Posted by Jim on May 31, 2012
by Sandy Boyer (for Counterpunch)
Marian Price has been imprisoned in Northern Ireland for more than a year on the basis of secret evidence neither she nor her lawyers have been allowed to see. She is effectively interned without a trial, sentence, or release date. Unless the courts intervene, she will only be released by order of a British Cabinet Minister, Owen Paterson, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
Overruling the Courts
Twice she has been arrested and brought before a non-jury Diplock Court.
Twice a judge ordered her released on bail.
Each time Owen Paterson overruled the judge and ordered her back to prison. He said that he was revoking her license (parole in American
terms) because he had “confidential information” against her. This “information” could only have come from MI5.
In May 2011, she was charged with “encouraging support for an illegal organization” after she held up a piece of paper from which a masked man read a statement. Northern Ireland must be one of the very few places where holding up a piece of paper can constitute a crime.
On May 11, 2012, almost exactly a year after these charges were filed, they were dismissed because the British government hadn’t produced any evidence. But Marian Price remains in prison.
In July 2011 she was charged with “providing property for the purposes of terrorism”. She was accused of giving a cell phone to someone who participated in the killing of two British soldiers. She had been questioned about this and released 18 months before being charged. Her solicitor, Peter Corrigan, told the BBC that there was no new evidence against her.
Once again she was released on bail, and, again, Owen Paterson said he was revoking her license and ordered her back to prison.
The Vanishing Pardon
But Marian Price and her legal team insist that she was never actually on license. They say that after being convicted of IRA bombings in Britain, she received a full royal pardon (the “Royal Prerogative of
Mercy”) when she was freed in 1980 after she appeared to be on the brink of death from severe anorexia nervosa.
The British Government now says the pardon “cannot be located” – that it has been lost or shredded and that no copy exists. Peter Corrigan told a public meeting in Belfast that this is the only time in the entire history of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy that a pardon has gone missing. The veteran Irish human rights campaigner Mgr. Raymond Murray said that “You can draw your own conclusions.”
There is good reason to be concerned about Marian Price’s health and well being. She was unable to appear in court on May11th, even by video link. Prison doctors have said that she should either be in a hospital or home with her family.
She was held in solitary confinement for more than a year. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has called for a ban solitary confinement of more than 15 days.
Marian Price’s Health
Marian Price’s health was permanently damaged when she was force fed over 400 times while on hunger strike in a British prison. She described the force feeding in an interview with the Dublin magazine The Village.
“Four male prison officers tie you into the chair so tightly with sheets you can’t struggle. You clench your teeth to try to keep your mouth closed but they push a metal spring device around your jaw to prise it open. They force a wooden clamp with a hole in the middle into your mouth. Then, they insert a big rubber tube down that. They hold your head back. You can’t speak or move. You’re frightened you’ll choke to death.”
Marian Price’s husband, Jerry McGlinchey, said in an interview with “Radio Free Eireann” on WBAI, the New York Pacifica station, that he is “very, very worried” about her health. He says she never recovered from the force feeding which caused tuberculosis that had to be treated as recently as 2010. The anorexia has returned and she suffers from such severe arthritis that she can’t even open her hand.
McGlinchey believes that her health will get steadily worse as long as she is in prison. He said that “My fear is that Marian will slip into a deep depression that it would take her years to come out of. I believe that is what the government intends.”
Her prison conditions have contributed to the decline in Marian Price’s health. Male prison guards shine a flashlight in her eyes throughout the night. Protestant prisoners in nearby cells sing anti-Catholic songs at the top of their lungs all night long, making it impossible for her to sleep.
Support for Marian Price
Very few people agree with Marian Price’s politics. She is a “dissident”
Irish republican who believes in the necessity of an armed struggle to end British rule. Nevertheless the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the two major nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labor Party, have all called for her release.
But what is at stake is more than Marian Price or her politics. The Irish civil rights leader Bernadette Devlin McAliskey has said that her treatmenrt, “Is a clear signal to everybody who is not “on board” and who is not of the same mind as the government: that no dissent will be tolerated. No dissent will be tolerated and you challenge the status quo at your peril.”
