Basques fear more expulsions
NZPA-Reuter Paris Panic has spread among Basque refugees sheltering in France after the expulsion of an alleged Basque militant to Spain and a warning that more expulsions could follow.
After the deportation on Friday, the French Foreign Minister, JeanBernard Raimond, said: “It is possible there will be other expulsions of the same kind in the future ... I have no precise information but they may take place in the next few days.”
France handed over Jose Varona Lopez, aged 26, to Spanish border police only hours after his arrest, saying he was suspected of planning guerrilla action in France. A suspected member of the military wing of the Basque separatist move-
ment ETA, he was whisked to Madrid for questioning under Spain’s anti-terrorist law. It is the first time a Basque refugee has been deported to Spain under a rarely used “procedure of absolute urgency” that allows the Interior Minister to by-pass judicial procedure.
Mr Raimond defended the move saying: "It is normal that the Interior Minister should return someone who is not a political refugee when he deems it necessary.” Only a handful of 800 Basque refugees living in France enjoy political refugee status that guarantees protection from summary expulsion. “This is a very dangerous situation,” said Jacques Saldou, president of a human rights group in the French Basque re-
gion. “We are not talking about expulsions after a judicial procedure but summary action by the police. "The lives of many refugees are already insecure because of difficulty in finding work and other problems and such expulsions will only reinforce their fears,” he said. Since the General Election in France returned a Rightist Government in March more than 50 Spanish Basques who failed to secure refugee status have been told to leave or face expulsion. Most are still in France.
“The thought that you can be in France one minute then in a Spanish prison the next has left many refugees in a state of panic,” said a civil rights lawyer, Denis Langlois.
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Press, 22 July 1986, Page 10
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337Basques fear more expulsions Press, 22 July 1986, Page 10
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