August 2005

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BEHATOKIA PRESENTS ITS FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT

August 2005 – The Observatory of Linguistic Rights of the Basque Country named Behatokia has published its fourth annual report regarding the situation of Basque language. According to this report, language rights are violated in all the territories of this language community, whether in the south (within the Monarchy of Spain) or in the north (within the French Republic). Some local or regional authorities have offered to elevate the rights to official status, but others, nevertheless, do not agree. According to Behatokia, it is tremendously important that local and central government authorities provide official status to the Basque language and have legislation in place that protects language rights so that these rights are not violated.

The report points out that the violation of language rights does not imply only the violation of the fundamental principle of equality between two different human and linguistic communities based on Universal Declaration of Liguistic Rights and taken up by Behatokia. In the great majority of cases the government administration does not even comply with the linguistic legislation they themselves passed and which is in force in their territory. This is the case of the Foral Community of Navarre, which is taking the road of official reduction of the rights of speakers of a minority language. In Navarre, the existing laws and decrees do officially allow the institutional discrimination, since they are covered by the Law of the Basque Language. According to Behatokia, in essence, this is a social policy aimed at the disappearance of the Basque language and they conclude that the Government of Navarre has gone yet further and continued infringe its own already discriminatory laws in 2004.

With reference to the Basque Autonomous Community, the report states that language rights violations are perpetuated by the lack of obligatory enforcement of legislation in support of these rights. In fact, the introduction of new legislation to guarantee citizens’ language rights has not resulted in a decrease in violations, and no enforcement mechanish has been established. Likewise, the report indicates that in 2004, the Spanish administration maintained its policy of systematic violation of Basque speakers’ language rights. In this sense, Behatokia emphasizes that no corrective action has been taken in the courts, which continue to treat Basque speakers as if they where foreigners. With regard to the Republic of France, Behatokia considers that this country should recognise legal rights for the Basque-speaking community. Behatokia also suggests that France should ratify the international legislation relative to national and linguistic minorities.

For the 2004 report, Behatokia has analysed 707 citizens’ dossiers and 4,184 petitions from organizations and it has concluded that there is substantial similarity between the 2004 report’s findings and the conclusions of previous years. Synopses of the dossiers show clearly that the issues giving rise to the complaints that Behatokia has received since 2001 are repeated time and time again. Based on this report, Behatokia concludes that there has been a lack of effective progress in guaranteeing the fulfilment of citizens’ language rights.