Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Basque National Liberation Movement Prisoners


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) — Yashtalk stalk 16:01, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Basque National Liberation Movement Prisoners

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I consider this article should be nominated for deletion for a number of reasons: , you need to show how the article fails to meet policy. See WP:AfD. SW3 5DL (talk) 15:06, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It was originally a list of people convicted and currently serving jail terms for murder, kidnap, extorsion or belonging to an organization which carries out those activities, although it has eventually evolved into a massive treatise on how "Spain" opresses the Basque people, somehow ignoring that half of the victims of these convicts were themselves Basque.
 * It is OR and non verifiable. There is no credible source which defines Basque National Liberation Movement as an ilegalized group per se. There are certain organizations within this broad (self-defined) concept which have been ilegalized due to their connection to ETA, others have not. No one has been imprisoned for belonging to the BNLM. Unless such a term is defined by being illegal - which as far as I know is not the case. The Abertzale left is for the most part legal and even in local government in many places. So this article creates the sense that people are jailed for belonging to a group which legally does not exist.
 * The tone of the article seems to portray this list of convicts as political prisoners or prisoners of conscience, and the list of individual convicts carefully omits what they were convicted for and who were the victims of their violent acts/how many people they killed etc....
 * The vast majority of sources are not really related to the actual title of the article and are joined together to weave a "story" which diverges significantly from reality in an exercise of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. No credible source actually mentions BNLM prisoners. They can mention people convicted for terrorism, ETA membership or collaboration with ETA. They also happen to mention who they killed which is censored from this article. Furthermore, accusations of torture allegations are taken as fact and given a massive coverage, without being based on credible sources. It is concerning that one of the most advanced countries in Western Europe in terms of protections of Human Rights is presented as something on the lines of North Korea.
 * There is no equivalent list of convicted terrorists serving sentences for other organizations on Wikipedia. There is a list of IRA members, but no list of "Prisoners of the Irish liberation Movement". The name of the article is inherently an exercise of apology.
 * A list of ETA victims was deleted from wikipedia for violating policy a few years back. A list, largely composed of criminals, presenting them as victims of oppression may be disturbing to the families of their victims, particularly where the reasons for their convictions are omitted.
 * I think deletion is the best avenue for this article. It does not exist on Spanish language wikipedia for evident reasons. Asilah1981 (talk) 10:40, 11 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. Fails WP:GNG. Google returns this article, but no indepth articles about this subject. SW3 5DL (talk) 15:06, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * SW3 5DL, the current citations alone easily prove large amounts of substantial worldwide coverage in numerous reliable sources independent of the subject. I don't know what you are searching under, but you can't rely on the exact phrase of the lengthy article title to determine coverage or notability. Softlavender (talk) 10:35, 18 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. It's hard to see how this topic is not notable. The issue of "Basque political prisoners" is a long running one. There was a general strike on the issue in December 1974 and there have been numerous demonstrations since then, in 1998: "Thousands of demonstrators thronged the streets of Bilbao in northern Spain on Saturday, calling for Basque separatist prisoners to be returned to the region." according to the BBC. "Tens of thousands" in 2014 and up to 80,000 last month. Searching for "Basque prisoners", "presos vascos" or "Basque political prisoners" will bring up numerous such articles, showing how well covered the issue is. It isn't under any of those titles because "Basque prisoners" is ambiguous and "Basque political prisoners" is POV.
 * Few if any of the nominators rationales are reasons for deletion. To take just some of them...


 * "It was originally a list of people convicted and currently serving ....although it has eventually evolved into a massive treatise on how "Spain" opresses the Basque people." I don't see any stuff in it on how the Basque people are oppressed. Making edits to the article to make it WP:NPOV would be the way to deal with such concerns anyhow. WP:SOFIXIT.
 * "It is OR and non verifiable. There is no credible source which defines Basque National Liberation Movement as an ilegalized group per se." On the contrary, it defines the subject very clearly as: "all those people who have been jailed, placed on remand, or otherwise kept in custody due to their illegal activity in support of the Basque National Liberation Movement." This can be easily verified in numerous sources such as this one: "The Plight of prisoners associated with the Basque conflict is also a serious political issue. There are currently (in October 2002) around six hundred Basque political prisoners..."
 * "The tone of the article seems to portray this list of convicts as political prisoners." On the contrary the first line of the lead mentions "their illegal activity", while the second line notes that they "have been convicted of a range of crimes such as murder, attempted murder, participating in terrorism, kidnapping...." Again, WP:SOFIXIT.
