Bilbao, Spain - Two days after a series of destructive protests, thousands of Basques demonstrated peacefully late Saturday in Bilbao against the arrest of 34 members of a youth organization police say is connected to the radical separatist organization ETA. The protestors marched through the center of the northern Spanish city. The demonstration was peaceful, police said. Participants demanded the immediate release of the 34 and chanted independence slogans.
Late Thursday, radical separatists burned a bus and set fire to an underground station in Spain's Basque region to protest the arrests.
Spanish police on Tuesday carried out massive raids in various Basque cities and the nearby Navarra region and arrested 34 suspected members of the pro-ETA youth group Segi.
Police charge that the group provides a recruiting pool for ETA terrorists. They filed charges of support of a terrorist organization against 31 of those arrested.
