HDP activities reminiscent of banned party Batasuna in Spain

Amid growing criticism of the pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and the potential of HDP deputies' being brought to trial due to alleged connections to the PKK, comparisons have been made with the now defunct Basque Batasuna party in Spain.

Batasuna was a Basque nationalist party based mainly in Spain that was banned in 2003 after a strongly contested court ruling declared that the party was financing the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) with public money. Batasuna is included on the EU's list of terrorist organizations as a component of the ETA, like the PKK.

Batasuna lawyers took the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). After a long legal inquiry, in July 2009 the ECtHR backed the Spanish rulings banning Batasuna and its proxies. The ECtHR said that disbanding the parties was a response "to a pressing social need" given their ties to the ETA.