks to the impulse of independent media and popular movements. We would like it to be an example today that it is worth protesting, a vaccine against self-censorship, so that journalists are not the ones who give up our rights. Informing public officials about the activities of public officials in the public sphere cannot be a crime under any circumstances. And even though we have the Mordaza Law at hand, we have shown that it is possible to put just limits on power.

The head thinks about the land that you touch your feet. The ARGIA community that spreads every day is a beautiful soil to jump anywhere.