The Long Walk to Freedom by BrianClarkeNUJ
#Twitpic#art#Marian Price#torture#British Torture#Ireland#Occupied Ireland#Free Price#The Long Walk to Freedom
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Aung San Suu Kyi Supports Ireland's Interned Marian Price International Women's Day
Aung San Suu Kyi's name is from three relatives: "Aung San" from her father, "Suu" from her paternal grandmother and "Kyi" from her mother Khin Kyi. Her name is pronounced approximately as "Awn Sahn Sue Chee." Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Yangon the main city of Burma. Her father, Aung San leader of the Burmese army negotiated Burma's independence from the British Empire in 1947; he was assassinated by his rivals in the same year.Aung San Suu Kyi grew up with her mother, Khin Kyi, and two brothers, Aung San Lin and Aung San Oo, in Rangoon.
Aung San Suu Kyi was strongly influenced by both Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence and particularly by tenets of Buddhist enlightenment. Aung San Suu Kyi helped found the National League for Democracy in Myanmar commonly known as Burma and was politically interned on 20 July 1989. She was offered freedom by the military junta, if she left the country but she refused and as a result spent many years politically interned like Marian Price for her political principles.
Her basic political beliefs were well articulated in her most famous speech, "Freedom From Fear" speech, stating "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."She believes fear drives many world leaders to lose sight of their responsibilities. "Government leaders are amazing", she has said. "So often it seems they are the last to know what the people want."
Ireland's Marian Price currently interned in British Occupied Ireland has also spent many years interned British as a political prisoner. She has been tortured with solitary confinemnt and British sensory deprivation techniques for long periods of time. She was also force fed 400 times while on 200 days of Hunger-strike. In an interview with Suzanne Breen, Marian described being force-fed thus:
"Four male prison officers tie you into the chair so tightly with sheets you can't struggle," says Price. "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 move. They throw whatever they like into the food mixer – orange juice, soup, or cartons of cream if they want to beef up the calories. They take jugs of this gruel from the food mixer and pour it into a funnel attached to the tube. The force-feeding takes 15 minutes but it feels like forever. You're in control of nothing. You're terrified the food will go down the wrong way and you won't be able to let them know because you can't speak or move. You're frightened you'll choke to death."
In the same interview, other statements she made give a good insight into her political thinking. With her sister Dolours and Gerry Kelly now a Sinn Féin politician in a power-sharing British administration, she was ordered by Belfast IRA OC Gerry Adams, as part of an 11-strong IRA unit in March 1973, to plant bombs at the Old Bailey, New Scotland Yard, Whitehall and the British Forces Broadcasting Office.
They were all arrested trying to fly home and a 200-day hunger-strike along with force-feeding regime made her a household name. "I did what I believed in," she said, "Nothing Provisional IRA or Sinn Féin leaders do can denigrate that. But I'm very angry when I see so much has been sacrificed for so little. All these lives have were lost, IRA volunteers, civilians, policemen, British soldiers and for what? If this is what they’re settling for, we all could have joined the SDLP back then."
Marion Price came from a very republican family in Belfast, her father being Albert Price a veteran IRA man of the 1940s campaign to get the British out, spent may years in British prisons and was also like his daughter Marian, politically interned for many years without trial. Like Aung San Suu Kyi they were both strongly influenced and loyal to their father's politics. Marian believes IRA membership has too often been explained away as an emotional response to events such as Bloody Sunday. "I made an ideological choice to join. It wasn't a reaction to Bloody Sunday, internment or anything else."
Marian's childhood ambition was to be a nurse and she secured one of only five places on a course at the Royal Victoria Hospital. "One day, a wounded British soldier was brought into casualty. He was wearing a dirty vest. He looked frightened. I felt very sorry for him. That night, I told my comrades and one joked that I should have finished him off. I asked why on earth I'd do that. He was no longer a soldier, he'd been taken out of the battlefield. He was a patient now, I'd have no difficulty looking after him."
When asked about the morality of planting bombs in densely populated areas such as London, she said "The warnings given were twice as long as in Belfast. That was a conscious decision because we knew the English lacked experience of evacuation. We didn't want civilian casualties, from a moral or pragmatic viewpoint."
There were however casualties when two bombs at the Old Bailey and Whitehall exploded, injuring 200 people with flying glass. She said, "I've never had a sleepless night over anything I've done as an IRA volunteer. Bombs are weapons of war. Western states have used them far more brutally than we ever did. George Bush and Tony Blair send other people's sons out to die without ever venturing onto the battlefield themselves. They dropped far bigger bombs from B52s on women and children and they don't give any warnings at all." Marian as an atheist explained further; "When I look around the world, I think if there’s a God, he's a bad God."
Marian one of the first fully fledged female IRA members, further explained, "My mother, her sisters, and my granny had been in Cumann na mBan. My Aunt Bridie was badly injured lifting an IRA arms dump in the 30s. It exploded and she lost her hands and sight. She was 26. When we were growing up, it was never a case of 'poor Bridie'. We were just proud of her sacrifice. She came home from hospital to a wee house with an outside toilet, no social worker, no disability allowance, and no counselling. She just got on with it."
Of her time being force fed on hunger strike, she said "Sometimes when they arrived to force feed me, I would struggle; other times I didn't have the energy to fight. The low point was having no control over your weight. But not for one minute did I think of giving up. They were never, ever going to break me."
Once they put the tube into Price's lung, not her stomach. "I felt like I was drowning. I passed out. They carried me back to my cell. The doctors were standing over me when I came round. If had been food, not water in the tube, it would have killed me. The medical and prison staff told the authorities they wouldn't force feed me again."
A fortnight later the hunger-strike ended and a deal was reached. The sisters were moved to Armagh's women prison where Mariaon was freed after five years suffering from anorexia and tuberculosis. She left prison half the weight she was when went in. She was given a Royal pardon prior to what is generally called the peace process or the Bad Friday Agreement.
On release she said she was in no physical or mental state to rejoin the IRA and had no interest in a political Sinn Féin career; "I like politics but not politicians. To be a politician, you must be a liar and a hypocrite." Although she was initially positive about provisional Sinn Féin: "I remember watching TV as Sinn Féin swept down the stairs in Belfast City Hall with Tricolour ribbons and champagne after an election victory. "
"My father was disgusted. He pointed to Gerry Adams and said, 'I've been around longer than you, that boy will sell you out'. I told him to give Sinn Féin a chance. I was wrong."After 1994, she had "serious concerns" about the leadership's political direction, eventually, she spoke out at a 'republican family' meeting expressing her doubts. Later a senior IRA member visited her home,; "He told me what I was saying wasn't appreciated and he'd shot people for less."
