Posted by Jim on January 30, 2017
A Conservative MP and former British army officer, Bob Stewart, has said
he worked as “kind of a torturer” when he was serving in the north of
Ireland.
The 67-year-old said that torture is sometimes “justified”, and that
techniques such as starvation and sleep deprivation were acceptable in
certain situations.
“Technically as you look at it today I was a kind of a torturer,” he
told the BBC. “Of course it was acceptable then. It’s now unacceptable
and now it’s defined as torture.”
Asked about the types of torture techniques that might be suitable in
those situations, he replied: “Sleep deprivation. Lack of food. Perhaps,
as I’ve done, showing people pictures of their friends that have been
blown up. That sort of thing.”
In 2013, it emerged that the British Army sanctioned four methods of
interrogation – hooding, starvation, sleep deprivation and the use of
stress positions. Later, the use of a white-noise technique was added.
The British government is facing a legal challenge from a group of
Irishmen known as the Hooded Men, who were tortured by the British Army
after they were arrested and interned without charge in August 1971.
The group is taking a judicial review at Belfast’s High Court next month
and they also have a separate case before the European court. The men
were subjected to food and sleep deprivation and loud static noise for
long periods of time.
The European Commission ruled in 1976 that the government was guilty of
torture and inhumane and degrading treatment but following an appeal the
European Court later ruled that the techniques did not amount to
torture.
Liam Shannon, one of the Hooded Men, said torture can “never be
justified under any circumstances”.
“It’s illegal, immoral and against God’s law and anyone else’s law,” he
said. For anyone to say that they can find justification for torture is
ridiculous.”
Mr Shannon said torture is not only unjustifiable but also unreliable.
“Whatever information that you would get from someone under torture is
completely unreliable,” he said. “People will tell you anything when
they are being tortured. It will never stand up in court.”
Posted by Jim on January 23, 2017
Due to weather issues the Ancient Order of Hibernians Kings County Board meeting schedule for tonight Monday January 23, 2017 has been postponed until next week Monday January 30, 2017 7:30 PM sharp.
Please pass this this information on to other members, as we do not have everyone’s phone or email contact.
Steve Kiernan
President
Kings County Board
Eddie Velinskie
Recording Secretary
Posted by Jim on
Mid-Ulster Assembly member Michelle O’Neill is to lead Sinn Fein into
the Six County Assembly elections in March, it has been announced.
She takes over from Martin McGuinness, who last week announced his
decision to quit active politics over serious health issues. That came
amid a major breakdown of relations between DUP and Sinn Fein, which
triggered the collapse of the powersharing executive in Belfast.
Although formerly the agriculture minister and more recently the health
minister, Ms O’Neill is not well known outside her own constituency and
is a relative newcomer to the Sinn Fein frontline. She has a background
in social welfare issues and has been more prominent in in recent weeks
since Mr McGuinness became ill.
She was formerly the political adviser to Mid-Ulster MP Francie Molloy
before being elected to the Stormont Assembly in 2007.
As the head of Sinn Fein’s Stormont team, Ms O’Neill could become deputy
first minister in March if Sinn Fein is returned as the largest
nationalist party after the election, or First Minister if Sinn Fein is
the largest party overall.
Announcing the appointment, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said Ms
O’Neill represented a “new generation” for the party. He said: “This is
a handover of a primary leadership position from my generation, from
Martin’s generation, to another generation.”
He added: “As a united all-Ireland team, we will give her the space and
support to find her own voice and continue the good work Martin
pioneered.”
Ms O’Neill said being a republican was her “way of life”. She told Fein
supporters at Stormont: “I won’t let you down”, and added: “This is the
biggest honour and privilege of my life.”
She said she would continue Mr McGuinness’s “good work”.
“I have never been afraid of a challenge and I have never been afraid to
act,” she said.
The 26 County Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan was among
the first to congratulate Ms O’Neill. He said it was “a very proud and
special day for her and her family”.
“I know that we share a sense of urgency in our determination to see the
power-sharing institutions effectively functioning at Stormont once the
election has taken place,” he added.
Posted by Jim on January 19, 2017
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has effectively retired from politics
after announcing he will not be standing for re-election in the 2 March
poll to the Belfast Assembly.
A former IRA commander, in recent decades Mr McGuinness became
synonymous with Sinn Fein’s peace strategy and its efforts to achieve a
reconciliation with unionism and the British establishment.
His decision to quit Stormont was announced in three television
interviews this evening. It followed his resignation as deputy first
minister last Monday week in protest at the latest corruption scandal to
engulf his unionist partners in the Six County Executive.
That prompted this week’s collapse of the power-sharing Executive and
the calling of elections for March 2nd.
In a statement, he said a deterioration in his health had coincided with
the refusal of DUP leader Arlene Foster to step aside pending an
investigation.
“For me to be part of an administration that was being accused of
corruption.. was absolutely intolerable and under no circumstances is
Sinn Fein willing to be part of an administration that is going to be
continually subject to this sort of allegation, particularly when it’s
coming directly at our partners in government.
“I felt I had no option whatsoever [but to resign] and it was with a
very sore heart that I had to do what I had to do.”
He also revealed he had planned to step down in May this year, which
would have marked the tenth anniversary since he and the late DUP leader
Ian Paisley entered government together, a pairing which became famous
as the “chuckle brothers”.
“Unfortunately, my health and the current crisis have overtaken this
timeframe,” he said.
He was determined to overcome the rare and serious illness with which he
has been diagnosed, and said he would continue to support Sinn Fein as
best he could.
