Madrid, May 23 The president of the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT), Maite Araluce, has shown her support on Tuesday for the controversial words of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, that ETA is still alive and has assured that she does not feel offended as a victim by that affirmation because the terrorist group is still present “in banners, photographs, toasts and tributes”.
During his speech at an informative breakfast attended by, among others, the PP spokesman, Borja Sémper, the deputy and VOX candidate for Madrid mayor, Javier Ortega Smith and the government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, the president of the AVT has referred to the latest controversies.
One of them, Ayuso’s statement that “ETA is alive” as a result of another controversy, the fact that EH Bildu has included 44 convicted of terrorism on its lists for the 28M elections and that not only have differences with the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, but also with other victims such as the president of Covite, Consuelo Ordóñez, who replied that she was offended.
“The controversy seems absurd to me. I speak as president of the AVT, which also has the same speech as at the beginning and I know that I have the endorsement of 4,800 victims. ETA is still alive in receptions, on banners, in photographs, in toasts and tributes and I am not offended when it is said that ETA is still alive because it is on all these issues”, Araluce emphasized.
In fact, the inclusion of convicted ETA members on the EH Bildu lists is an example, in his opinion, that ETA has not finished yet and that it is not precisely the victims who are resuscitating the terrorist organization, which has been dissolved for more than a decade ,but the abertzale formation and, above all, the Government of Pedro Sánchez, for having them as a “preferred partner”.
“The Government is ruling thanks to the terrorists,” Araluce accused, before demanding that this party be politically isolated and regretting that there has been no “political will” to outlaw Bildu, despite the fact that, in his opinion, there are indications to have done so since 2018.
Asked about the ETA prisoners – all of whom are already serving sentences in Basque prisons – the president of the AVT has denounced that there is “preferential” treatment towards them by the Basque prison administration that “facilitates third degrees and pre-grants 12-hour permits for Go to the doctor”.
In addition, he has warned that “they are hiding something” when there is no response to the information they have requested about the prison officials about the possibility that ETA prisoners serve their sentences in individual jails.
Araluce’s speech was interrupted for a few minutes by an indisposition of the former president and now honorary president, Ángeles Pedraza, who, after suffering a fall at the end of the presentation, fainted. EFE
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