"People began to make financial gain from the movement. Those who had never worked a day in their lives, now had better homes, cars, and holidays than their neighbours. It used to be what you could do for the movement, now it's what the movement can do for you. In the past, to be a republican brought financial hardship. But that was okay because to be a republican was to be something special. You knew you were right."
Marian Price says that the peace process secured "a measure of equality" for Catholics, however a British withdrawal is further away than ever. She said however her military days are over but she can't condemn others "for doing what I did myself". Bearing in mind her track record of a highly principled political position which includes a 200 day hunger-strike most serious political analysts accept her veracity on that while she also says 'armed struggle' is morally justified "while the British occupy part of this country". further elaborating "Sometimes it’s necessary to do something just to let it be known there are people out there who don't accept the status quo.
She still has no regrets: "Disappointments maybe. I’m disappointed in Gerry Kelly. I expected more of him but I'd never detract from the physical bravery he showed. Gerry Adams and I were once friends. We certainly aren't now. He may have difficulty admitting his IRA past but I'm very, very proud of mine."
The Father-Daughter relationship was explored most famously in Shakespeare’s King Lear
Ultimately, Lear did not in his lifetime receive what he struggled so long for but he overcame death all the same and so it may prove with Aung San and Albert Price. Martyrdom, is often the same as divinity. Lear ensured, in his final tortuous moments, while not dictating his daughters their parts, he knew what was necessary to make his last moments inspiring and he pushed hard for it. While many of those around him, included, “murderous traitors, all” but like any good Irish martyr, he died alone unsupported and wronged by overcoming death by being remembered ironically, as a victim.
Lear while once a man of stone, in his desperate attempts to overcome the defeat of death, he performed his own apotheosis by appropriating the feminine and maternal body, Lear wrote his own tragic ending, that has served like the phoenix in Ireland to be part of Life's cycle of a nation's rebirth. This International Women's day will be a particularly poignant one for those Irish women, familiar with the Price of Justice legacy in Ireland and Internationally by women such as Aung San Suu Kyi.
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Will You Remember Your Tortured TIME Sisters on Women's Day ? http://bit.ly/SISTERStortured
The World: Ulster's Price Sisters: Breaking the Long Fast Monday, June 17, 1974
So wrote TIME back in 1974 whne the sisters were on hunger strike 200 days and forcefed 400 times each !
Each day passes and we fade a little more. But no matter how the body may fade, our determination never will. We have geared ourselves for this and there is no other answer.
Dolours Price, May 27 letter to her mother
Sometimes we can achieve more by death than we could ever hope to living. We 've dedicated our lives to a cause and it's supremely more important than any one individual's life.
Marion Price, May 27 letter to her mother
Fate and politics have a way sometimes of cheating would-be martyrs. Belfast's Price sisters.
Today Marian is again being tortured by the British who have interned her without trial in solitary confinement for the last 9 months for her beliefs. Marian needs your help, to sign her petitions and to spread the censored word about her plight.
A long standing respected human rights campaigner and former prison chaplain Monsignor Raymond Murray has stated that the continuing detention of veteran republican Marian Price is internment without trial.
Ms Price was charged with encouraging support for the IRA at an Easter rally in Derry. The judge granted her bail based on the same intelligence reports that the Secretary of State had her ‘release licence’ revoked last May on an offence committed almost 40 years ago. Since then, she has been in solitary confinement prison up to last week.
Monsignor Raymond Murray said:
“This is a form of internment, I am just shocked that the Secretary of State wouldn’t be aware of how serious nationalist people look on internment.We thought it had all ended and here it is coming under a form of revocation, revoking a license.He would have to explain to us and explain the process of law as regards Marian Price.In any way has she broken the law? That would have to be provided but it is not provided by shoving her into prison on a pretence in an unjust way.”
In an article published on Wednesday 14 December 2011 at 03:11, Eamonn McCann explained it in the following manner:
"The continuing imprisonment of Marian Price in Maghaberry is a scandal and would be seen more widely in this light were it not for her politics.
Ms Price is in jail on the order of Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, who signed a document last May ordering the police to put her behind bars.
She had been arrested on May 11th and charged with encouraging support for an illegal organisation. This arose from an action at the 32 Country Sovereignty Movement’s Easter commemoration in Derry city cemetery: on a blustery day, she reached up to hold the script from which a masked representative of the Real IRA was reading the ‘Easter Message’.
Two days later Ms. Price appeared at Bishop Street, where she applied for and was granted bail. She was rearrested when she came out onto the steps of the courthouse.
Mr Patterson had signed a document the previous night purporting to revoke the licence on which she had been released almost 30 years earlier from a life sentence for the 1973 Provisional IRA bombing of the Old Bailey.
If the Derry court had remanded Ms Price in custody, the document would not have been produced. We might not know even now that it existed.
It is not clear whether the prosecution had been aware of the document as it argued against bail. What’s clear is that the bail application had been a farce. The role of the court had been rendered meaningless by Mr Patterson preparing the way in advance to have the decision set aside if it went against his wishes.
This was as blatant an abuse of process as can be imagined.
The offence is compounded by the fact that here is real room for doubt whether Mr Patterson had authority to order Ms Price back to jail in the first place.
Her lawyers insist she had been freed from the Old Bailey sentence on the basis of a Royal pardon and that the terms of the pardon supersede the powers of the Secretary of State.
The lawyers have asked three times for the pardon to be produced. Three times, the State has maintained that no copy can be discovered.
At one point, her solicitor was told that the pardon must either have been lost or somehow been shredded.
Thus, Ms Price has spent the last seven months in Maghaberry, not on the basis of conviction for a crime but because Owen Patterson believes that the State is better off with her out of the way. She is imprisoned without trial - in everyday language, interned.
She is the only woman in an all-male prison and thus, for practical purposes, in solitary confinement. She is 57 years-old and in very poor health and in constant pain. But these are not the main reasons she should be released.
She should be released because it is an affront to justice and to the rights of citizens that she has been denied her liberty, and even denied sight of the evidence which Owen Patterson says he has seen and which he claims entitles him to deny her her liberty.
