«Julio Askatu/ Julio Ordaindu»: Basque society faced with the kidnapping of Julio Iglesias (1993)

One of the most forgotten chapters in the history of ETA has been their involvement in a number of kidnappings, even though they aroused greater citizen response than their murders. This work examines the kidnapping of Julio Iglesias Zamora during the summer of 1993 as the starting point for social mobilization against terrorism. The various initiatives that arouse as a result of this kidnapping allowed the Basque society for the first time to compete both symbolically and physically for the so far ‘abertzale’–owned public spaces thus creating new scenarios which some years later would favor mass demonstrations of the citizenship such as those taking place after the murder of Miguel Angel Blanco.