Posted by Jim on October 13, 2018
Sinn Fein has condemned the Police Federation in the North (PFNI) after
it warned that current and former members of the PSNI/RUC police would
not cooperate with the proposed Historical Investigations Unit (HIU).
Sinn Fein policing spokesman Gerry Kelly said for police to refuse to
co-operate with legally constituted bodies dealing with the legacy of
the conflict was “appalling”.
He challenged the federation to clarify whether its members are
currently withholding information about past crimes.
Mr Kelly added: “The Police Federation is supposed to be engaged in
upholding the rule of law, yet here we have them warning that they will
have no part in legal mechanisms which were agreed at Stormont House and
which are a central part of proposed new legislation to deal with the
legacy of the conflict.
“The Police Federation’s stance is in direct contravention to everything
that human-rights compliant and accountable policing should stand for.”
A separate appeal by four former British Direct Rulers to abandon legacy
investigations was described as a betrayal of victims by Sinn Fein’s
Linda Dillon.
They are part of a group of Westminster House of Lords who have argued
that investigating past British war crimes, such as Bloody Sunday,
should not be a focus of the legacy process.
The letter says it would be a “mistake” to expect a judicial outcome in
“any but a tiny percentage of crimes that have not already been dealt
with”.
Their letter was issued by Peter Hain and was co-signed by his
predecessor Tom King, John Reid and Paul Murphy, as well as former
Church of Ireland Primate Robin Eames and Chris Patten, who oversaw
police reform in the north. All the signatories were awarded lordships
and use the title ‘Lord’.
Sinn Fein victims spokeswoman said an emphasis by the peers on cash
compensation over investigation missed the point “because victims are
entitled to both”.
“The families are not naive and have stated repeatedly that even where
there is no expectation of prosecution the investigative process for
them is as much about establishing the truth of how their loved ones
died,” Ms Dillon said.
“Some of these families have been waiting nearly 50 years for the truth
about what happened to their loved ones and this letter signed by four
previous British Secretaries of State is proposing closing down that
option to them.”
Ms Dillon said the mechanisms in the 2014 Stormont House Agreement were
“key to addressing the legacy of the conflict here and they must be
implemented in a human rights compliant manner”.
SDLP policing and justice spokeswoman Dolores Kelly said the two
elements of the legacy process were not mutually exclusive. “Legacy is
not an a la cart menu, where you can pick and choose what outcome suits
you on any given day.”
Posted by Jim on
Maghaberry prisoners aligned to Republican Sinn Fein have condemned what
it said were attempts to provoke tension at the jail by prison warders.
A statement by the prisoners said they believe there are being harassed
in order to provide an excuse for overtime payments and bonuses for
staff at the high security jail.
“Over the last number of nights Republican prisoners have been awoken in
the early hours of the morning by screws banging each cell door
individually,” they said.
“This is a deliberate act of sleep deprivation and designed to raise
tension in the jail once again. It is clear to all PoWs that in order to
justify their high wages, overtime allowances and other payments some
screws are more than willing to aggravate the situation in Maghaberry.”
Prison officials have said such “body checks” are a mandatory procedure
at the jail, but prisoners have said the harassment is selective and
clearly being used as a provocation.
“The screws have escalated their actions by opening cell doors, shouting
and physically waking prisoners,” they said.
“There has been no reason or explanation given as to why this is
happening. It is clear these actions are sectarian, biased and shows
there is still a sectarian mindset against republicans in Maghaberry
jail.
“Republicans will resist these attempts to provoke and will take the
necessary actions if and when required.”
Meanwhile, Saoradh is holding a protest at Hydebank women’s jail to
highlight the conditions being faced by north Belfast republican
Christine Connor in her isolation at the prison and to demand her
transfer.
The is being subjected to increasingly oppressive measures, including
being deliberately left vulnerable to attack by hostile elements and
being denied education, healthcare and adequate legal communication,
Saoradh said.
“Christine’s basic human rights are being attacked, and Saoradh will not
stand by whilst this continues,” they said. “This is also in the
knowledge that conditions affecting Christine now will be forced upon
any woman who may be imprisoned in Hydebank in future.”
Posted by Jim on
The widow of a man shot dead by a British soldier in Belfast 47 years
ago has begun a High Court bid to obtain access to documents stored in
secret English vaults.
Lawyers representing Isobel Copeland are seeking an order for production
of material held at an enormous warehouse operated by contractors in
Derbyshire as part of her legal action against the British Ministry of
Defence.
