A hidden scandal – MI5 in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland under the peace process is supposed to have put the bad old days of Police Collusion with Loyalist Murder Gangs, and state force misbehaviour, into the distant past. The recent De Silva Report on the murder of civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane contains a lot of material which is very critical of the British State but leaves many questions unanswered :
Ed Moloney concludes in this essay :
“So, a powerful indictment of…what? RUC incompetence or malevolence, or evidence of some hidden subterranean manipulation? We don’t know because as with so much of Sir Desmond de Silva’s report, there are more questions than answers, more what’s, where’s and when’s than why’s.”
Bringing the story up-to–date read Eamonn McCann’s Belfast Telegraph Article
Sham row over ‘FBI-style’ body hides scandal of MI5
Web Link :
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/sham-row-over-fbistyle-body-hides-scandal-of-mi5-16268218.html?r=RSSMore and More, peace process policing and justice in Northern Ireland is hidden from view – Kafka-like rules are becoming more common, where people are held in jail without even knowing the charges made against them – as highlighted in another article on this blog featuring Dáil questions from Clare Daly TD to Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Gilmore.
Why Was Billy Stobie Charged With Pat Finucane’s Murder?
I should first of all disclose an interest in this story. As they say in the country where I now live, I have a dog in the fight.
Billy Stobie was a valued source of mine and not only did I harbor the loyalty towards him that journalists should always show their sources – in our case to the extent that I fought and successfully defeated a Scotland Yard subpoena seeking the notes of our conversations which were sought to buttress his criminal prosecution – but I also liked him despite his all too evident flaws.
That he was a rogue and a scoundrel was undeniable. That image that was set in cement in the public mind when The Sunday Tribune published his photo above the story of his involvement in the Pat Finucane scandal just after his arrest in June…
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Legislate for X – No restrictions that make abortion inaccessible – Statement by Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD
Clare Daly TD, Joan Collins TD
Statement – 1st February 2013 – immediate release
Legislate for X
No restrictions that make abortion inaccessible
Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD today responded to the publication of the Submission to the public hearings of the Committee on Health and Children with regard to the Expert Group Report on abortion:
Clare Daly TD said:
“We welcome the publication of these Submissions. The Minister now has ample evidence from which to proceed. We call for the prompt publication of a draft bill to provide for abortion on grounds of risk to the life of a woman – either by suicide or other reason related to a pregnancy.
We call for the bill to include the statement by the Chief Justice in the X Case Ruling that a risk to the life of a woman arising from pregnancy – be that risk by suicide or otherwise – should not necessarily be ‘immediate or inevitable’ in order for doctors to perform an abortion to remove that risk.”
Joan Collins TD went on:
“We support arguments made in legal Submissions to the Committee that abortion on grounds of fatal foetal abnormality could and should be included in the bill. We also call for trust to be put in the women of Ireland and in their doctors – as was argued in many of the Submissions to the Committee – and for the forthcoming bill not to include restrictions such as to make abortion inaccessible in practise and thereby put women’s lives at risk.”
Clare and Joan both insist that Legislation for X is only the first step. They jointly declared:
“Many of the Submissions illustrate the need for abortion to be made available in Ireland on grounds of risk to health, rape and incest, and fatal foetal abnormality; and when a woman feels that she simply does not wish to proceed with a pregnancy – for whatever reason. We support access to abortion on all of these grounds and will be campaigning for the repeal of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution and the introduction of free, safe, legal abortion in Ireland.”
Web Link :
http://www.claredaly.ie/legislate-for-x/
Bernadette McAliskey’s Speech to the January 2013 Bloody Sunday March for Justice – We Have Got to Get Our Act Together or We Are In for One Hell of a Hiding
Bernadette McAliskey addressing the rally at this year’s Bloody Sunday March For Justice which had the theme ‘End Impunity’. Despite a wet, windy, wintry day around 3500 people braved the elements to march in solidarity with the victims of Bloody Sunday and other injustices
Link to a Video of Bernadette McAliskey’s Speech :
End Impunity! on Vimeo on Vimeo
Some Key Points from the speech :
Is the state of Northern Ireland governed according to the principles of openness, transparency and accountability?
Lawyers and human rights campaigners had to spend a whole day in court to force the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, Alliance Party Leader Mr David Ford, to allow Marian Price spend four hours grieving beside the coffin of her dead sister Dolours.
Nobody read about this because Mr Ford asked the judge to prevent public reporting of the case in the media.
But Bernadette McAliskey is not reporting; she does not work for the media; so she was only telling us :
The judge told Mr Ford that his behaviour was “unlawful, unreasonable, and irrational”.
“We are not supposed to say this” advises McAliskey. Read the rest of this entry »
Dolours Price buried in Belfast – “A Liberator But She Never Managed To Liberate Herself” The Irish Times – Tue, Jan 29, 2013
Dolours Price – “a liberator but she never managed to liberate herself”
Eamonn McCann’s tribute sums up this moving newspaper report – despite having major political differences, Eamonn McCann and Dolours Price remained close friends for forty years.
Bernadette McAliskey was applauded when she told shivering mourners:
“We cannot keep pretending that 40 years of cruel war, of loss, of sacrifice, of prison, of inhumanity, has not affected each and every one of us in heart and soul and spirit.
“We cannot keep pretending that the war did not hurt. It broke our hearts and it broke our bodies, it changed our perspectives and it makes every day hard.”
Carrie Twomey wrote this account of the wake and funeral for Dolours Price
Carrie Twomey : “Rest in Peace”
Clare Daly TD questioned Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore on the imprisonment without trial of Martin Corey and Marian Price in the Dáil recently.
Video Link Here :
Daly points out that Martin Corey has spent almost 3 years in jail without being shown any evidence justifying his incarceration – Gilmore hides behind the fact that the case is subject to an appeal in the Belfast Supreme Court next February. Read the rest of this entry »
Labour MEP Nessa Childers Calls for a General Election
Childers call for a general election should be endorsed by all left TD’s opposed on principle to coalition with the right.
LP MEP Nessa Childers tweeted last night in relation to the latest news that the ECB is ruling out this particular ploy by the Irish government. Hmmm… not looking good for the ambitions of the latter in relation to these matters.
Very depressing news re ECB. The people need to be consulted about the future at this point. That means a general election.
That’s a very good point about democratic legitimation.
Radio Free Eireann interview with Anthony McIntyre and Ed Moloney: The Death of Dolours Price | Boston College Subpoena News
http://bostoncollegesubpoena.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/radio-free-eireann-interview-with-anthony-mcintyre-and-ed-moloney-the-death-of-dolours-price/ Level headed tributes to Dolours Price as the British State bars her sister Marian from leaving prison to mourn.
The Death of a Case | Boston College Subpoena News
http://bostoncollegesubpoena.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/the-death-of-a-case/ Dolours Price sad death was caused by the many lies of the Irish Peace Process – Kevin Cullen offers powerful states a way out of a shameful legal case. Will they act?
Tomás Ó Flatharta 