Rights - or privileges
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the reason there hasn’t been more of a hullaballoo about this matter is that many of those who might have been expected to stand up for civil rights are repelled by Ms Price’s politics.
Which means in turn that the extent to which civil rights are defended in the political mainstream is to some extent at least determined by the political beliefs of whomever is being denied their rights.
This means that the rights we speak of are not rights at all, but privileges to be granted or withheld according to a politician’s judgment of where the State’s interests lie.
The only adequate response is for all who value civil liberties to tell Mr Patterson loudly and with one voice – Free Marian Price now. "
Pat Ramsey an SDLP MLA who has campaigned for Marian from the outset has said that he has been questioned as to why he was fighting for the release of Marian Price.
"This is a personal thing. It is a right cause," he said. "It is injustice. If Marian Price was my sister, my loved one I would be deeply distressed as to the condition of her health. In the last year she has developed chronic medical problems. If she was my sister and she was on the outside I would be taking her to her GP and her GP would be admitting her to hospital immediately. It is that urgent. If there is any decency left in the world she should be at home, or the next best thing, in hospital."
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has called on the Secretary of State to end the “debacle” over the detention of Marion Price, saying.
“Marian Price is entitled to due process and the revoking of her licence by the British Secretary of State and then claiming that the pardon granted to Ms Price cannot be found is completely unacceptable."
“That action by Owen Patterson amounted to detention without trial and runs contrary to natural justice. The justice system needs to be based on human rights protection; the revoking of Marian Price’s licence and the debacle created around the allegedly lost pardon is an attack on her human rights,”
.The national chairperson of the 32CSM Mr Francis Mackey today stated "The violation of Marian Price's human rights demonstrates how far the British government are prepared to go with their policy of internment in an attempt to break republican prisoners. This issue of injustice must be exposed for what it is. The plight of Marian Price stands above any political party or organisation and i urge all concerned about the case to come together in a spirit of unity to secure the release of Marian."
Mr Mackey highlighted the politicised nature of Marian's incarceration and stated "The facts are that Marian wasn’t out on licence for it to be revoked. She received a pardon which the British government now claim cannot be found. Only people power can now bring pressure to bear nationally and internationally on the British government. The move to Hydebank is merely transferring the problem. Marian will still be held in isolation and we hope that she receives the medical treatment she urgently requires."
The 32CSM will be escalating our campaign to highlight the case of Marian Price. With International Women’s day approaching on the 8th of March we urge all women’s groups to join us to highlight the case of a mother, wife and sister who is today interned in a British jail. Support Marian Price and work to secure her release.
Five days ago the Northern Ireland Office in the absence Of Owen Paterson having the balls to explain or make a statement himself said the secretary of state "entirely refutes" the allegation that republican Marian Price is being effectively interned without trial."The secretary of state entirely refutes the allegation that this is internment without trial."
The author is not surprised, its same pish the British have served for the last 40 years treating the Irish as fools and justifying to the world, with their BBC type world service propaganda that their perfidious, insidious, odious INTERNMENT without trial legacy of wartime Britain is appropriate after their much touted bad Friday pish process. The Secretary of State is either a fool a liar or both or perhaps a plain perfidious, insidious, odious, Albion, autocrat?
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" Owen Paterson, orders someone into prison because he reckons we'd all be better off with her out of the way. At least that's how it seems......
Owen Paterson, has sent the traditional republican Marian Price back to jail because, he says, she breached the terms of the licence on which she had been released in 1980 from a life sentence for the March 1973 Provisional IRA bombing of London.,,,,
Price's lawyers insist that she had been freed by Royal pardon, not on licence, and that Paterson doesn't have the authority to overrule a pardon. They have demanded production of the document, so that its terms can be established. Paterson says that the only copy has been lost or shredded.......
There are many people - by no means all of them sympathetic to Price's politics - who are quite prepared to disbelieve this.......
Others will find it impossible to believe that a Secretary of State could supply incorrect and misleading information in a fraught and sensitive case. But, oh yes, he could......
Speaking last week of Mr Justice Girvan's handling of the matter, Hain scoffed that "It wouldn't have happened anywhere else in the UK"......."
Right enough. If it had happened anywhere else, Hain would have been run out of public life.
But this is wild and wacky Northern Ireland, where normal rules don't apply, where due process is optional and, at the whim of a politician, where anything goes........
Swearing to "incorrect and misleading information," he added, "would appear to fall within the concept of perverting the course of justice".....
Eamonn McCann - Belfast Telegraph
- 101 days ago via site
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Marian Price Moved Out of Solitary Confinement to Hydebank
international | rights and freedoms | news report Saturday February 18, 2012 02:38 by BrianClarkeNUJ - AllVoices
Eamonn McCann Campaigns for Justice
Marian Price has been moved from Maghaberry to the women's prison at Hydebank outside Belfast. On Thursday night Fr Raymond Murray, a long time respected human rights campaigner, described her continuing detention as a form of internment.The prison service told the detested and disgraced BBC, that the decision to move Marian Price was taken on clinical advice from healthcare staff at the South Eastern Trust.
Irish Freedom Activist Marian Price
Marian Price has been moved from Maghaberry to the women's prison at Hydebank outside Belfast. On Thursday night, Fr Raymond Murray, a long time respected human rights campaigner, described her continuing detention as a form of internment.The prison service told the detested and disgraced BBC, that the decision to move Marian Price was taken on clinical advice from healthcare staff at the South Eastern Trust.
A meeting of supporters campaigning for her release held in Derry on Thursday night heard, former prison chaplain Monsignor Raymond Murray say the un-elected Englishman Paterson's decision had echoes of the past for Irish nationalists.
"This is a form of internment," said Monsignor Murray, who was prison chaplain in Armagh when Marian Price was incarcerated previously by the British there. Fr. Murray said, "I am just shocked that the secretary of state wouldn't be aware of how seriously nationalist people look on internment.
"We thought it had all ended and here it is coming under a form of revocation, revoking a license.
"He would have to explain to us and explain the process of law as regards Marian Price.
"In any way has she broken the law? That would have to be provided but it is not provided by shoving her into prison on a pretence in an unjust way."
