Basque newspaper closed over alleged links with Eta

Spain's paramilitary Civil Guard arrested 10 executives in pre-dawn raids on a Basque-language newspaper yesterday and closed the paper's offices on suspicion of links with Eta separatists.

Among those arrested by the civil guardsmen, who burst in wearing masks and bulletproof jackets, was the paper's editor-in-chief. The operation formed part of a revived offensive against Basque terrorism, the Justice Minister, Jose Maria Michavila, said yesterday.

"This is a new operation against Eta. This time it is directed against those who, according to the judge, are instruments of Eta and alert the terrorists each time there is an operation against a terrorist cell," Mr Michavila said.

Egunkaria, a nationalist-leaning daily paper first published 12 years ago, is considered less dependent upon Basque radicals than papers on which the authorities have focussed before, which suggests that Madrid is seeking to cast its net wider in its campaign to suppress Eta sympathisers.

The investigating magistrate who ordered the raids, Juan del Olmo, said intelligence reports had suggested Eta financed the paper through a network of shady companies as part of its wider terrorist strategy.

Hundreds of civil guardsmen searched and boarded up offices throughout the Basque Country and in Navarra. They seized documents and computer material. The paper's main office was in the nationalist heartland of Andoian, south of San Sebastian where a local police chief was shot dead two weeks ago.

Marcelo Otamendi, the editor of Egunkaria who was among those arrested yesterday, was questioned last year on suspicion of "incitement to murder" after he published an interview with Eta members. On that occasion he was released without charge.

Mikel Arrieta, a spokesman for the paper, said it was seeking other ways to publish and hoped to appear this morning as usual. Several Basque publishers reportedly offered offices and presses to enable Egunkaria – which is Basque for "newspaper" – to appear.

Mr Arrieta denied any links with Eta and said the police action was an attack on the Basques' language. The paper is the only one in Spain printed entirely in Basque, and has a circulation of about 15,000.

The shutdown was widely criticised by politicians. "This is an attack not only on a Basque publication but against the Basque language and Basque society itself," Markel Olano, a spokesman for the region's conservative ruling Basque Nationalist Party, said.

Anjeles Iztueta, the region's Education spokeswoman, said the operation marked "the criminalisation of ideas" and violated "the basic guarantees of a state of law".

Dozens of people, mostly young, staged a spontaneous demonstration outside the paper's offices in the northern Basque city of Vitoria to protest against the closure.

But Angel Acebes, the Interior Minister, insisted that, far from attacking Basque culture, the operation "defended Basques' rights and freedoms". "Those who say that this operation attacks freedom of expression and the Basque language are wrong," he said.

The Popular Party's leader in the region, Jaime Mayor Oreja, even accused the Basque government of bearing "political responsibility" for Egunkaria's alleged offence by giving it €6m (?4m) in subsidies since 1996. Madrid has long complained that Basque-language cultural initiatives, promoted by the region's government, have been hijacked by separatist front organisations.

Yesterday's swoop was the third in three days. On Wednesday, 14 young men were arrested and accused of belonging to Eta-controlled youth groups and organising street violence. On Tuesday, 10 were detained.