INTERNMENT FEARS FOR RESIDENTS’ SPOKESPERSON

Posted by Jim on April 25, 2015

A republican activist who has campaigned against sectarian parades in
north Belfast has been arrested and charged in connection with a speech
he made at Easter.

Dee Fennell, a spokesperson and chairperson of the Greater Ardoyne
Residents Collective (GARC), described armed struggle against British
occupation as “legitimate” when speaking to republicans at a gathering
to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising in Lurgan on Easter Sunday.

In his speech, he said the right to use force to oppose foreign
occupation was “a fundamental principle that cannot and will not be
abandoned by activists involved in our struggle”.

He also compared the British occupation in Ireland in 1916 to the
plight of the Six Counties today.

He said: “The use of arms prior to 1916 was legitimate. The use of arms
in Easter 1916 was legitimate. The use of arms after 1916 was totally
legitimate.

“In the existing political context of partition, illegal occupation and
the denial of national self-determination, armed struggle, in 2015,
remains a legitimate act of resistance.”

Unionists immediately demanded that Mr Fennell be arrested, and last
Monday the PSNI carried out heavy-handed raids at homes in Lurgan and
Ardoyne, taking computers and mobile phones and seizing the 33-year-old
in front of his young children. He was taken for questioning to Antrim
interrogation centre and was subsequently charged with ‘encouraging
terrorism’.

His arrest comes as his group is preparing for discussions surrounding
the Protestant marching season and the attempts by the Orange Order to
hold a sectarian parade through the nationalist Ardoyne and neighbouring
areas of north Belfast. The march on July 12th, the anniversary of a
Protestant victory in the 1690 Battle of the Boyne, has for many years
been the most contentious of the marching season.

Mr Fennell’s supporters fear he has now been subjected to effective
internment — indefinite detention without trial. His arrest follows
comments by PSNI Chief George Hamilton last week in which he boasted of
his force’s ‘success’ in locking up the leadership of republican groups
opposed to the powersharing administration at Stormont.

In his speech, Mr Fennell also accused the “unaccountable” PSNI and
British military intelligence of deliberately seeking to target and
intimidate republicans. He accused the British government of using
miscarriage of justice victims Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton
— still imprisoned over a Continuity IRA attack in 2009 — as
‘political hostages’.

Urging republicans to be more active, Mr Fennell quoted Sinn Fein deputy
leader Maire Drumm, who was shot dead by loyalists in 1976. “It was
Maire Drumm who stated: ‘It’s isn’t enough to shout up the IRA, the
important thing is to join the IRA’,” he said.

“When you leave here today, ask yourself is it enough to support
republicanism or could you be a more active republican. Are you willing
to assist a movement that will bring us freedom?

“Let us cry out we will not accept British Rule, we will not accept
native capitalist rule, we will not accept occupation or partition, we
don’t accept your quisling assembly, armies or police force.”

On Tuesday he was remanded without bail by a court in Craigavon. A crowd
of men and women supporters, who had refused to stand as the judge
entered the courtroom, erupted into applause and cheers as Fennell was
taken out of the courtroom. Outside they unfurled a banner reading ‘End
British Internment’. There were further protests in Belfast and in
Dublin.

The Irish Republican Prisoners’ Welfare Association, which organised the
Easter commemoration, said it viewed the raids and arrest of Mr Fennell
as a “blatant example of the continuance of British political policing
in the Six Counties”.

“Spurred on by Unionist and Loyalist hysteria and assisted by a
pro-British media, the RUC/PSNI through its actions has attempted to
silence a true and genuine Republican narrative by the use of force and
intimidation. They will fail,” they said.

“The commemorative event on Easter Sunday in Lurgan was a fitting and
honourable tribute to fallen IRA volunteers and no amount of British
force and intimidation or Unionist/Loyalist interference should be
allowed to shape how Republicans pay homage to those brave men and women
who have given their lives in the cause of Irish freedom.”

The Republican Network for Unity denounced the decision to charge
Fennell as an “abhorrent case of political policing” and a “blatant
capitulation” to unionists.

“Dee should be immediately returned to his family and all spurious
charges dropped. Republicans must come together to oppose this draconian
attempt at silencing an opinion that doesn’t fall in favour of the
State.”

The 1916 Societies said it condemned the “draconian,
politically-motivated arrest and detention of our friend and comrade”.

“We consider the imprisonment of any political activist, for expressing
what are ultimately political sentiments, among the most repressive
measures ever introduced in Ireland by the British government, who
despite best efforts to legitimise their ongoing presence in the Six
Counties remain in occupation of a part of our country against the
wishes of the people who live here.”

Neither Sinn Fein nor the SDLP have commented on the development.