23rd October 2007
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA (Basque for "Basque Homeland and Freedom")is an armed Basque nationalist organisation.
ETA was founded in 1959 and evolved from a group advocating traditional Basque cultural ways to an armed group using violence to demand Basque independence. Its ideology is Marxist-Leninist.
ETA is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the Spanish authorities, the European Union, the United States, and the United Nations.
ETA believes that The Basque region which lies between France and Spain should be an independent state and has forced many violent attacks against Spain in the past.
Photographs of the ETA conflict have been put on display in the Bilbao Guggenheim. The families and the ‘Association of Victims of Terrorism’ have issued that they should be withdrawn from the gallery.
One of the images is a photograph of one man crying over the coffin of a deceased ETA member.
Over forty years of ETA attacks 800 people have been killed. The 'Association of Victims of Terrorism' described the photographs as “highly offensive to the victims of terrorism".
The Gallery's Director Juan Ignacio Vidarte expressed his “surprise and sadness” at the reaction. He stated that he would not withdraw the photographs unless asked to do so by a judge.
