FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION
PSNI THREAT TO AMERICAN ACADEMIC FREEDOM. ONCE IS ENOUGH. NOW LET’S PUT A COMPLETE STOP TO THIS ONCEANDFORALL
PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO PRESIDENT WILLIAM LEAHY, S.J. & TO THE ATTENTION OF ALL TRUSTEES AT BOSTON COLLEGE .
“URGE THEM TO USE THEIR INFLUENCE TO SEE THAT BOSTON COLLEGE RESIST LEGALLY THE ATTEMPT BY UK AUTHORITIES TO CONFISCATE THE INTERVIEWS OF DR. ANTHONY MCINTYRE”.
MAKE SURE YOUR EMAIL IS ADDRESSED TO BOTH PRES. LEAHY & ATTENTION OF ALL TRUSTEES
Please mention that our American academic freedom is at stake and that this is a blatant fishing expedition by the British authorities which offends every principle of US and International Law as the British can not show any evidence of any investigation or specific act of criminality committed by Dr. McIntyre.
Let them know you feel that Boston College’s failure to legally resist this latest move by the PSNI opens their college not only to the charge that they failed to do all they could to protect research subjects and now a researcher, but that they will be seen as aiding an act of sectarian bias being committed by the PSNIif they don’t resist.
PLEASE SEND THAT EMAIL TODAY. WE HAVE BEEN INFORMED THE COURT DATE IS SCHEDULED FOR MAY 6TH IN BOSTON.
We need to keep the pressure on Boston College and not allow them to turn over any materials/interviews given or taken by Dr. Anthony McIntyre.
LET’S WIN THIS ONE AGAINST THE PSNI & BRITISH GOVERNMENT!
Please share this Action Alert with your contact lists and organizations.
Republican prisoners on Roe 4 wing of Maghaberry high-security prison
have been subjected to repeated raids by a riot squad in which
educational resources have been removed, according to reports this week.
On Thursday morning, the prison’s notorious heavy gang moved in and
removed all prisoners from their cells before searching individuals
cells, and then searching and removing all items from the prisoners’
classroom. Other raids saw educational resources removed from the
republican Roe 4 landing of Roe House and never returned. When the
prisoners asked what was going on, they were told by a laughing riot
squad member that it was only a “routine search”, according to the Irish
Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA).
“It is very clear to IRPWA and the Republican Prisoners that these raids
and the continued ill treatment of Roe 4 Prisoners are deliberate
attempts by the administration to increase tensions in the jail and they
have once again demonstrated that they have no desire for a conflict
free environment,” they said.
Last week, a republican prisoner was physically assaulted when he
refused to stop listening to traditional Irish music, they added. He was
pinned down and then taken from Roe House, with other prisoners placed
on lock-down for two hours.
“This petty request to turn Irish music down is becoming more and more
common and comes on the back of Irish signs being ripped down and the
recent refusal to allow any item relating to 1916 into the jail stating
that the 1916 rising was a terrorist event and therefore will not be
tolerated in the jail,” the IRPWA said.
“It is very clear that the sectarian staff in Maghaberry have no desire
for a conflict free environment on Roe when they resort to such petty
behavior.”
In another development, two men attending outside hospital appointments
were forcibly strip searched upon leaving and returning to the jail
despite being handcuffed to a jailer throughout. Both were forced to
undergo private consultations in the company of three jailers with the
handcuffs on. Sleep disruption and new measures to control movement on
the landings are among other negative developments which have been
reported by the IRPWA recently.
The prisoners have condemned the failure of the nationalist political
parties to take issue with their treatment and have accused Sinn Fein
and the SDLP of refusing “to be seen to side with republican prisoners”
ahead of the Stormont Assembly election next month.
In a statement, the prisoners said: “On the 5th of May 1981, IRA
Volunteer Bobby Sands died on hunger strike, as he defied Britain’s
criminalisation agenda that was supported by political unionism and
constitutional nationalists in a futile attempt to break Republican
Political Prisoners and our Freedom Struggle.
“35 years later on the 5th May 2016 constitutional nationalists and
unionists will be standing for election to an anti-republican British
Assembly that is the antithesis of everything Bobby Sands represented,
as evidenced by his political activism, his commitment to armed struggle
and his own writings. An Assembly that acts as a proxy and enables
Britain to continue their criminalisation and brutalisation of
Republican Political Prisoners.”
They said that they would be organising protests against the abuses at
Maghaberry, including a white-line protest at 7pm on 5th May at
the bottom of the Whiterock Road.
“Through all this, there has not been a single utterance from the SDLP
or Sinn Fein. It is abundantly clear that both parties are no less than
pro-brit quislings and Redmondites undeserving of the support of
Republicans and the Nationalist community.”
Its Monday 25th April and I am so happy to be still here in the United States of America.
I have won a battle but not the war. Another year of deferred action is a blessing for now.
A lot of tears have been shed since I received the deportation order over four weeks ago especially in the last several days.
I am emotionally and somewhat physically drained but elated at the outcome and I hope this will lead to an eventual long term resolution of my case.
