A bomb was exploded at around 1 a.m. on January 16 at the foot of a television transmitter in the Basque country causing limited damage but no injuries, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The transmitter was located in the Santa Barbara hills near the city of Hernani, in Guipúzcoa province.
No group claimed responsibility for the bombing, but police found a message inside the transmitter with the words “Kontuz bomba” - “Watch out for the bomb” in Basque. The police are investigating and justice minister Mariano Fernández Bermejo said “everything seems to indicate that the terrorist band ETA was responsible.”
“We firmly condemn these repeated attacks against TV installations,” RSF said. “The bombings of recent weeks in the Basque country are clearly designed to intimidate and gag critics. We urge the Spanish authorities to continue doing everything possible to prevent terrorist groups from doing harm and causing more victims within the media.”
A bomb went off near a repeater used by the Spanish public television station TVE in the Basque city of Bilbao on November 20, 2008. A truck carrying 100 kg of explosives was blown up outside the headquarters of the Basque TV station EiTB in Bilbao on December 31, causing considerable damage but no injuries.
The building - which also houses the offices of other news media such as El Mundo, Deia, Onda Cero, Antena 3, Expansión and Marca - was evacuated before the explosion because an anonymous caller identifying himself as an ETA member alerted the fire brigade shortly before it occurred.
Several hundred journalists and media employees led by the well-known Basque journalist Gorka Landaburu demonstrated in Bilbao on 2 January in protest against the EiTB bombing.