She is suing for the alleged unlawful killing of her husband, John
Copeland, in October 1971.
Mr Copeland was shot close to his Ardoyne home in the north of the city
by a British solder. He died days later. At the time, the soldier
claimed Mr Copeland was armed and had opened fire on an army patrol.
But a draft report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) obtained by
his family casts doubt over that version of events. The report also
criticises the RUC (now PSNI) police for failing to properly investigate
the killing. The HET was told the soldier who fired the shots could not
be questioned because he is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder.
The proceedings are expected to be heard in full next year. In a
preliminary step, Mrs Copeland’s legal team have started attempts to
ensure the preservation of files connected to the case.
They are among 66,000 files which remain classified at the Swadlincote
warehouse in Derbyshire and have not been released to the British
National Archive, in breach of the usual 30-year rule for
declassification.
The hidden archive includes what is described as “hundreds and hundreds
of boxes”, each containing about 10 files, that were sent to the
warehouse from the north of Ireland four years ago.
One MoD archivist describes it as looking like “the final scene from
Raiders of the Lost Ark”, in which box after box can be seen stretching
into the distance.
The application to have the British MoD compelled to produce the
relevant material for the Copeland family was adjourned at the High
Court.
Lawyer Kevin Winters, representing Mrs Copeland, explained the wider
significance of the push.
“This is important for the family because it will provide additional
information to assist in the civil action which is pending next year,”
he said. “Not only that, but it’s relevant to all military killings
during the conflict.”
Posted by Jim on
Over 120,000 people joined a march for Scottish independence through
Edinburgh last Saturday in the largest ever march about the issue.
A sea of blue Scottish flags stretched for well over a mile from
Edinburgh Castle down into Holyrood Park, where local officials had
attempted to ban the rally from gathering.
The ban on the post-march rally for being “political” backfired when it
became clear the marchers would still head to the public park ‘for a
picnic’.
As a debate raged over the numbers, some estimates reached up to
150,000. Supporters pointed out that an equivalent march in London would
would be over a million.
Despite marchers chanting “Are you watching BBC?”, the government-run
channel failed to cover the event in its news programming. A tiny
counter protest of about thirty Scottish loyalists was given equal
billing to the giant march in the mainstream media.
“This was nothing more or nothing less than a rising, an outpouring of
the people’s dissatisfaction at Scotland’s status quo within the Union,”
wrote Martin Hannon, a columnist for ‘The National’.
Among the scores of groups participating under the theme ‘All Under the
One Banner’ was one representing ‘English Scots for Independence’. A
choir sang Hamish Henderson’s alternative national anthem, the ‘Freedom
Come All Ye’, as the crowd took two hours to assemble in the park.
Addressing the rally, the Deputy leader of the Scottish National Pary,
Keith Brown condemned Westminster’s “unfolding disaster of a shambles
that is Brexit”.
He praised the men and women who had come from distant islands and
highlands, including a number who had walked 500 miles for independence
from the Isle of Skye to Edinburgh.
The All Under One Banner group is to hold a further eight marches and
rallies for independence across Scotland next year.
The group said it hopes it will not have to keep marching for
independence but said they would do so “forever” if necessary.
Scottish author and blogger Paul Kavanagh wrote: “Scottish independence
is nothing more than the radical and dangerous idea that Scotland can
and will be a normal country. It’s an idea whose time is here. We are
the tide that cannot be stopped.”
Posted by Jim on October 12, 2018
Courts Call Bullshit On Paramilitary Crime Task Force
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Tarlach MacDhónaill is scathing of a PSNI scam in West Belfast.
Detective Superintendent Bobby Singleton was once literally a ‘Bobby’, patrolling the Lower Falls area of West Belfast and getting to know, no doubt, all the main names of the ‘underground’ world in that district.
In all likelihood then, the well-groomed PSNI golden boy knew full well, that none of those arrested in his old stomping ground on September 30th, (one of whom was charged with possession of a large amount of Cocaine) had any connection to the Irish National Liberation Army.
Yet Bobby Singleton now leads the PSNI’s ‘Paramilitary Crime Task Force’ which has been granted £25 Million over the period of five years as part of the Fresh Start Agreement, such figures demand results or at least the perception of results.
In a bizarre sequence of events on Tuesday last, charges against three Belfast men of ‘Conspiracy to rob a Boojum burrito bar’ were shot out of the sky by a Judge at first hearing due to the absence of that most basic Judicial requirement called evidence. One of the three was then remanded on a separate charge of possessing Cocaine with intent to supply. £140 000 worth of Cocaine.
