Resumen de Shouting against the silencing. A brief introduction to the minority struggles from the Basque Country.

Ihintza Palacín Mariscal, Lorena Ortuoste Ibarzabal, Ainhoa Martínez

• Our research area consists in the struggles suffered by the Basque minority, which were and are caused by the Spanish and French states. We claim that from the point of view of post-national human rights law, the threats experienced throughout history were aimed to destroy one of the main characteristics of the Basques as a minority, the Euskara (the Basque language). Besides, we perceive a change in the roles of the Spanish and French state. That is to say, in the past all the struggles that Basques suffered were caused by Franco’s dictatorship, whereas nowadays Basque Country and Basque language enjoy a constitutional protection in Spain. While in France nowadays this constitutional protection is weak. Further,  we argue that these conflicts related to language and minority rights that the Basques had been (and are) suffering, imply the failure to translate human rights into practice. So that there is a gap between the post-national human rights scope of protection and human rights principles in action.