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Basque Nationalist Movements (Spain)

Batasuna / Herri Batasuna (Unity / United Land)
Aralar
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna / ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom)
Euskal Presoak Euskal Herrira (Basque Prisoners to the Basque Country)
Arrano Beltza (Black Eagle)
Askapena (Liberation)
Movimiento Nacionalsocialista de Euskalherria (National-Socialist Movement of the Basque Country)

See also:

Batasuna

Herri Batasuna 1978-1998, Euskal Herritarrok 1998-2001, Batasuna 2001-2003

image by Tomislav Todorović and Mladen Mijatov, 10 Feb Apr 2006

When Herri Batasuna shortened its name into Batasuna ("Unity" in Basque), it adopted a new flag and two logos, the design of the flag being the combination of both of those logos. The logo which, according to numerous photos available on the Web, was much more frequently used (see [1]), is a narrow, black rectangle, charged with the party name in white and with a red square which occupies its right-hand end (see left image below), sometimes with an additional square with the same pattern as the Basque national flag, fimbriated white, in the centre of the red square (see [2]). The other logo, much less used (and rarely seen on the Web [3]), is a red rectangle with a black stripe, charged with the party name in white, along the bottom edge (see right image below). The party name is spelled on both logos with all letters lowercase, including the initial one. Both logos could have been found at the Batasuna website (now shuttered).

Logo 1
Logo 2

images by Tomislav Todorović and Mladen Mijatov, 10 Feb 2006

The party flag (see attached image es}batas.gif) has the red field, with a black stripe, charged with the party name in white (spelled in the same way as on the both logos), which occupies most of the bottom edge, except a squarish area in the bottom right-hand corner. The flag is mostly used with the sinister hoist, when the red bottom corner is at the hoist side (see [4], [5], [6], [7] and [8]), but sometimes it is used with the dexter hoist, when that corner is at the fly side (see [9]) – in brief, it is always at the observer's right-hand side.

The colour combination – red, black and white – is not entirely new to the Batasuna, as it had been used by Euskadiko Sozialistak Elkartze Indarra (ESEI), one of the organizations which merged into the Herri Batasuna in 1978. The scan of a sticker with the logo of ESEI can be seen at the Politica 21 site (Image URL).

Sources:

The typeface used seems to vary a bit, but looks like something halfway between Arial/Helvetica and Tahoma, so it was reconstructed as such.

Tomislav Todorović, 10 Feb 2006

Herri Batasuna

image by Jaume Ollé

Herri Batasuna coalition uses a flag based on that of Euskadi, but with nine colours. It is the principal political movement of the MLNV (Basque National Liberation Movement), which includes also social organizations, trade unions, youth, women, and even the terrorist ETA.

Jaume Ollé, 19 Feb 1997

Last night CBC ran a special documentary on the Basque activities. There was one interview done in which there was an interesting variant of the ikurriña was seen – both crosses were white, making eight triangles, each of which was coloured differently, clockwise from upper hoist: orange, yellow, light green, dark green, blue, purple, marroon, red.

Rob Raeside, 07 Apr 1998

The flag of Herri Batasuna was posted some time ago, but currently Herri Batasuna is merged with other nationalist Basque groups, and created the coalition Euskal Herritarrok that uses a white flag with red stripe at bottom. In the white, the letters EH in black and, in the red, the party name in white.

Jaume Ollé, 10 Oct 1998

Basque party Herri Batasuna was transformed into Euskal Herritarrok and after that it was called just Batasuna. Recently, the Spanish Supreme Court illegalized Batasuna. I wonder if the now clandestine Batasuna or its supporters still use the HB flag depicted above. I guess the most used by all Basques is the ikurriña, even supporters of Batasuna or formerly HB/EH.

One of the first police actions was to remove flags from the Batasuna headoffice in Gasteiz-Vitoria, Basque Country. However, the police zeal was beyond Batasuna/HB now illegal flags, they removed also the Ikurriña – the Basque Country national flag which is legal at least since the second half of the 1970's.

Francisco Santos, 09/10 May 2003

Herri Batasuna Flag Variants

The flag/logo of Herri Batasuna is found on the Web in many variants which all replace blue, purple and brown triangles with light blue, dark blue and purple/lilac/magenta ones, respectively. The shades of these colours vary a lot from one image to another and so do the shades of other colours sometimes. This seems to be the incorrect design, but still there is evidence that these variants seem to have been sometimes used by Herri Batasuna and its supporters.

The reason for their appearing must be the idea that the colours should be those of the spectrum, plus white, which contains them all within itself, and therefore should make a visual representation of the party name, which means "People's Unity" (the "correct" colours might actually represent the party name in almost the same way). The versions which I have found on the Web so far are described below (given in the order of their finding).

Variant 1