It was not organized by diedhard terrorists. These were young people who believed they were acting to protect their community. The present ETA was born out of a fear of extermination. In our opinion, the struggle of the Basque National Liberation Movement has never been only against Gen. Franco or whoever is in Madrid, but for a free and united Basque Country in which people would be able to choose the system they want in an atmosphere of mutual respect, and build a society where everybody is treated equal. Hundreds of them, the finest women and men that the Basque Country ever produced engage in hunger-strikes and other forms of protest in defense of human dignity.
Human dignity is all they are asking for.
They want the right to be in jails closest to their homes and the right not to be called common criminals. They do not ask for better conditions than anyone else in prison. All they want is that the Spanish and the French governments acknowledge that they are in prison because they believe they are fighting for the rights of their nation, that their actions are not motivated by their own self-interest. The states' prison policy, however, affects women disproportionately. Government rhetoric on women's rights is far from being fulfilled in practice, and in the Basque Country, like in France and in Spain, in the most basic areas of human rights taken for granted by men, women still struggle for their rights of equality.