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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/protesters-back-new-basque-party.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="Thousands of pro independence demonstrators march in Bilbao (AP)" src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/min-protesters-back-new-basque-party.jpg" alt="Thousands of pro independence demonstrators march in Bilbao (AP)"/></a></p>
<p>Tens of thousands of separatists rallied in the troubled northern Basque region on Saturday to demand the government allows a newly launched pro-independence party to run in forthcoming elections.</p>
<p>Those behind the party, called Sortu, insist it rejects armed group Eta&#8217;s violence and hence merits legal status and the right to field candidates in May election.</p>
<p>However, Spain&#8217;s attorney general said it was merely a repackaged version of Batasuna, a party banned in 2003 on grounds it was part of Eta. </p>
<p>It is up to a special section of the Supreme Court to decide on the new party&#8217;s legal status.</p>
<p>Protesters began marching peacefully and largely in silence through city streets in the port of Bilbao under banners reading, &#8220;Toward peace, legalisation&#8221;.</p>
<p>&#8220;Hope has begun to enter into Basque society and we want it to be for good this time,&#8221; said separatist leader Kontxita Beitia at the end of the rally.</p>
<p>The attorney general&#8217;s office said it would file its request that the court ban Sortu by March 11. It is likely that the court will not have enough time to arrive at a ruling before May 22, the election date, which will rule them out from running in the Basque regional polls.</p>
<p>Should Sortu be allowed to run it would give separatist politicians access to local and regional government posts and financial benefits that come with them.</p>
<p>Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba on Friday said that the government was prepared to take steps to stop Batasuna candidates from joining other Basque parties should the court ban Sortu.</p>
<p>The new party&#8217;s unveiling on February 7 was the culmination of intense internal debates within Eta-linked pro-independence groups which concluded that bombs and bullets were no longer an effective way to seek a Basque state independent of Spain and France.</p>
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