Eamonn McCann, who has consistently campaigned for justice in British Occupied Ireland writing in the Irish Times, said:
"LAWYERS FOR Marian Price will next week launch judicial review proceedings in the High Court in Belfast asking for her release from prison on the grounds that Northern Ireland Secretary of State Owen Paterson had no authority to order her detention.
The veteran republican was detained in May 2011 when Paterson signed an order declaring that she had breached the terms of the licence on which she’d been released in 1980 from two life sentences and a 20-year term imposed for IRA bombings in London, including the bombing of the Old Bailey, in March 1973. Around 180 people were injured in the blasts, mainly by flying glass. One man died from a heart attack. Price’s elder sister, Dolours, and Gerry Kelly, now a minister in the Stormont Executive, were among the 10-strong IRA bomb team.
Lawyers for Price, who is 57, say that she was pardoned rather than released on licence and that Paterson exceeded his authority in sending her back to prison. Paterson’s barristers contest this, but have told a panel of parole commissioners that “extensive searches” have failed to locate a copy of the document on which she was released.
Price was the only female detainee in the high-security Maghaberry prison in Co Antrim from May 11th last year, when she was charged with encouraging support for an illegal organisation. In recent days, she has been moved to the female wing of Hydebank prison. The charge arose from an incident during the 32-County Sovereignty Movement’s Easter commemoration in Derry city cemetery when she held up the script from which a masked man read the Real IRA’s “Easter Message”. The 32-County Sovereignty Movement, of which Price is secretary, is widely regarded as the political wing of the Real IRA.
Opposing bail, a detective sergeant told the court in Derry that the Real IRA statement had “threatened assassination against anyone from the nationalist or republican community who may be perceived by the IRA to be a traitor.” He agreed that Price had maintained during questioning that she had not known the content of the statement in advance. Granting bail, District Judge Barney McElholm said that there was no evidence that Price had had prior knowledge of the “vile and objectionable” nature of the statement, nor any record of absconding.
Price was rearrested as she left the dock on the basis of the order signed by Paterson the previous evening. In Maghaberry two months later, Price was further charged with “providing property for the purposes of terrorism” – allegedly supplying a mobile phone subsequently used in connection with the Real IRA gun attack in which two soldiers were killed outside Massereene barracks in Antrim in March 2009.
Price had been questioned for two days about this allegation in November 2009 and released without charge. Her lawyers say that there had been no change in circumstances in the interim and that no new evidence had emerged. They suggest that the charge was brought so as to pre-empt their planned challenge to the validity of the detention order. An attempt to have the Massereene-related charge ruled out as an abuse of process was postponed until the question of the extent of the pardon has been settled.
In a ruling on January 30th, the parole commissioners recounted that “Mrs McGlinchey (then Marian Price) was convicted on two charges of causing explosions and one charge of conspiring to cause an explosion. She was given two life sentences and a concurrent 20-year sentence on November 15th, 1973. She was released on licence on April 30th, 1980. Sometime shortly after her release, Mrs McGlinchey received a Royal Prerogative of Mercy (RPM), commonly referred to as a Royal Pardon. The issue is a simple one. Did the RPM cover only the 20-year determinate sentence or did it also cover the two life sentences? This should be a simple matter to determine by looking at the RPM. The difficulty is that the Secretary of State has informed the panel that the RPM cannot be located.”
Price’s lawyers have told the commissioners that, “It is difficult to fathom how, even exercising a modicum of care, this document was destroyed without someone, before destruction, ensuring that the original (or at least another copy) was still in existence. There is certainly a foundation for suggesting that this document may (and we can put it no higher) have been deliberately ‘buried’ given the embarrassment it might cause.”
The panel found that Paterson’s view was correct, that while the balance of Price’s 20-year sentence was remitted, her release from the life sentences was conditional on future behaviour. They cite a letter dated April 30th, 1980 – the day Price was released – from the private secretary to the Secretary of State to the private secretary to the Queen: “Her (McGlinchey’s) release involves release from the life sentence which means that she will always remain liable to be recalled to prison if her behaviour justifies this step.”
The commissioners supported this view with a quote from an Irish Times news story on May 1st, 1980: “The official announcement explained that the release was ‘on licence’, meaning that Price could be recalled at any time.” The panel goes on to note, however, that the Royal Prerogative of Mercy was issued “sometime very shortly after her release . . . although the precise date is uncertain.”
In an affidavit, Price says that, “In the wake of my release my solicitor Patrick Marrinan visited me to inform me that I had subsequently been granted the Royal Prerogative of Mercy which pardoned me of all of the 1973 convictions including the life sentence . . . He stated that I was as free as he was under the law [and] not on licence.”
MEMBERS OF PRICE’S family say that the “pardon” was negotiated with then-Northern Secretary William Whitelaw by Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich. In finding for the Secretary of State, the panel pointed out that “There is no contemporary material exhibited to the affidavit to confirm or support [her] claims concerning the scope of the RPM.”
Price’s lawyers say that it is unreasonable to expect her to have retained a legal document from 30 years ago and that the fact that she didn’t should not be used against her.
The judicial review proceedings are aimed at overturning the January 30th ruling. Lawyers for Price will ask the High Court to endorse instead their view that “the onus is on the detaining authority to prove the legality of the detention . . . Mrs McGlinchey should be discharged as the authorities cannot establish that she is, in fact and in law, on licence.” Price’s association with “dissident” republicans has deprived her of support from many who might in other circumstances have rallied against her detention on a minister’s say-so and the perceived lack of due process.
Little has been heard from civil libertarians or from women’s groups. Demonstrations have been tiny. There has been scant media coverage.
The bitterness of republican splits is seen in the fact that Price last month refused to meet a Sinn Féin delegation visiting the prison.Only a handful of SDLP members of the Assembly have taken up her case. Pat Ramsey of the SDLP, who saw Price in Maghaberry a number of times, says: “She is effectively in isolation – the only woman in a high-security male prison. Her health is bad and getting worse.”
The Background
Marian Price first came to public attention in 1973 when, aged 19, she, her sister Dolours and eight others were charged with being part of an IRA unit which planted four bombs in London. Sentenced to life, she, Dolours, Hugh Feeney and Gerry Kelly – now a Stormont minister – spent more than 200 days on hunger strike seeking political status. She was force-fed 167 times.
From one of the best-known republican families in Belfast – her father Albert had been in the IRA in the 1940s – she was active in the mainly-student People’s Democracy before becoming one of the first women admitted as a full member into the IRA. Released in the 1980s, she remained politically uninvolved until the 1990s when she emerged as one of the most vocal republican critics of the Sinn Féin “peace strategy”.
