ASN6 - Interview with Asel Luzarraga (Basque author, anarchist activist and punk musician)
Channel: Jim Donaghey
Date: 2020-09-03

Asel Luzarraga in interview with Jim Donaghey.

Thanks to Slaine (Fresh) Browne for help with video editing - all wonky bits are my own errors.

Asel Luzarraga is a fiction writer in the Basque language and in Castilian Spanish, and is a punk musician and anarchist activist. He was arrested in Chile in December 2009 and falsely charged with carrying out terrorist bombings. On the basis of evidence planted by the authorities, Asel was convicted of possession of bomb making materials. He spent 245 days in detention (42 in jail, and the remainder under house arrest), and was deported from Chile and put on the Interpol list of international terrorists. He has been campaigning against that conviction ever since. 

Asel’s involvement in punk culture, his anarchist politics, and his Basque ‘nationality’ were held up by the Chilean authorities as evidence of Asel’s guilt. And indeed, this is in keeping with the repression that has been waged by the Chilean authorities against anarchists, and others, espeically in the context of the protest movements that have swept the country since 18 October 2019.

Asel discusses the relationships between punk and anarchism in the Basque Country and Chile, the protest movement in Chile, the ongoing struggle of the indigenous Mapuche people, state repression of anarchists, and the impact of the pandemic on protest and organising.

To find out more about Asel's campaign and to find out how you can support him, visit his campaign website: https://asel.eus/eu/asel-terrorist-please-english/