Posted by Jim on
A chairde,
Tá failte romhaibh uilig chuig Ard Fheis Sinn Féin i anseo i gCill Áirne, contae Chiarraí. A special céad míle fáilte also to our Friends of Sinn Féin from the USA, Canada and Australia, to our comrades from the Basque country, from South Africa, Palestine and Cuba and to all foreign dignitaries.
Yesterday was Africa Day when that continent celebrated its freedom from colonialism. But today western powers haggle while 20 million people in the Sahel region of north Africa face a severe famine. Thus far the international community has not provided the money urgently needed.
This Ard Fheis extends solidarity to the suffering people of Africa.
We urge our government to do its best to encourage the international community to help the people of the Sahel.
Solidarity also to the people of the Middle East and comhghairdeas to the Palestinian hunger strikers who secured a deal on prison conditions.
Everything is relative but in Ireland we also have our difficulties.
Over half a million are unemployed – almost 450,000 in this state.
Many citizens cannot pay their bills or mortgages.
Youth unemployment is especially high, north and south.
I recently spoke to one woman who told me that three of her brothers, all married, left two weeks ago for Australia.
Her distress was plain and is shared by tens of thousands of other families.
The policies of Fianna Fáil, and now Fine Gael and Labour are responsible.
Forced emigration is one of the huge damning failures of this state.
Citizens are angry.
Angry at the political and banking elite and the developers – the golden circle – that enriched itself through corruption, greed and bad policies.
Angry at the government for failing to hold these elites to account.
Angry at broken promises by Fine Gael and Labour not to pay one more red cent to bad banks and then handing over €24 billion.
Many citizens thought they were voting for change in last year’s General Election.
But what happened?
Tweedle Dee and tweedle dumb have been replced by tweedle and tweedle dumber.
. Fine Gael and Labour were elected to change the disastrous policies of Fianna Fail leaderships.
Instead they embraced these policies.
They have cut public services and wages.
Attacked the rights of the most vulnerable.
And introduced new stealth taxes.
The household charge, water charges; septic tank charges; VAT and fuel increases.
What is the point of the Labour Party in this government?
What would James Connolly think of the Labour leaderships’
implementation of right wing austerity policies?
What would he think of the promises made and broken by the party he founded?
My commitment to you this evening is that Sinn Féin will not make any promises we will not keep.
When Sinn Féin makes a commitment – as we demonstrated often during the peace process – we keep our commitments.
Creideann muidinne gur féidir le hÉirinn, idir Thuaidh agus Theas, theacht amach níos láidre agus níos rathúla as an ghéarchéim seo. We live in a great country.
Our history is replete with challenges, adversity and great injustice.
But our people have come through it all.
And in every generation brave men and women have come forward.
From 1798 to 1847, from 1913 to 1916 to 1981.
Visionaries have shown the way.
They made a stand.
Today workers at Vita Cortex in Cork, La Senza, Wilsons, in Game shops, and at Irish Cement have made a stand.
Today Lagan Brick workers are 164 days on strike.
Parents defending their children with disabilities, hospital campaigners, carers, teachers, health workers, defenders of our schools, turf cutters, citizens who are standing up for themselves and their families and communities, are showing the way.
So too are citizens who work in the community and voluntary sector, in our sporting organisations, in the arts, in environmental groups, in defence of our language, in support of our young people and our senior citizens.
Citizens who are supporting victims of abuse, including drugs and alcohol misuse and suicide prevention, are holding our communities together.
These active citizens, compassionate carers and community activists are the real Ireland.
Tá siad ag seasamh an fhóid do achan duine.
Tá siad ag seasamh ar son Éireann.
Agus tá muid fior buíoch daoibh.
We have to follow their example, all of us and demand our rights as citizens.
The right to a job, to a home, to a decent health service and education, to a clean environment, to civil and religious liberties, and to top quality public services.
We have to break the cycle of austerity and inequality.
We need to get citizens back to work.
We need fair taxation.
We need to eliminate wasteful public spending.