Revoking her licence last year, Northern Secretary Owen Paterson said that the threat which she posed had “significantly increased”."
SDLP MLA Pat Ramsey has also consistently challenged Justice Minister at Stormont about the continued internment without trial of Marian Price, highlighting the gross injustice of her political internment by the Queen of England's Secretary of State in British Occupied Ireland.
Mr Ramsey had previously said, “I raised with the Justice Minister the current incarceration of Marian Price which I believe to be morally wrong given her state of health and the fact that she is being detained as a result of the Secretary of State's action in revoking her license, a totally unaccountable act. “I asked the Minister to commit to liaising with the Secretary of State on the issue, particularly that of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy which I recently raised with the NIO. “This case is of paramount importance to bring a new level of confidence in how we deal with justice related matters. I made it very clear to the Minister that Ms Price's health is critically important and that the stress caused to her and her family in relation to her care in Maghaberry need to be at the forefront of discussions between the DOJ and NIO. “I want to make it clear that Ms Price should be released and I conveyed this to the Minister and his officials this afternoon." . Marian has been held in solitary confinement at the all male Maghaberry Prison for eight months now, without any charge or trial and she should be released immediately.Activist Pauline Mellon says the public should be outraged that an Irish woman nearing 60 years of age is being held without any charge in total isolation and solitary confinement.
Provisional Sinn Fein also made a few calls for the release of Marian Price, culminating in Martin McGuinness belatedly saying, her internment was unacceptable, just before the announcement that she was to be moved to the women's prison in Hydebank last night..
Campaigners for Marian Price's release have welcomed her movement out of solitary confinement and have thanked all those who have campaigned for her release and all those who have signed petitions for her release. Expressing gratitude to all those compassionate human beings, who have stood beside Marian, the campaigns also reminds everyone, that Marian is still interned and her Freedom along with that of Martin Corey, Gerry McGeough and other interned Irish political prisoners of conscience still have to be realized. Hopefully Provisional Sinn Fein who are now part of the British Administration, will genuinely seek to ensure the British fulfill their commitments to the Bad Friday Agreement and release all Irish political prisoners immediately.
Related Link: http://twitpic.com/photos/BrianClarkeNUJ
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- 103 days ago via site
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The Guineapigs is the title of a book by John McGuffin, where Irish political prisoners on whom the British Army experimented with sensory deprivation torture since 1971. These 'techniques' are now outlawed, following Britain's conviction at the International Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg, but have been exported and sold Britain's allies using extraordinary rendition throughout the world and still used by Britain in Occupied Ireland. This book first issued in 1974, was published by Penguin in London. It sold out on its first print and was then abruptly taken off the market following serious pressure from the British Government.
In Ireland during the last forty years of the troubles there has been deliberate and careful use of modern torture techniques, not simply to get information but to perfect the system of Sensory Deprivation for use against civilians in the future. The practice still continues to this very day on Marian Price who is currently interned in solitary confinement for the last 9 months without trial, in an all male prison in British Occupied Ireland.
The author of the book John McGuffin was an ex-internee himself before his sudden death and spent two years researching the book, following his release from Crumlin Road jail where he had been held without charge or trial. In the last edition he named the torturers and those responsible for this sordid episode in British Imperial history.However, no member of the British Army or the Royal Ulster Constabulary has ever been convicted of torture or brutality to prisoners, although the Government has been forced to pay out millions in compensation to torture victims.
The re-issue of 'The Guineapigs' was dedicated to the blanket men of Long Kesh concentration camp and the women political prisoners in Armagh jail, one of whom was Marian Price who has been re-interned last year without trial. 'Na reabhloidi Abu.'
Over 200 people attend public meeting to discuss Marian Price case
Thu, 02/16/2012 - 23:20 -- Editor
There was standing room only tonight at the Tower Hotel as the public gathered to discuss the case of Marian Price.
Over 200 people came to hear human rights activists discuss the 58-year-old's continued imprisonment at Maghaberry prison.
Monsignor Raymond Murray, SDLP MLA Pat Ramsey, Eamonn McCann and Bloody Sunday campaigner Linda Nash all addressed the crowd seperately, each expressing their deep concern for Ms Price's health and well-being after over nine months in isolation.
Ms Price has been held in solitary confinement at Maghaberry Prison for over nine months without charge. She was arrested after holding a piece of paper for a masked man at an annual Easter Rising commemoration in Derry, a few days later Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson revoked her release from prison on license.
Linda Nash made an impassioned plea for Ms Price's release. She quoted research which showed that psychological damage can occur after 15 days in isolation, and that Ms Price had now been isolated for nine months. She said Ms Price has a medical condition which needs careful and frequent monitoring of medication which is impossible in prison.
"Internment is internment no matter how you dress it up," she said. "Enough is enough. Marian should not be in prison. Release her now."
Pat Ramsey was told the gathered crowd that he had been questioned as to why he was fighting for the release of Marian Price.
"This is a personal thing. It is a right cause," he said. "It is injustice. If Marian Price was my sister, my loved one I would be deeply distressed as to the condition of her health. In the last year she has developed chronic medical problems. If she was my sister and she was on the outside I would be taking her to her GP and her GP would be admitting her to hospital immediately. It is that urgent. If there is any decency left in the world she should be at home, or the next best thing, in hospital."
Mr Ramsey also highlighted other prison issues such as strip searching in Maghaberry and revealed that the Justice Minister David Ford was tonight visiting Portloise Prison in Dublin to review their search model, which eradicated the need for strip searching.
Monsignor Raymond Murray, the former Chaplain at Armagh Gaol, then addressed the audience telling them that through history Internment did nothing except allow the continuation of conflict and the rise of hopelessness.
"Will the British government ever learn?" he asked. "After the 1970s did we ever think that Internment would happen again in 2012? Marian's case must be widened to a global case. The British government are forever concerned about their image all over the world. Let us make it our job to tell the world of the ill treatment of a prisoner in their care.
"Marian Price is not a number. She is not some abstract person. She is a person with all the wonder of a human being. She is a wife, a mother, a sister. The sheer number of people who have come here tonight speaks volumes. We will not forget her. She must be released."
Monseignor Murray said that he had written to Secretary of State Owen Paterson on the issue but had yet to receive a reply.