It has been a remarkable few daysin for me in New York celebrating our nations independence and marking the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Rising even more so thatit won’t be marked by my deportation or by me becominga casualty or a symbol of the British persecution in 2016.
I am delighted at the outcome and overwhelmed by the support I have received from all over the United States, Ireland and from my friends and family in Belfast. I want to thank all the organizations, groups and individuals whom rallied behind me..
The timing may have been right given our history but I think we have ignited the passion and desire of the Irish American community in a way that has not been seen in such a long time.
More importantly the coming together of our elected representatives on both sides of the isle to support me highlights there concern for the peace progress and a need for theadministration to renew there resolve and commitment to the Good Friday Agreement.
Thanks to all of you I can now get back to work and look forward to a summer of fun playing with my son Cadan and my five grandchildren.
It’s a beautiful day in America.!!
Malachy.
Please Join me in Wolfe Tone’s Irish Pub & Kitchen on Sunday 1st May 4pm to 8pm to celebrate our hard earned victory.
Senator Bernie Sanders leaving the Vatican on Saturday. He was at the Vatican for a conference on social and economic issues.Credit Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press
VATICAN CITY — For a while, Senator Bernie Sanders’s Roman holiday seemed less than it was cracked up to be.
Immediately after his campaign announced that he would leave the United States for a “high-level meeting” at the Vatican, questions arose about the wisdom of the trip. The critical New York primary was just days away. One official of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which hosted the conference Mr. Sanders would attend, even suggested he had fished for the invitation.
Most critically, there seemed to be little chance that Mr. Sanders would meet the Vatican resident whose name he frequently invokes. Pope Francis, it turned out, would not be visiting the conference of the academy, an in-house think tank of the Vatican.
Politically, a trip to Rome without a meeting with Francis would have been a blunder, Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Fordham University who is teaching at Yale, had said on Friday. “The point is to make sure you are going to get an audience with the pope,” he said. “Anything short of an actual visit will probably be a mistake.”
Mr. Sanders continued to hold out hope. “I certainly would be delighted and proud if I had the opportunity to meet with him,” he said before leaving New York.
He also had two things going for him: his host, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, an Argentine who is the chancellor of the academy and happens to be close to Francis, and his hotel room, also close to the pope. Mr. Sanders was to stay in a second-floor room at Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where Francis keeps his residence.
“So it won’t be difficult to find the pope,” the bishop said last week, seeming to hint at something.
On Thursday, the day before the conference, a Vatican spokesman appeared to end all speculation, saying, “There won’t be a meeting with the Holy Father.”
Bishop Sánchez Sorondo dismissed the statement as “Roman gossip.”
But final word, it seemed, came Friday afternoon in the form of a handwritten letter from the pope apologizing to conference attendees for his absence.
“I will keep them all in my prayers and good wishes, and send them my heartfelt thanks for their participation,” he wrote. “May the Lord bless you. Fraternally, Franciscus.”
Around 5:30 p.m. Friday, the conference’s business ended and Mr. Sanders made an appointment for dinner at the Casa Santa Marta with his foreign policy adviser, Jeffrey D. Sachs, the economist and a fellow conference participant.
Mr. Sanders and his wife, Jane, sat with Mr. Sachs and his wife, Sonia, for a soup and buffet dinner, where they were joined by Bishop Sánchez Sorondo and Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, the pope’s right-hand man and one of the Vatican’s top power players.
“It was a wide-ranging conversation,” Mr. Sachs said. “It was about issues of the church and its history, about Honduras and foreign policy.”
But the most important words occurred in the middle of dinner, when a personal secretary for Francis arrived with the news Mr. Sanders had been hoping for, Mr. Sachs said.
If Mr. Sanders were in the foyer of the Casa Santa Marta at 6 a.m. the next day, he would be able to speak briefly with Francis as the pope headed to the airport for his Saturday trip to Greece, where the pope would be addressing the migrant crisis.
So early Saturday morning, Mr. Sanders stood in the marble foyer, which looks out onto a large cobblestone drive just inside the Vatican walls. Joining him were his wife, Mr. Sachs and his wife and Bishop Sánchez Sorondo, the senator’s de facto Vatican fixer.
The pope, speaking to reporters on his plane later in the day, described the meeting. “This morning when I was leaving, Senator Sanders was there,” he said, adding, “He knew I was leaving at that time, and he had the courtesy to greet me.”
No photos of the encounter were permitted, but Mr. Sachs said the senator was delighted all the same. He was beaming as he left the guesthouse, and celebrated the informal audience with a victory lap of sorts in St. Peter’s Basilica along with Mr. Sachs and the bishop, passing Bernini’s Baldacchino, a monumental bronze canopy over the papal altar, and Michelangelo’s Pietà.
Aware that his every statement is parsed for deeper meaning, Francis said he was simply being polite, not political.
“I shook his hand and nothing more,” he said. “If someone thinks that greeting someone means getting involved in politics,” he added, laughing, “I recommend that he find a psychiatrist!”
But the candidate was excited to talk about his coveted souvenir.
“I conveyed to him my great admiration for the extraordinary work that he is doing all over the world in demanding that morality be part of our economy,” Mr. Sanders told reporters aboard the plane as it rushed him back to the campaign in New York.
