Maite Pagazaurtundúa

She is a prominent figure within civic movements supporting victims of terrorism in Spain, except for victims of spanish government-militia terrorism (GAL). She was the President of the Foundation for Victims of Terrorism and of the victims of terrorism collective in the Basque Country COVITE.

Her achievements earned her several recognitions, such as the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Human Rights in the year 2000 -as member of ¡Basta Ya!- or the Medal of the Order of Constitutional Merit in 2003. Her public selective stance in the frontline of the fight against some terrorism came with a price: she had to live for 13 years with police escort, suffer years of harassment, threats, aggressions and both physical and psychological violence, and leave her home and resettle with her family outside the Basque Country.

Maite Pagaza has kept her engagement with freedom in the Basque Country, justice for the victims of ETA and the regeneration of Basque society upon joining the European Parliament. Some of her works are reports such as “Democracy and freedom” and “Los profesores de la UPV-EHU contra ETA”.

In 1999, together with Basque intellectuals such as Fernando Savater, citizens and politicians, she took part in the founding of ¡Basta Ya!. They all shared the commitment to fight terrorism under any circumstance, to support its victims and to defend the Rule of Law, the Spanish Constitution and the Basque Country's Statute of Autonomy. Her brother, Joseba Pagazaurtundúa, murdered by ETA in 2003, was also a member of ¡Basta Ya!.

Amidst great hostility from the nationalist entourage in the Basque Country, ¡Basta Ya! engaged in new and dynamic ways to actively defend freedom against terrorism such as demonstrations, peace convoys, putting up of posters and an online publication.

¡Basta Ya! was awarded the prestigious Sakharov Price for Human Rights in the year 2000, becoming the first civic association to ever be awarded this recognition.

In February 2015, on the 12th anniversary of her brother's murder by ETA, she and her family set up a white mailbox next to Agustín Ibarrola's homage sculpture to Joseba Pagazaurtundúa in Andoain. The aim is to allow the hundreds of inhabitants of Andoain who asked of ETA to murder any neighbours who did not think like them to send letters to the mailbox -even anonymously- and hence acknowledge their part in the harassment and persecution of so many innocent people. The actual letterbox has an online version which makes it possible to have contributions from all over Spain, included those of Mario Vargas-Llosa and Fernando Savater.

She was second in UPYD's list for the 2014 European Elections. She is a member of the Committee onCivil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), the Committee on Development (DEVE) and Human Rights (DROI) committee. In 2020, she also joined the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union.[2] After becoming Head of the UPYD Delegation in October 2014, she also became a member of the Constitutional Affairs committee (AFCO), focusing on European Citizenship.

Pagazaurtundúa is specialised in international terrorism, radicalisation and religious fanaticism, as well as in prevention of violent radicalisation and yihadism. She is supporting different causes at an international level, such as democracy and freedom in Venezuela or the Iranian opposition.

She was the president of the Foundation for Victims of Terrorism from 2005 to 2012. She strived to have the 400 unsolved ETA murders clarified during that period. She also fostered the publication of the book “Shattered lives”, a compilation of the stories of every man, woman and child murdered by ETA.

She was a member of the Basque Regional Parliament from 1993 to 1998, and city councillor in Urnieta from 1999 and 2007. She distanced herself from the party when it tried to get closer to the Basque Nationalist Party and with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's anti-terrorism policies.