GFA prisoners still facing discrimination

Posted by Jim on April 21, 2018

Twenty years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, republicans
who were jailed for activities related to the conflict have said they
are still facing barriers to employment and travel.

Representatives for Coiste na n-Iarchimi, an organisation that works on
behalf of former political prisoners jailed during the conflict for
their involvement in the Provisional IRA’s armed struggle spoke this
past week to the committee on the implementation of the Good Friday
Agreement at the Dublin parliament.

They said former republican prisoners are even discriminated against
when it comes to accessing psychological treatment.

Former PoW Michael Culbert told committee members that very little has
changed for these former prisoners since they were freed under the terms
of the agreement.

The agreement contains a section that states the governments will
recognise the importance of measures to facilitate the reintegration of
prisoners into the community by providing support.

“Unfortunately for us, people are denied access to university
programmes, denied access to work to which they are well qualified, we
are denied freedom for travel for many, many countries,” he said.

“Most recently four people were deported from Mexico on orders from the
American government. That was according to the Mexican authorities. The
problem is we don’t know where this will end twenty years after the
peace agreement.”

His colleague Kevin Mulgrew said there has been some progress recently
on the travel issue, but it is slow and countries like Canada and the
United States are “a no-go”.

“The Australian embassy I suppose given their history have the best
attitude, we’ve had some success getting people in,” he told the
committee.

“I think we a bit flippantly said that if the criteria the Australians
were using now were used in the original times they wouldn’t have got
into Australia, you know. So they took that and they actually have been
very progressive with us since then.”

Mr Mulgrew said there are issues in particular in the north of Ireland
because of British legislation which denies certain rights for
ex-prisoners.

This impacts on their access to psychiatric assistance.

“A lot of people are traumatised. Under the legislation, professionals
cannot treat somebody in privacy, it’s almost unbelievable. If the
person hears something from a client or patient relevant to the conflict
and doesn’t report it even today the person who is the professional can
be charged with withholding information,” he explained.

Members of the committee expressed concern about the lack of progress,
with independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan describing it as “nearly
incredulous at times”.

‘BORDER FORCE’ LAUNCHED

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A new ‘Border Force’ recruitment drive is being seen as the latest sign
that the British government is planning to impose a hard border across
Ireland after Brexit, and the manner of its implementation is in line
with the extreme right-wing policies of the British government’s Home
Office.

Britain is due to leave the European Union on 29 March 2019. Hundreds of
jobs are now being advertised as part of a recruitment campaign for a
force which could become the advance guard for a remilitarisation of the
border area.

Those suspicions were reinforced when the jobs were advertised for
‘British passport holders only’ — an advertisement which is in itself
illegal in the north of Ireland.

The British government explained that this was “due to the sensitive
nature of the work” which “requires special allegiance to the Crown”.

Despite the begrudging withdrawal of the ‘British only’ policy later in
the week, fears that the Brexit border will become a unionist frontier
have been reinforced.

Sinn Fein’s Newry and Armagh representative Conor Murphy said the drive
showed the Tories see a hard border as the predetermined outcome of the
Brexit negotiations despite the fact they have already agreed to
avoid it.

He said: “There can be no Tory-DUP Brexit border across Ireland. This
is a deeply damaging, disruptive and dangerous position, rejected
overwhelmingly by the people of this island.”

British plans to avoid a hard border were rubbished by EU negotiators at
a meeting on Wednesday as unworkable. London was also warned of the need
for “full compliance” with rules on agricultural products, livestock and
other animals, if it wanted to prevent customs barriers.

British Prime Minister Theresa May and Home Office Minister Amber Rudd
had spent much of this week addressing the ‘Windrush’ scandal,
which erupted after it emerged some elderly Caribbean immigrants and
their children had been illegally deported or detained. Some had
received instructions to try to ‘mix in’ by putting on a local accent.

Stella Creasy, a British Labour MP, said there was the risk of “enormous
damage” to the peace process in Ireland if Brexit is mishandled.