Eamonn McCann said that Marian Price's continued imprisonment was a 'scandal'.
"I find it hard to believe that a government department would keep just one copy of the Royal Perogative of Mercy that pardoned Marian Price and would now secure her release. That is not how governments work. In my opinion Owen Paterson put Marian Price into Maghaberry on MI5 opinion, because they thought the place would be better off without her.
"There are some here who wouldn't agree with Marian's politics. This is not a political issue, it's a humanitarian one.
"The right to freedom is not just for nice people. It's either for everybody or it's for nobody."
The Cause of Peace in Ireland urgently needs your help ASAP! The Peace agreement has been flagrantly broken by the British, with the re-introduction of internment without trial in British Occupied Ireland. The details can be found at Facebook in Causes link below, where more than 3,000 Facebook voices have already called Free Price ! Join and take action right away, and stay informed on the latest news and updates. See you there!
Because of British Cover Up, Censorship and dis-information the CAUSE of Marian Price had to be divided into 6.
Please Join the CAUSES of Marian Price, Re-Share, Re Tweet to overcome censorship in British Occupied Ireland !
BBC DEMOCRACY LIVE MARIAN PRICE DEBATE IS SECTARIAN BIGOTRY | http://bit.ly/BIGOTSdebate
FREE PRICE in British Occupied Ireland - http://bit.ly/CensoredFreePrice
BRITISH MEDIA CENSORSHIP OF IRELAND & MARIAN PRICE - http://www.causes.com/PriceOfPeace
FREE INTERNED INNOCENT IRISH ANGEL IN BRITISH OCCUPIED IRELAND | http://bit.ly/CENSORINGmarianPRICE
BRITISH CENSORED CAUSE TO STOP TORTURE OF MARIAN PRICE 1,549 MEMBERS RISES AGAIN - http://bit.ly/CENSOREDcause
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- 103 days ago via site
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The European Court of Human Rights has in certain instances, prevented the extradition from Britain on the presumption, that detainees would be housed in solitary confinement thus constituting torture and inhumane detention. The United Nations Human Rights Committee says, that prolonged solitary confinement is without doubt torture.
The concept of sensory deprivation, is that when you isolate political prisoners like Marian Price, restrict her lateral vision and limit her contact with the outside world, her senses are exasperated, creating the conditions of a paradoxical realm, where limited sensorial experience is magnified.
In 1965 an experiment by psychiatrists, confined 65 people in isolated conditions, goggles over their eyes, plugs in their ears and confinement in a chair. After just 48 hours, 5 of 65 had acute anxiety disorder. One hysterical, another epileptic, with all prisoners diagnosed with extreme anxiety. Today’s British conditions of solitary confinement, produce disorders over time, which is observed by psychiatrists, documented for future torture, which includes sustained symptoms like insomnia, hallucination, claustrophobia, persisting in Marian's case with many more extremely painful physical conditions, from previous force feeding over 200 days and other torture by the British previously.
One derivative of the use of solitary confinement by the British, as a means of punishing Irish political prisoners, is the objective to torture and enforce silence, while pressuring Irish prisoners of conscience and force them to accept agreements that prevent any future campaigns for Irish freedom. The use of solitary confinement by the British, remains mostly undocumented or censored in the public realm but the maintained use of such repressive practices, poses potentially severe ramifications for the future of dissent, not just in Ireland but serves as an experiment for future use in an increasingly polarized British society.
The civil rights era, which included British Occupied Ireland, involved prison protests like the Attica riots of 1971, paving the way for productive reform in the U.S. but not in the UK, where despite decades of prison protest by Irish political prisoners and the death of 10 hunger strikers, conditions have actually deteriorated.
Today talk of human rights in Britain, especially within the context of European Standards, tends to cover a manipulative compromise with the power elite, which now includes Provisional Sinn Fein, who in highly paid, supposed power sharing, in fact help administer British torture, while diverting attention away from structural cause of injustice, particularly in the instance of Occupied Ireland.
The contradictions of Britain's brutality with regard to European Human rights, becomes clearly apparent with regard to civil liberties, in its confrontation in Ireland, for anyone who can break through the various veils of technological censorship, to witness the citizens of Ireland and Europe, termed British commoners as in the case of Marian Price being tortured.
Marian has been reduced to an object of propaganda by Britain's disgraced right-wing media, who along with a malignant civil service and corrupt judiciary, permits the shredding of critical legal documents, vital for a fair trial, without juries, in a state of political bigotry, doctored photographs and secret intelligence spin doctor opinion makers, in a constant barrage about British state enemies, in order to maintain public support for British Occupation and psychological warfare operations on the general population in Ireland, its long-standing laboratory for political future repression in Britain in general.
During World War II, German physicians conducted painful and deadly experiments in concentration camps on prisoners without consent, who were interned without trial, just like Marian Price and other Irish political prisoners are today. The most infamous being the experiments of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. Scientists tested a number of methods to develop efficient and inexpensive procedure for mass political control of the general population by Nazi leaders just like the British today.
Martin Niemoller who survived to tell of his experience in a Nazi concentration camp, said, “When the Nazis came to the Communists, I was silent. After all I was no Communist. When they took the Jews, I was silent. I am no Jew. When they arrested the Social Democrats, I was silent. I was no Social Democrat. When they came to take me, there was no one left to protest."
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Marian Price along with hundreds of British prisoners, remains in solitary confinement, deep within the Belly of the British Beast, yearning to be free of British torture, that ignores European Human rights to Irish political and other political prisoners in Britain. Today it is Marian Price, tomorrow it may be you or your children, unless you organize and stand up be counted. Marian Price was previously used as a guinea pig in 200 days of force feeding by the British many years ago, as result, she is in daily physical agony. Your silence under such circumstances is consent to torture and future slavery.
The Cause of Peace in Ireland urgently needs your help ASAP! The Peace agreement has been flagrantly broken by the British, with the re-introduction of internment without trial in British Occupied Ireland. The details can be found at Facebook in Causes link below, where more than 3,000 Facebook voices have already called Free Price ! Join and take action right away, and stay informed on the latest news and updates. See you there!
Because of British Cover Up, Censorship and dis-information the CAUSE of Marian Price had to be divided into 6.
Please Join the CAUSES of Marian Price, Re-Share, Re Tweet to overcome censorship in British Occupied Ireland !