“Over the last 10 years I have worked tirelessly to make powersharing
work,” he said. “The institutions are now in a deep crisis as a result
of recent events and we are facing into an election when the people will
have their say”.
Sinn Fein was a party in constant development, renewal and evolution, he
said, and he felt privileged to have been a part of that.
“It remains my own personal and political ambition to break the link
with Britain and to unite all who share this island under the common
banner of Irish men and women.
“I am deeply proud of the generation of Irish republicans that came
before us. A generation that kept the vision of freedom alive through
the difficult post-partition era when they faced unrelenting repression
and persecution from the Ulster Unionist Party in an apartheid Orange
state.
“I have been privileged to be part of the generation that broke that
apartheid state apart and to have been part of a Sinn Fein leadership
that delivered peace and radical change. There are more republicans
today than at any time in my generation.”
Mr McGuinness said his “obvious health issues” were being addressed by a
superb team of national health service doctors and nurses.
“But I want to be open and honest with my friends and colleagues in Sinn
Fein, with the electorate of Foyle and with the wider community beyond
my own constituency. I also want to be fair to my family and to the
teams of carers who are doing their best to provide me with the
treatment I now require to deal with this very serious medical
condition, which I am very determined to overcome,” he said.
“Unfortunately, I am not physically able to continue in my current role
and have therefore decided to make way for a new leader.”
Mr McGuinness said that as a Sinn Fein activist he would continue to
“play a full and enthusiastic part in that essential process of building
bridges, of dialogue and of reconciliation between our still divided
people”.
“Despite the current difficulties and challenges, I am confident and
optimistic about the future. We have faced more difficult times and
found a way forward. As a society we have made enormous progress. We
must continue to move forward. Dialogue is the only option.”
Posted by Jim on January 18, 2017
Sinn Féin spent ten years trying to show Unionists how The North could work if Unionists could live on equal terms with the rest of the people here. The DUP spent those ten years proving they couldn’t. Only they can prevent The North working.
Brian Feeney. Irish News. Belfast.Wednesday, January 18, 2017
WHAT’S the way out of this one? Make no mistake, the collapse of the executive and assembly is the worst crisis the Northern institutions of the Good Friday Agreement have faced since 2001 for a number of reasons.
The collapse sixteen years ago was caused by David Trimble walking out because the IRA had not decommissioned at the speed he wanted them to. Trimble could never leave such matters to the bodies set up to oversee them, in that case the International Decommissioning Commission.
The subsequent walk-outs and collapses were also mainly caused by Unionists setting various conditions for Sinn Féin, on one occasion aided and abetted by the RUC getting themselves in a twist about their own informers in the Republican Movement.
This collapse is different in nature and type. It’s the first time Sinn Féin has walked away from institutions in the last eighteen years. That’s why it’s so serious. They have pulled the plug but still both Unionist parties and the SDLP don’t get it. Indeed the only person up at Stormont apart from Sinn Féin former MLAs who does understand is inevitably Jim Allister.
On Monday, Allister correctly told the BBC that Sinn Féin have taken a ‘strategic decision’ to shut down the Executive and Assembly because it was not delivering. Full marks for reading Gerry Adams’s speech to the party’s Cúige Uladh, and believing him. Of course, given the ability level of the average Unionist MLA at Stormont, Allister has only to close one eye to be king, as a former Nationalist party leader said of the old Stormont.
Few noticed that while announcing Sinn Féin would not nominate a Deputy First Minister, Michelle O’Neill said, ‘we [Sinn Féin] will not be back in this chamber’ until they had a satisfactory resolution of the matters of equality of status and parity of esteem the DUP’s denial of which provoked Sinn Féin into pulling the plug.
Therefore, when the election takes place , Sinn Féin will again not nominate anyone to an Executive. There are three weeks before our proconsul [ the Secretary of State]has to call another election if there is no Executive. In those three weeks there is no chance of the DUP eating humble pie, and demonstrating a firm purpose of amendment not to sin again by reciting an act of contrition. There is equally no chance of the proconsul calling another election — on the principle that repeating the same action, over and over again, and expecting a different result is a sign of madness.
What will happen? The most likely outcome is a very lengthy period of the Assembly meeting as a talking shop, as in 2008 when Sinn Féin boycotted the Executive after the refusal of the DUP to honour their 2007 commitment to devolve policing and justice. In this case it could be years while negotiations take place to find a way to ensure the DUP honors the agreements they have signed up to at St Andrews and Fresh Start.
In the meantime parties are on election footing. Sinn Féin have the initiative and the DUP are on the back foot unwilling to accept that the election is about their bad faith and what Sinn Féin chair Declan Kearney called their ‘institutionalized bigotry’. Yet they can’t face the voters if they admit the election is about the ‘cash for ash’ scandal. So they will adopt the mendacious line that it’s an attack on Unionism and an attempt to bring down their leader. That doesn’t augur well for talks afterwards.
Still, the Assembly is more important to the DUP than Sinn Féin which has bigger fish to fry in Dublin. The DUP don’t realize that pulling the plug and treating Stormont with contempt has energized Sinn Féin supporters who have been wanting the party to stand up to the DUP for years, the more stridently since Foster took over to lead like the antediluvian rural Unionist she is.
Sinn Féin spent ten years trying to show Unionists how The North could work if Unionists could live on equal terms with the rest of the people here. The DUP spent those ten years proving they couldn’t. Only they can prevent The North working.
