02/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - In a ruling delivered on Tuesday 30 June, the European Court of Human Rights says that the ban on the Spanish extreme left-wing party Batasuna does not infringe freedom of expression. The Court, which sits in Strasbourg, acknowledges the importance of freedom of expression, but considers that this freedom cannot include violence or the promotion of violence. Batasuna is a Basque separatist party, considered to be the political wing of the ETA terrorist group. Spanish authorities have welcomed this validation of the national law on political parties, the Ley de Partidos. “Ideas can be freely argued in our country, whatever they may be, but democracy has to set a limit … and (that limit) is violence,” says Spanish Home Affairs Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba in a press release. (C.D./transl.rt)