And yes, it is crucial that we deal with the banking debt.
But these policies must be accompanied by a plan to get citizens back to work.
And austerity won’t do it.
In the North, the absence of fiscal powers and cuts by the British Tory government, have made the Executive’s task more difficult.
In this state the government gives fiscal powers away!
This state needs a government led job creation strategy.
There are funds available – in the National Pension Reserve Fund, in the European Investment Bank, in the Private Pension sector and in NAMA.
Sinn Féin proposes a €13 billion stimulus.
This stimulus would run over three years creating approximately 130,000 jobs directly.
The projects are there.
Vitally needed schools, crèches, roads, regeneration projects; broadband and a water system that needs to be modernized.
Sinn Féin supports inward investment but we will also champion Small and Medium enterprises and homegrown businesses.
Upward only rent reviews, and the denial of credit by banks for our small and medium sector, doesn’t make economic sense.
It does make economic sense to replace imports with home-produced products and to target specific sectors for export.
It does make economic sense to expand the agri-food sector.
It does make economic sense to build on the potential of tourism.
Sinn Féin advocates a joined up all-island strategic approach to fully exploit this potential.
Sinn Féin will also change social protection to introduce a safety net for the self-employed.
Ireland does have the visionaries to develop our own industries.
That vision must be matched by government action.
Ní dheanann déine é sin.
Ní hí an déine an reiteach.
Caithfidh muid daoine a chur ar ais ag obair.
In a real republic there is a duty to provide the highest quality of public services.
Better services delivered more fairly and paid for by direct taxation.
All citizens, throughout their lives, should have access to education at all levels based on their ability but the cost of educating their children is increasingly a challenge for many parents.
Education must give children, all our children, the best start possible.
That also is good economics.
Tá Sinn Féin tiomanta do leasuithe sláinte – agus do infheistíocht in ár seirbhís sláinte poiblí.
A public health service, free at the point of delivery which provides for citizens from the cradle to the grave, and also funded by direct taxation, is good economics.
The number of sick children awaiting hospital admission and on trolleys had increased by almost 700% in three years.
In the first four months of this year 26,106 citizens were left on hospital trolleys.
Almost 60,000 patients – adults and children – are on waiting lists – a 50% increase on 2010.
After one year of this government the health service is worse now because this government is doing exactly the same thing as Fianna Fáil.
And patients and their families are paying the price while those at the top award themselves obscene salaries and huge bonuses.
Citizens need to stand together against this. It is wrong.
It must be stopped.
Rural Ireland is also under attack.
Rural schools, post offices and Garda stations are being closed.
Rural people are told they can no longer cut turf where it has been cut for generations.
They are being compelled to pay septic tank and household charges.
Unemployment is driving young people to far off foreign shores.
In Leitrim I was told that half of those between the ages of 22 and 26 have left.
The heart is being torn from communities as a whole GAA generation leaves for Canada and Australia.
In this state around 70,000 people are emigrating each year.
That’s nine citizens every hour.
Mothers and fathers wonder who will leave next.
Rural Ireland, and especially the west is being devastated.
Forced emigration is not a life style choice.
But it is an indictment of the two men from the west who lead this bad government.
Shame on you Taoiseach.
Shame on you Tánaiste.
Sinn Féin is engaging with people across rural Ireland and listening to their hopes for the future. We are looking at what rural Ireland has to offer rather than how it can be targeted for cuts.
There is anger too in Gaeltacht communities.
Gaeltacht schools are being targeted.
The 20-year strategy for the Irish Language is not being implemented.
Sinn Féin has recently appointed an Irish language officer to strengthen the use of Irish within our party and to direct our Irish language strategy.
Our Minister Caral Ni Chuilin is doing trojan work to support and develop the Irish Language.
This Ard Fheis commends her successful Liofa campaign.
I want to turn now to the Austerity Treaty.
When considering what way to vote people need to ask themselves if the austerity of recent budgets led to jobs and growth?
The answer is obvious. The answer is no.
If you accept that, you should vote No.
Austerity isn’t working now and won’t start working on 1st June.