The Irish Republican Socialist Party then released a statement in which they stated their belief that the PSNI had concocted a ‘sham charge’ against all three men and in so doing had dragged “two unconnected individuals into the dock, alongside a person separately charged with possession of Cocaine”, all in an attempt to create the impression of a collective conspiracy to supply Class A drugs in West Belfast.
In a PSNI press statement released on the morning of the arrests, Singleton had claimed that his force had been involved in an operation ‘focused on the criminal activities of the Belfast INLA.’ It succeeded in creating banner headlines and no doubt gave large sections of the public the general impression that the Belfast INLA was somehow and somewhere involved in the supply of Class A drugs.
Such an allegation would have had an obvious negative impact on the IRSP in West Belfast. Some weeks earlier their activists had made the front page of the local Andersonstown News for smashing a Cocaine supply operation in the same Divis area in which the latest Drug find in question had occurred.
Within that article, concerned parents of several local youths (victims of a predatory West Belfast drugs ring) claimed to have turned to the IRSP for help as they had (in their own words) ‘absolutely no faith’ in the PSNI.
The IRSP clearly believe now that Bobby Singleton has attempted to smear Republican Socialism in the Divis area by wrongly implicating the INLA in the very activity that the party were claiming to successfully oppose in the absence of local support for the PSNI – Drug dealing.
Their theory holds (at the very least) as much credence as the conspiracy charges which Singleton unsuccessfully tried to put before Judge Fiona Bagnall during his now doomed operation. The pressure which his ‘Paramilitary Crime Task Force’ no doubt comes under to be seen ‘balance the books’ following months of high-profile actions against Loyalist paramilitaries, gives further weight to IRSP suggestions that in the absence of genuine Republican ‘Paramilitary Crime’, Bobby Singleton has instead taken an ‘Any Taig will do’ attitude towards the latest wave of arrests and raids on their members houses and offices. Indeed, what better Taigs to raise headlines with than suspected supporters of the INLA?
It was highly unusual, indeed unheard of for any Judge to summarily dismiss allegations of the PSNI in a remand hearing allegedly involving Anti-Good Friday Republican ‘Paramilitaries’. It may indeed be the first case of its kind since 1998.
Yet the PSNI, until now, have relied upon both a compliant judiciary and a compliant press to create and promote narratives that they wish to be accepted in the public eye, the IRSP’s rebuffing of Bobby Singleton’s grandiose claims is unlikely to attract any mainstream press interest whatsoever and the IRSP will no doubt suffer negative public perceptions as a result.
Bobby Singleton is aware of this uneven power dynamic. He (and MI5 who command the Police service of which he is a part) is also aware of the growing support which a rejuvenated IRSP are gaining in communities such as Divis and the Lower Falls, the product of a wave of local, national and international political activities which the party has recently undertaken in what can be described as a ‘Peace Process’ of their own liking.
This is not the first time that the ‘Paramilitary Crime Task Force’ has used such broad stroke tactics against the Republican Socialist Movement. During the past year in both Derry and Belfast, targets of seemingly Bona Fide Policing operations have been arrested and had their homes searched simultaneously to members of the IRSP, with following far stretched press releases enough to brand the operations in questions “Investigations into the Criminal activities of the INLA”.
A modus operandi is being firmly established as are twin aims, the undermining of a political movement which the state has hated since its inception and (Just as importantly for Bobby Singleton) the public perception of a crack down on Irish Republicans, as opposed to ‘just Loyalists’.
Had the individual arrested for possession of Class A drugs been charged and remanded alone, it would have been viewed publicly as just another drug arrest in West Belfast. Yet a few more Catholics in the back of police cars, along with the right type of press briefings, were all that were needed to make this a political publicity coup for the ‘Paramilitary Crime Task Force’.
All the usual pieces of the Jigsaw were in place for Bobby Singleton in this instance. Wth the headline already floated by the Press, all that was required was the rubber stamping of a Judge and the appearance of an INLA criminal clampdown would be complete. In most cases the PSNI can rely on such rubber stamps without question.
Unfortunately for Bobby Singleton, it appears that a feisty female Belfast Judge had other ideas and put the requirement for evidence before the prominence of one department’s financial and political agenda.
Bullshit was called on the political antics of the Paramilitary Crime Task Force, and now inevitable questions around abuses of power, abuse of public funds, possible sectarianism and blatant lies told to the West Belfast community, will increasingly come to the fore.
➽Tarlach MacDhónaill is an activist with the North Belfast IRSP.