“No trickery is going to get Theresa May or her government out of the
hole they have dug for themselves in ruling out continued membership of
the customs union and the single market,” she said.

Irish Radio Network

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National Irish Freedom Committee Cumann na Saoirse Naisiunta

Posted by Jim on

 will hold the annual Easter Rebellion Commemoration on:
Sunday APRIL 22  @ 9:30AM  @ Woodlawn Cemetery East 233rd st. and Webster Avenue
at the grave of Joseph Stynes
The Irish Republican Movement’s Easter Message will be read at the graveside ~
After the Graveside ceremony, an Irish Breakfast will be at:
Keane’s Bar and Restaurant, 434 Katonah Avenue, Bronx, NY
for more information:  enrightnyc@gmail.com or call:
(718) 683- 6903 or
(845) 492-7198
or at www.irishfreedom.net

Catholics could outnumber North’s Protestants by 2021

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As Blessed Martin Luther King, Jr. liked to quote: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ (Theodore Parker 1810-1860). 

Just as Whites in the United States had to accept Blacks were equal, so, too , the Protestants of Northern Ireland must accept Catholics as equals. That is not a defeat for anyone but a victory for all. And, as Blessed Martin also taught, it is the foundation stone of the Beloved Community. (The term was first devised at the beginning of the 20 th Century by the important American philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce ,1855–1916.).

The King Center explains:’For Dr. King, The Beloved Community was not a lofty utopian goal to be confused with the rapturous image of the Peaceable Kingdom, in which lions and lambs coexist in idyllic harmony. Rather, The Beloved Community was for him a realistic, achievable goal that could be attained by a critical mass of people committed to and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence…In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger, and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood’.”—Fr. Sean McManus

Catholics could outnumber North’s Protestants by 2021

Bimpe Archer. Irish News. Belfast. Saturday, April 21, 2018

CATHOLICS could outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland by 2021, a leading academic has suggested.

The 2011 official census figures put the Protestant population at 48 per cent and Catholics at 45 per cent, while more recent figures from 2016 show 44 per cent of working age adults are Catholic and 40 per cent Protestant.

Among schoolchildren, 51 per cent are Catholic and 37 per cent Protestant, while among the over 60s the proportion is reversed, with 57 per cent Protestant and 35 per cent Catholic.

Paul Nolan, an independent researcher, best known for the three Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Reports, told BBC News NI it is likely that by the centenary of the foundation of the state Catholics will outnumber Protestants.

“Three years from now we will end up, I think, in the ironic situation on the centenary of the state where we actually have a state that has a Catholic majority,” he said.

He said there is no need for this prediction to cause undue alarm among unionists as being a Catholic does not necessarily mean supporting a united Ireland.

Mr Nolan pointed out that although 45 per cent identified in the 2011 census as being from a Catholic background, only 25 per cent claimed an exclusively Irish identity.

“The future of unionism depends entirely upon one thing – and I mean unionism with a small ‘u’ – it depends on winning the support of people who do not regard themselves to be unionists with a capital ‘U’,” he said.

“In other words people who do not identify with the traditional trappings of unionism; people who would give their support for a UK government framework and that’s a sizeable proportion of Catholics provided they are not alienated by any form of triumphalism or anything that seems to be a rejection of their cultural identity as nationalists.”

He suggested it is likely debate on a future United Ireland would move to whether it might mean “two parliaments – one in Belfast and one in Dublin”.

“I think the more that gets unpacked, the more opinion will move back and forward. Its not going to go just in one direction,” the academic said

His analysis comes after DUP leader Arlene Foster said she would “probably” leave in the event of a united Ireland.

Party colleague Christopher Stalford said while Ms Foster’s views were “reflective of a lot of unionists [who] feel they would effectively be pushed into the Irish sea”, he would not be among any exodus.

“For my part though, I would never leave this island,” he said.

“We need to show that you can be British and Irish at the same time.”

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said unionists “have to be at home in a new Ireland” and nothing, from the flag to the anthem would be “taboo”.