Photographs of a shadowy gun and a weeping man have touched a raw nerve in Spain, prompting angry calls for an exhibition at Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum to be withdrawn for showing Basque ETA rebels in a positive light.
The collection of black and white images illustrating the Basque conflict by photographer Clemente Bernad has enraged both relatives of ETA victims and Spain's conservative opposition.
One photograph that has raised hackles shows a man weeping over the coffin of a dead ETA rebel. Beside it is a less emotive image: a police officer, his casually held assault rifle in silhouette, guarding the funeral procession of a dead colleague.
"This show does not condemn terrorist violence," said the Collective of Victims of Terrorism in the Basque Country, whose members include relatives of many of the 800 people killed by ETA in four decades of struggle for Basque independence.
Victims' families were particularly outraged to hear that one photograph by Bernad, not included in the exhibition, showed an x-ray of the smashed skull of former local politician Miguel Angel Blanco, who was killed by ETA in 1997.
The conservative Partido Popular (PP), which is narrowly trailing the governing Socialists ahead of general elections next March, proposed a motion in the Basque parliament calling for the exhibition to be withdrawn.
"The photographs relativise ETA's crimes," the PP said.
The uproar has overshadowed celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of the Guggenheim's opening in Bilbao. The museum building, a spectacular steel and titanium structure designed by American architect Frank Gehry, has been credited with reviving the gritty Basque Country port.