Telemadrid compares Catalan and Basque nationalists with Nazis
The title of the controversial report was "The imposition and the perversion of language"
Madrid's regional TV station Telemadrid has come in for fierce criticism on social networking sites after it broadcast a program in which the regional premier of Catalonia, Artur Mas, appeared in a series of images that included Stalin, Hitler and the Basque terrorist group ETA (an extract is available to view below).
The title of the report by the channel, which is often viewed as little more than a mouthpiece for the conservative Popular Party-led Madrid regional government, was "The imposition and the perversion of language." The program compared the totalitarianism of the Nazis and of Stalin with Basque and Catalan nationalist parties, for having allegedly forced the use of their languages on residents of the two regions.
The report, which was put together by the journalist Cristina Ortega, argued that phrases such as "the military wing of ETA" should be replaced by "ETA's gunmen," and that such euphemisms are "common, particularly in totalitarian regimes."