Neither will it bring stability or certainty.
Austerity means more cuts.
And increased charges.
Right now if you do not like the policies of the government you can sack them or re-elect them.
You won’t be able to do that with unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Frankfurt and Brussels.
That is undemocratic.
Don’t give up your power.
Don’t give your democratic rights away.
And don’t write austerity into the constitution.
Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil have not offered any positive arguments in favour of this Treaty.
The Taoiseach won’t even debate the issue!
That’s not leadership!
That’s not showing citizens the respect they deserve!
Instead Mr. Kenny, Mr. Gilmore and Mr. Martin are trying to scare people into voting Yes.
Whether it was British rule or a domineering church hierarchy, Irish citizens have had enough of being ruled by fear.
We are done with that.
The Irish government is also out of step with the rest of Europe.
Other EU states are delaying ratification because they know the mood in Europe is changing.
But not our government.
They settled for much less than anyone else, despite Sinn Féin’s clear warning about the foolishness of accepting this bad Treaty.
When the Taoiseach endorsed it in the Dáil he never mentioned growth or jobs.
Not once!
Or a write down of Bank debt.
The truth is Mr. Kenny and Mr. Gilmore are out of their depth.
This Government simply cannot be trusted on this Treaty.
It claims we will be locked out of funds if citizens vote NO.
That’s not true!
The legal mandate of the ESM is very clear.
Funding will be provided, and I quote, where it is ‘indispensable to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area as a whole and of its Member States.”
So don’t be fooled.
Remember what Fine Gael and Labour said during the election.
Remember all Fianna Fáil’s promises.
Don’t be fooled. Be wise.
Join with the millions across Europe who are demanding an end to austerity.
It is a good and patriotic and positive action to say NO to a Treaty that is bad for you, bad for your family and community, bad for society and entirely without any social or economic merit.
Next Thursday. Vote No.
It is five years since the historic deal between Sinn Féin and the DUP.
The business of delivering for citizens is continuing.
There are still outstanding issues including on the Irish Language, a Bill of Rights and other equality issues.
The British Secretary of State has also made a number of unhelpful and unwarranted interventions, including his decision to revoke the licences of Martin Corey and Marian Price.
The British Secretary of State should go back to England where he belongs.
Marion Price and Martin Corey and Gerry McGeough, should be released immediately.
The political institutions in the North need to move to the next stage – the transfer of fiscal power to the Assembly and Executive.
The continuing exercise of fiscal power by the British Treasury will lead to more cuts in the block grant and more right wing welfare policies being imposed on us.
Despite the difficulties a huge effort by the Executive has resulted in jobs being retained and new jobs created.
Unemployment in the North has fallen and at 6% is less than half the level in this state.
Despite the lack of fiscal autonomy the Sinn Féin Ministerial and Assembly team have stood against cuts, and used public funds to invest in jobs and growth.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has ensured funding for the A5, the new road linking Monaghan, Tyrone, Derry and Donegal, the expansion of Altnagelvin and Omagh hospitals and the freeze on Student Fees.
There are many good positive cross border developments.
For example, the new cancer unit at Altnagelvin in Derry will serve patients from Donegal.
And I want to commend DUP Health Minister Poots for ensuring that the new hospital in Enniskillen will be open to patients from Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan.
Sinn Féin Ministers have created a social investment fund to tackle disadvantage.
We have capped the domestic rate, established an Executive sub-committee on Welfare Reform to alleviate hardship and introduced new measures to address Youth Unemployment.
And at a time of tight budgets a Winter Fuel Payment was made to citizens
Sinn Féin refused to introduce water charges.
We stopped the privatisation of water services.
Education Minister John O’Dowd is progressing reforms to break down the social, economic and regional barriers to education.
These include free school meals, school uniform grants, extended youth services and early years provision, and an almost five percent increase in the budgets allocated directly to schools.
As well as growing the North’s agri-food sector to create jobs Agriculture Minister Michelle O Neill is also tackling rural poverty and isolation.
I want at this point to pay tribute to our outgoing poll topping MEP for the Six Counties, Bairbre de Brún.