BBC DEMOCRACY LIVE MARIAN PRICE DEBATE IS SECTARIAN BIGOTRY | http://bit.ly/BIGOTSdebate
FREE PRICE in British Occupied Ireland - http://bit.ly/CensoredFreePrice
BRITISH MEDIA CENSORSHIP OF IRELAND & MARIAN PRICE - http://www.causes.com/PriceOfPeace
FREE INTERNED INNOCENT IRISH ANGEL IN BRITISH OCCUPIED IRELAND | http://bit.ly/CENSORINGmarianPRICE
BRITISH CENSORED CAUSE TO STOP TORTURE OF MARIAN PRICE 1,549 MEMBERS RISES AGAIN - http://bit.ly/CENSOREDcause
STOP THE xxxx OF MARIAN PRICE | http://bit.ly/CENSOREDMarianPrice
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- 104 days ago via site
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THE PRICE OF PEACE IS THE PRICE OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND ! FREE PRICE !
The Cause of Peace in Ireland urgently needs your help ASAP! The Peace agreement has be flagrantly broken by the British with the re-introduction of internment without trial in British Occupied Ireland. The details can be found at Facebook in Cause link below where more than 3,000 Facebook voices have already called Free Price ! Join and take action right away, and stay informed on the latest news and updates. See you there!
Because of British Cover Up, Censorship and dis-information the CAUSE of Marian Price had to be divided into 6.
Please Join the CAUSES of Marian Price, Re-Share, Re Tweet to overcome censorship in British Occupied Ireland !
BBC DEMOCRACY LIVE MARIAN PRICE DEBATE IS SECTARIAN BIGOTRY | http://bit.ly/BIGOTSdebate
FREE PRICE in British Occupied Ireland - http://bit.ly/CensoredFreePrice
BRITISH MEDIA CENSORSHIP OF IRELAND & MARIAN PRICE - http://www.causes.com/PriceOfPeace
FREE INTERNED INNOCENT IRISH ANGEL IN BRITISH OCCUPIED IRELAND | http://bit.ly/CENSORINGmarianPRICE
BRITISH CENSORED CAUSE TO STOP TORTURE OF MARIAN PRICE 1,549 MEMBERS RISES AGAIN - http://bit.ly/CENSOREDcause
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- 105 days ago via site
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Detention without Trial in Wartime Britain
7 July 2008
Paepcke Theatre, The Aspen Institute, Colorado
Professor AWB Simpson, University of Michigan
This lecture gives an account of the response of the courts to detention without trial during World War II, in which they largely abandoned any role in protecting civil liberty.
The European Human Rights Act of 1998 has radically altered this position, though the inherent problems involved when regular courts monitor the activities of security services in times of crisis persist today.
Download the podcast
(57 minutes)
To download a podcast of the audio recording, right click on the link and select 'Save Target As...'
http://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/socleg/fljs/fljs_simpson.mp3?CAMEFROM=itunesu
- 110 days ago via site
1,295
Big 40 Year Commemoration of Bloody Sunday Families Call for Release of Marian Price
Because of British Cover Up, Censorship and dis-information the CAUSE of Marian Price had to be divided into 6.
Please Join the CAUSES of Marian Price, Re-Share, Re Tweet to overcome censorship in British Occupied Ireland !
BBC DEMOCRACY LIVE MARIAN PRICE DEBATE IS SECTARIAN BIGOTRY | http://bit.ly/BIGOTSdebate
FREE PRICE in British Occupied Ireland - http://bit.ly/CensoredFreePrice
FREE INTERNED INNOCENT IRISH ANGEL IN BRITISH OCCUPIED IRELAND http://bit.ly/CENSORINGmarianPRICE
FREE INTERNED INNOCENT IRISH ANGEL IN BRITISH OCCUPIED IRELAND | http://bit.ly/CENSORINGmarianPRICE
BRITISH CENSORED CAUSE TO STOP TORTURE OF MARIAN PRICE 1,549 MEMBERS RISES AGAIN - http://bit.ly/CENSOREDcause
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- 111 days ago via site
1,195
Viva La Quinta Brigada - Christy Moore, Video With Liam Mellows
A graveside oration given by Sean Doyle at a commemoration for Liam Mellows on Saturday 10th December 2011 at Castletown Cemetery County Wexford. Sean Doyle belongs to the Wicklow branch Independent Workers Union and Clann Eirigi.
" We have assembled here today to commemorate the life of Liam Mellows. Through the generations revolutionaries have come to the fore to take up the mantle to guide, inspire and lead us in our quest for liberation.
Liam Mellows contribution and sacrifices places him amongst our Socialist Republican visionaries. He was born in Manchester to William Joseph Mellows on the 25th of May 1895 who was a British army non commissioned officer, and Sarah Jordan of Inch, County Wexford where he grew up. His family moved to Fairview in Dublin in February 1895 when his father was transferred. However Liam remained in Wexford with his grandfather due to ill health. He was educated in Cork and Portobello garrison school in Dublin but ultimately refused a military career much to his father’s dismay choosing to work as a clerk in several Dublin firms.
Nationalist-inclined Mellows approached Thomas Clarke who recruited him to Fianna Eireann, an organisation of young Republicans. Mellows was introduced to James Connolly at Countess Markeviczs residence recuperating after his hunger strike. Connolly was deeply impressed and told his daughter Nora “I have found a real man”. He was possibly about 19 years old and Connolly was 47 but they were equally committed on views to achieve an Irish Republic. Mellows was active in the I.R.B. and a founder member of the Irish Volunteers being brought into its organising committee to strengthen the Fianna representation. He was arrested and jailed on several occasions under The Defence Of The Realm Act.
We do not seek to make this country, a materially great country at the expense of its honour in any way whatsoever. We would rather, have this country poor and indignant; we would rather have the people of Ireland eking out a poor existence on the soil; so long as they possessed their souls, their minds, and their honour. This fight has been for something more than the fleshpots of Empire – Liam Mellows (1895-1922).
On Friday morning, April 28th 1916, the wounded James Connolly reviewed as Commandant General of the Irish Republican forces the situation on the fifth day of the insurrection. In the course of the despatch he said that Captain Mellows “fresh after his escape from an English prison, is in the field with his men”. The young Liam Mellows commanded the Republican forces in Galway, the only county outside of Dublin to respond to the Rising. Mellows’ presence had much to do with that. He was a member of the I.R.B., organiser in Galway for the Irish Volunteers, and very determined.