 * "There is no equivalent list of convicted terrorists serving sentences for other organizations on Wikipedia" .... a textbook WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST argument which carries little weight at AFD. The point about the Spanish Wikipedia also falls under this heading.
 * "A list of ETA victims was deleted from wikipedia for violating policy a few years back." Similar to the previous point. Without seeing this alleged deletion, it's hard to say why that happened, it could be for WP:NOTMEMORIAL reasons which are not relevant here.
 * "A list, largely composed of criminals, presenting them as victims of oppression may be disturbing to the families of their victims." Again, not a valid deletion reason. WP:HURT and WP:NOTCENSORED apply.
 * Issues connected with alleged WP:POV, WP:UNDUE etc are best fixed through normal editing of the article. AFD is not clean up. Valenciano (talk) 19:34, 15 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Reply to Valenciano: Valenciano Your last three arguments are perfectly valid and maybe I should not have included those points in the AfD. Evidently sources exist on the existence of members of various militant organization in Spain serving jail time for political violence (GRAPO, ETA, AlQaeda etc..). I was not denying that those sources exist on this matter. What I deny exists are sources saying there are prisoners of the BNLM which implies causality and imprisonment on political grounds. The only source you provided which claims "The Plight of prisoners associated with the Basque conflict is also a serious political issue. There are currently (in October 2002) around six hundred Basque political prisoners...". Just look at it. Its not a serious source, its just a self-confessed politically financed rant against Spain by some very obscure person in Reno, Nevada. Any source which defines convicted serial killers and accessories to murder (mostly of basque victims) as political prisoners is non-credible, and its the only one you have presented. The core issue is Verifiability and OR. BNLM was a loose concept sometimes used for a brief period in history (80s and 90s) but it has no meaning now and is no longer used outside the ETA ecosystem (even they barely use it that much), not in politics, not in the media not in the judiciary. The bulk of the members and leaders of what could be defined as this constituency have transitioned to the perfectly legal Abertzale left (basically the same thing yet renouncing violence and not subservient or taking orders from ETA) and all that remain are individuals convicted for serious violent criminal offenses. Others who remain having trouble with the law are for apology of terrorism (not apology of ETA's political cause, but of its violent activities) although this criminal offense does not lead to imprisonment unless in combination with more serious crimes which cross the 3 year conviction threshold. The article creates a false link between a non-existent political persecution and a defunct concept. The fundamental issue is sourcing. Where are the reliable sources on BNLM prisoners? The sources which link the two ideas together? Nowhere because they don't exist. I don't have a problem with the existence of the article BNLM: That article needs to be there (although completely re-written) because it is something which is complicated to explain and did exist. But what does BNLM mean? Is it a synonym for the legal Abertzale left with which there is an 80% overlap or is it a portmanteau term for individuals committing terrorism-related criminal offenses or actively engaging with ETA? This article is still WP:SYNTH, WP:OR, unverifiable and inherently NPOV. The title is conceptually an attempt to confound the reader and is impossible to fix. Valenciano, I have left a detailed reply to you because I know you may have your own take on things but you try to tackle these complicated Spanish politics related matters. Asilah1981 (talk) 05:56, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Reply to Asilah: As you'll see in the links above, the issue of Basque prisoners has been a long running and controversial issue in Spanish politics. That's very notable. You don't seem to dispute the notability of it, which is the issue in this AFD, your issues relate to specific content issues, which should be fixed on the article talkpage.
 * In terms of verifiability...
 * Politico: "The unresolved issue of ETA prisoners is among the most contentious"
 * Irish Times: "For many critics of the Spanish government's lack of initiative [on the Basque issue, the issue of Eta prisoner dispersion is the most obvious area"]
 * BasqueTribune: "Prisoners: a Critical Issue in the Basque Political Agenda"
 * FoxNews: "Large separatist protest calls on Spain to repatriate Basque prisoners to jails close to home"
 * ...to list just a few which verify this issue. It's possible that there's a better article title (I'd suggest Basque separatist prisoners) but again, that isn't an AFD issue. Valenciano (talk) 11:23, 18 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Tough call There are so many ridiculous reasons for deletion put forth in this proposal that it's easy to overlook what may be a valid gripe. There's certainly a lot of WP:SYNTH going on here. This honestly may not be fixable. I'm not comfortable voting "delete" at this point, but I wouldn't say I'm opposed to deletion either. Joefromrandb (talk) 07:10, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose Looks to me WP:JDLI, fairly so or not, an attempt at removing all trace and traceability of the Basque conflict and relevant (inconvenient for some) information available to the readers for them to judge. It is just against the spirit of the WP, there is information continually produced on this matter. The article provides fully valid and relevant information, verified, on a key point in Spanish and Basque politics of nowadays and the past, even in Spain's international relations with France (change of policy of extraditions after the GAL) and countries, with a specific policy implemented on these prisoners by the Spanish government, sometimes breaching international treaties, with Spain recently condemned by the Strasbourg Human Rights Tribunal for these irregular, group specific practices. I wont' elaborate further on the proponent editor, since I just come from the ANI involving Asilah1981, now ongoing.