This Ard Fheis thanks you Bairbre for your work in many leadership positions over many years.
Tá muid fior buíoch duitse.
Agus beidh muid ag obair le chéile arís sa todhchaí.
And I thank Martina Anderson for her work as a Junior Minister and wish her well as she prepares to take up new challenges as an MEP.
I commend our Leinster House and Assembly teams, our MPs and Councillors and all our activists.
Across Ireland Sinn Féin is building the political fightback against austerity. Sinn Féin TDs and Seanadoirí and our other activists in Leinster House are leading the political opposition to this government.
But I want to single out and commend and thank Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and Mícheál Mac Donncha who have just completed 15 years in the Dáil.
Go raibh maith agat Bríd.
I also want to pay tribute to Martin McGuinness for standing in the Presidential election.
It was a tremendous campaign for Irish Republicanism.
A decisive and defining intervention at the beginning, and most importantly at the end.
Tá athrú mór tagtha ar an Tuaisceart go háirithe le blianta beaga anuas mar gheall ar an proiséas síochána. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement the British Government has agreed to end its jurisdiction if a majority of people vote that way.
All of us — north and south, nationalist, unionist and others, need to plan for that.
In this state more and more people realize we do not have a real republic.
Sinn Féin wants to demonstrate to unionists that a united Ireland is also in their interests.
A United Ireland makes sense.
A single Island economy makes sense.
It does not make sense on an island this size and with a population of six million, to have two states, two bureaucracies, two sets of government departments, and two sets of agencies competing for inward investment.
Harmonising our systems will save money, improve efficiency and create jobs.
A new, agreed united Ireland will emerge through a genuine process of national reconciliation.
Through a cordial union.
Sinn Féin is for a new republic where the interests of citizens come first.
A new Republic that is inclusive and pluralist.
A new Republic created democratically and peacefully.
Sinn Féin is about nation building.
A nation rooted in harmony, equality and justice.
The people of Ireland are entitled to social justice.
Equality is achievable.
Irish people have the genius and the right to demand it.
In our time.
For all citizens, for all our communities.
So, now is the time for courage.
For commitment and patriotism.
For hope.
For all our children.
For our great country.
For Ireland.
Posted by Jim on May 26, 2012
By eirigi
Last Friday (May 18), a widely circulated PSNI press release was issued to the media hours before a number of republicans appeared at specially-convened courts the following day. The press release blew a hole in the myth perpetuated by constitutional nationalist parties in Stormont regarding their much vaunted claims of having secured what they have continuously described as “a new era of civic policing” in the Six Counties.
The PSNI press release confirmed the clear organisational overlaps, interconnection and collaboration between that force and MI5, and vindicated what eirigi and others have been saying for quite some time – that the primary purpose of the PSNI remains that of a fully armed pro-British militia which exists to support, maintain and enforce British rule in the Six Counties.
For several years, constitutional nationalist parties in the Six Counties have peddled the lie that they achieved the following:
* No role for MI5 in ‘civic policing’
* No PSNI personnel under MI5 control
* No secondment of PSNI personnel to MI5
* Annual oversight and reporting mechanisms on MI5’s role
* A clear firewall established between the PSNI and MI5
So let’s examine the reality.
No role for MI5 in ‘civic policing’? MI5 does not have powers of arrest; does not have powers to question people; does not have powers to search or seize property. MI5 is fully dependent upon the PSNI to do all this for them. MI5 has overall primacy for Britain’s “national security”
interests. As such every British police force, whether in London, Birmingham or the Six Counties is subservient to MI5 and are obliged to carry out those operations, arrests, searches and interrogations dictated at the behest of MI5.
No PSNI personnel under MI5 control? No secondment of PSNI personnel to MI5? In January 2007, constitutional nationalists put great emphasis on a public statement made by the then British prime minister, Tony Blair.
Blair stated that PSNI personnel attached to PSNI Headquarters Staff would act in a “in a liaison capacity” with MI5. His statement was conveniently seized upon by constitutional nationalists to camouflage the reality that there are, in fact, many sections of the PSNI which fall under that overarching and all-encompassing description of “Headquarters Staff”.
