Court move for total Batasuna ban

Batasuna party members hold a rooftop protest as police move to close a party social club last week

MADRID, Spain -- Spain has asked the Supreme Court to outlaw radical Basque party Batasuna over its alleged support of armed group ETA.

The move sets the stage for possible clashes at banned pro-Batasuna protests this weekend and comes after a Spanish court imposed a three-year ban on the party.

The lawsuit, which if successful would ban Batasuna in perpetuity, was filed after a parliamentary vote on the matter and in the wake of the party refusing to condemn violence by ETA, western Europe's most active guerrilla group which has killed 836 people in 34 years.

Batasuna shares with ETA the goal of an independent Basque country but denies it is the political wing of ETA.

On Tuesday Spain's Justice Minister Jose Maria Michavila displayed 26 boxes he said were packed with 1,000 pieces of evidence linking Batasuna and ETA.

EXTRA INFORMATION Basque conflict: Violence in Spain

The massive dossier also singled out 194 of the party's political leaders Michavila said also belong to ETA.

"This is what our democracy demands. The lawsuit is the instrument ... to protect the victims of terrorism, a law that puts an end to impunity for those who use the privileges of political parties in order to serve violence," Michavila told a news conference.

"Batasuna is the prolongation of terrorism... the prolongation of ETA," Michavila said.

The Supreme Court is Spain's second highest, leaving Batasuna the opportunity to appeal to the Constitutional Court should the Supreme Court rule in favour of the government.

The party received 143,000 votes or 10 percent of the total in last year's Basque parliamentary elections -- its worst showing ever -- and also has some support in Navarre outside the three official provinces of the semi-autonomous Basque region.

Batasuna supporters said on Tuesday they would go ahead with street demonstrations called for this Saturday in Bilbao, the biggest Basque city, and for Sunday in San Sebastian, a bastion of Basque nationalism, even though the Basque region's interior department has prohibited the marches.

The ETA graffiti reads, "Dark times are coming, the struggle continues"

The Basque government said it decided not to allow the protests after a demonstration on Sunday in San Sebastian turned violent and featured shouts in support of ETA.

After a peaceful march, Basque riot police clashed with masked Batasuna supporters in central San Sebastian. A local man who was not part of the demonstration lost an eye when police fired rubber bullets at demonstrators hurling bottles and smashing the fronts of shops.

Spanish police have been shutting down the offices and property of Batasuna on orders from prosecutor Judge Baltasar Garzon, who led the case to suspend the party's activities for at least three years.

He accused Batasuna of funding and helping ETA. Garzon said Batasuna was part of ETA and that as a result it was associated with "crimes against humanity."

Batasuna has been criticised by mainstream politicians for not condemning an ETA bomb on August 4 that killed a six-year-old girl in Santa Pola. (Full Story)