 * As for the name, it is not used, because it is inaccurate, it is just Basque prisoners victims of state repression. It may be ETA members, or it may be a journalist, like here, or Arnaldo Otegi, it is basically about Basques the state sees as a threat, for violent actions or not. There are about 400 nowadays in a main group, EPPK (see their web page), they call themselves 'Basque Political Prisoners Collective', but there are others out of the main group. Regards Iñaki LL (talk) 00:29, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * "it is just Basque prisoners victims of state repression". Beyond WP:SYNTH and WP:OR, just this sentence by Iñaki LL is another reason to delete this article. I'll slowly add to the table the reason for conviction and the individuals murdered by each of these convicts. But that will not be enough to fix this article. The name and WP:SYNTH are the principal problem. Politicized editing is fine (everyone is political). But politicized content-creation is against Wikipedia policy. This article currently is structured as an activist blog. Asilah1981 (talk) 06:31, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Asilah, you deserve a longer answer on all your points and I'll do that over the weekend as I'm a bit busy now. However, just to say, this canvassing is 110% unacceptable and is behaviour that you've been warned about in the past. Valenciano (talk) 09:13, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Valenciano will know, he is more veteran than me, but I can only take the removal of Valenciano's intervention by Asilah1981 previous to this one as whitewashing, and I do not think it is even regular in an ongoing discussion thread to remove another editor's intervention, per WP standards. On this, I will follow in the WP:ANI on the editor now open. As I said, the prisoners topic is a central topic in Basque politics anyone can recognize, and present also in Spain, with names ranging from "Basque political prisoners" to "ETA prisoners" with a variety of other options depending on the source, so attempting to remove this article is just breach of WP:CENSOR, and removing very pertinent information to understand Spanish and Basque politics. Iñaki LL (talk) 14:39, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * So you believe this is a list of political prisoners Iñaki LL? You believe there are credible sources claiming they are political prisoners?Asilah1981 (talk) 15:09, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * You living in a bubble or something? I am trying to bring definition to a group that exists. Now what they are called or should be called is another thing. Get over it! Iñaki LL (talk) 21:17, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * , "Oppose" is not a valid AfD !vote. Valid AfD !vote choices include "Keep", "Delete", "Merge", Redirect", Userfy", "Draftify". See WP:DISCUSSAFD. -- Softlavender (talk) 08:28, 18 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. I've only just seen this so sorry for the delay in responding.
 * Going through Asilah1981's points: First of all, it was never a list of people. Check yourself.  Not even when I was building the page was it ever just a list. It grew as I wrote the article, and when I submitted it to be accepted the list was there as was the rest of the article.
 * His second point can be answered by this youtube video (in Spanish) [] in which the ex-president of Spain talks about his talks with the Basque National Liberation movement, and then in another press conference talks about his moving of prisoners, in relation to those talks. Basque National Liberation Movement Prisoners is a reality. Everything that Valenciano said relating to this point is true too.
 * His third point about the tone of the article I respond to by saying if you don't like the tone then change it. Asilah1981 says "the article seems to portray this list of convicts as political prisoners".  The fact is that it was Asilah1981 himself who added the words "political prisoner" to the article on 26 March 2016 at 22:10. Before that the article did not include those words. And now he is complaining about them????
 * In his fourth point he complains that "accusations of torture allegations are taken as fact and given a massive coverage". Before he got involved the section on torture was small compared to what it is now. It was he himself who created the subheadings for that section which now mean that the torture section stands out in the Contents.


 * I should point out that when I submitted the article to be reviewed I received 2 Writer's Barnstars, and the article was given a B rating on the quality scale. I believe it is even better now than it was back then. Until Asilah1981 came along it had hardly changed since being accepted, but I think that the "interest" that he gave to it has caused several of us to really search for more and better information. I believe that having someone with a critical voice, like Asilah1981's, has been good for the article. Keep it.Adam Cli (talk) 16:41, 17 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. Per the reasons given by Adam. --Xabier Armendaritz(talk) 22:05, 17 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. Clearly meets notability. Content issues must be dealt with via consensus and dispute resolution, not via deletion. Softlavender (talk) 08:28, 18 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.