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Icelandic
authorities have repealed a 400-year-old law allowing citizens in Westfjords to
kill anyone from Spain's Basque region on sight.
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Icelandic authorities have repealed a
400-year-old law allowing their citizens to kill anyone from Spain's Basque
region on sight.
The law,
originally enacted in 1615 following a dispute with a group of shipwrecked
Basque whalers, declared that Basques entering Iceland's Westfjords could be
killed with impunity.
Known as
the Slaying of the Spaniards, the original killing of the 32 whalers at the
behest of a local sheriff still ranks as one of the country's worst massacres.
The decree
was issued when three whaling vessels, originally operating in the area in
agreement with the locals, were shipwrecked in the country's Westfjords and
local disputes with the surviving whalers eventually led to their deaths.
Daily Mail UK reports:
Jonas
Gudmundsson, the West Fjords district commissioner, officially repealed the
order on April 22, joking that 'it's safe for Basques to come here now'.
He added
that the law had not been acted on for years.
'The
decision to do away with the decree was more symbolic than anything else,' he
said. 'We have laws, of course, and killing anyone - including Basques - is
forbidden these days,' The Guardian
reported.
The Iceland Review said a memorial
dedicated to the whalers was also unveiled, with a descendent of one of the
murdered whalers and one of the murderers taking part in an act of
reconciliation.
'These
events are a dark spot in Icelandic history,” Mr Gudmundsson told Bloomberg. 'Basques are, of course,
very welcome here and anywhere in Iceland and killing them is and has been
unlawful, just as the killing of other human beings.
'This was obviously a
cowardly event that we regret to this day.'
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