In a Freedom of Information request published in 2009, the PSNI admitted that that the physical location of PSNI Headquarters comprised not merely the Knock Road HQ in Belfast but it included multiple locations across the Six Counties and also, significantly, included the following
departments:
* Command
* Crime Operations (including the PSNI intelligence unit C3)
* Finance &Support
* Human Resources
* Operations Support, including the Tactical Support Groups (TSGs)
The Crime Operations Department (and its specialist sections) was formed when Special Branch and the Criminal Investigation Department were amalgamated under a unified command within the PSNI. It is unclear how many former Special Branch officers are located throughout the various specialist branches of Crime Operations or what percentage of total personnel they constitute. Given that former RUC Special Branch officers would have substantial years of service and intelligence experience, it is likely these continue to occupy pivotal positions.
The Tactical Support Groups within the PSNI Operations Support department were, in 2010, comprised of almost 500 personnel.
The PSNI’s overall manpower currently stands at around 7,600 full- and part-time personnel.
At any one time, at least 1,200 of those personnel are attached to PSNI Headquarters staff and, as such, all are highly likely to be acting in a ‘liaison capacity’ directly with MI5.
Annual oversight and reporting mechanisms on MI5’s role? Here again, oversight and reporting mechanisms concerning MI5 have been shown to be completely meaningless and worthless.
The appointment of a British peer, Lord Carlile, a fervent supporter both of non-jury Diplock courts and the prolonged detention without trial of suspects, to a role in annually reviewing MI5 in the North, was bizarrely hailed as “progress” by constitutional nationalists at Stormont.
This was probably due to the fact, based on Tony Blair’s statement of 10th January 2007, that Carlile’s annual review of MI5 in the Six Counties is supposed to take place in consultation with the First and deputy First Ministers at Stormont – thereby directly implicating the north’s largest constitutional nationalist party into providing a fig-leaf for MI5’s surreptitious activities in the Six Counties.
Announcing that he had received Carlile’s third and most recent annual report, Britain’s colonial overlord in the Six Counties, Owen Paterson, stated on Monday19th December 2011 that “there are no difficulties of any significance in the inter-operability between the PSNI and the Security Service and identifies this is a sound working partnership and one that is to be commended”.
“Given its sensitive nature,” Paterson refused to make the report public. He also reinforced the sensitive, secretive and potentially controversial nature of its contents by declining to place a copy in the Library within the Westminster Parliament, thereby preventing his fellow British MPs from examining or questioning its contents.
A clear firewall established between the PSNI and MI5? It is obvious from all of the foregoing that no “clear firewall” was ever established between these two forces. Instead, constitutional nationalist parties created a smokescreen of lies and misinformation to mislead their own party members and supporters into believing that they had achieved progress and ended an era of political policing which has existed for as long as the Six County state itself.
That a permanent and malign MI5 presence exists in the North is undeniable. The multi-million pound base that MI5 has built at Palace Barracks serves as an inescapable physical testament to that fact.
Many individuals and solicitors can also attest to MI5’s permanent presence within the PSNI’s main interrogation centre in Antrim. On a regular basis, and in the presence of their legal representatives, persons held in Antrim are repeatedly asked if they wish to avail of the opportunity to have “an intelligence interview” – a euphemism used by PSNI interrogators to describe questioning byMI5 and/or recruitment of the individual by MI5.
There are many within the political establishments in both jurisdictions on this island who have invested much time, energy and propaganda in creating the myth of a new, reformed Six Counties.
They have thrown their full support behind the PSNI, while turning a blind eye to that force’s continuing and increased collusion with MI5 and covert British military units such as the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR). The two main constitutional nationalist parties in the Six Counties, in particular, heralded the so-called devolution of policing and justice powers to the Stormont administration as the dawn of a new era.
It’s time they admitted the failure of that project.
Political policing remains just as much a reality today in the Six Counties as it was ten, twenty, thirty and forty years ago. No amount of Stormont spin can change that.