Galway city was loyal, the County Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary reported to Dublin Castle; it was not in sympathy with Sinn Fein or the Volunteers and “recruited very largely, for the (British) army.” Matters were different in Athenry, an old Land League stronghold. “There is always trouble there” County Inspector E.M. Clayton told the Royal Commission on the Rebellion. “They became so expert with and accustomed to firearms that the teaching “to rise with arms” did not shock them. They glided quietly into the new condition of affairs.
The energetic Mellows was arrested in March, 1916 and deported to England on April 2nd. This blow to the Rising in the West was remedied during Holy Week when his brother Barney and James Connolly’s daughter Nora crossed to Staffordshire. Barney changed places with Liam who then proceeded to Dublin – via Glasgow and Belfast – disguised as a priest. He stayed at St. Enda’s school in Rathfarnham where he received his orders from Pearse and Connolly, and travelled to the West on Good Friday. The confusion over the conflicting mobilisation instructions affected Galway like every other area and wasn’t straightened out till Monday evening when Pearse sent a message saying, ”Dublin has acted 12 noon today.”
Mellows’s men were depending on the arms. They hadn’t enough weapons and ammunition to seize an R.I.C. barracks. Nevertheless they cut rail and telegraph lines, blocked roads, attacked Clarinbridge and Athenry police barracks and occupied the village of Oranmore until troops arrived from Galway; Mellows with a small party covered the withdrawal. Athenry was reinforced by 200 extra constabulary; the Volunteers routed a patrol that tried to push out from the town. A thousand Marines landed in Galway city and naval sloops conducted firing exercises from the bay to intimidate the people.
On Wednesday the Volunteers took over Moyode Castle near Ballinasloe. It was a poor defensive position and on Friday they pulled out amid reports that Crown forces were preparing an attack. The Volunteers marched to the Clare border with the intention of linking up with whatever other Republican forces might be still in the field. But on Saturday morning a priest arrived at the new encampment with the news that Dublin was in flames. He advised the Volunteers to disband. Mellows argued against this: he wanted them to fight on as a guerrilla force: but was outvoted and the Volunteers went home.
Subsequently they were rounded up and transported to England and some who did not join the Rising shared their fate. “We had hardly any guns or ammunition”, Mellows said of the short campaign “I had to send many of them home. I never knew the blackness of despair until then”.
With two companions Mellows went on the run in County Clare. No one was in arms there, they quickly discovered; but they were given food and shelter and managed to avoid arrest. Mellows’s name cropped up during the enquiry into the Rebellion. County Inspector P.C. Power of Kilkenny said his area was quiet until Mac Diarmada and Mellows - he called them “John Mc Dermott and William Mellows” held meetings there sometime before the Rising. “What has happened to Mellows?” Justice Shearman asked. “Mellows is on the run, too with a good many more”, replied County Inspector Clayton. “ He is somewhere in Ireland” said Major Ivor Price, Director Of Military Intelligence for Irish Command, who before the war headed the Crimes Special Branch of the R.I.C. “ I hope we shall see him some day” . At Christmas, 1916, Mellows escaped to America aboard a British munitions ship sailing from Liverpool.
Liam Mellows was one of the young organisers who built Na Fianna Eireann, the movement founded in 1909 by Constance Markievicz and Bulmer Hobson “to train the boys of Ireland to fight Ireland’s battle when they are men”, as a 1914 manifesto declared. He rode around the country on a bicycle, organising the Fianna and - after November, 1913 - training the Volunteers. Without the Fianna there would have been no Volunteers, Pearse said; and without the Volunteers there would have been no 1916. Fianna boys dragged a trek cart from Dublin to Howth on Sunday morning, July 26th, 1914, to meet the Asgard.
The return journey was harder for the cart was loaded with rifles and ammunition boxes. At Clontarf a line of soldiers with fixed bayonets barred their path. The boys ran down a side road with their trek cart which later they took to Madame’s house, not the safest place in the circumstances. Next day Liam Mellows shifted the cargo to safety with the aid of Nora Connolly and some Fianna girls, who sat on the weapons as they were removed by cab, and a couple of Volunteers. In New York, Mellows went to work in the office of the Gaelic American and as an organiser for the Friends Of Irish Freedom. The Friends Of Irish Freedom was a Clan front Organisation founded in the Spring of 1916 at the Irish Race Convention. Four months after Mellows arrived in America, the United States declared war on the Central Powers. The Gaelic American was banned from the mails, a severe blow to a publication depending on subscriptions for sales. As a political exile from Ireland Mellows was under constant surveillance. When he spoke at meetings of The Irish Progressive League - the only Irish American group to stand out boldly for Ireland during this period – Secret Service men would sit in the audience. He once opened a meeting at the Irish Carmelite hall on East 29th Street, New York, with these words:
What will you say when your grandchildren ask you what you did in this great war to free small peoples? Will you tell them you were engaged in New York City holding down the unarmed Irish, and with revolvers trying to silence their claim to be free?
Mellows’s constant aim was to return to Ireland. When Dr. Patrick Mc Cartan arrived in the Summer of 1917 for the I.R.B. as “envoy of the Irish Republic” he nearly succeeded. Mc Cartan carried a message for President Wilson signed by 26 prominent officers of the Irish Volunteers, including Eamon De Valera and Eoin Mc Neill. The message began.
We the undersigned who have been held in English prisons and who have been dragged from dungeon to dungeon in heavy chains, cut off since Easter Week, 1916, from all intercourse with the outside world, have just had an opportunity of seeing the printed text of the message of United States Of America to the Provisional Government Of Russia: we see that the President accepts the aims of both countries “the carrying of the present struggle for freedom of all people to a successful conclusion.
When Wilson refused to see him, Mc Cartan decided to go to Russia. But it was wartime and he could not travel openly. Joseph Mc Garrity got seaman’s papers for Mc Cartan and Mellows, who hoped to reach Ireland from neutral Holland. Mc Cartan shipped out first. He was seized at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Mellows was arrested in New York and lodged in the Tombs prison. Both were interrogated at great length by the Secret Service. An alleged Mellows “confession” was leaked to the press. The following account is from the Philadelphia Evening Ledger of October 27th, 1917:
According to government officials who grilled Mellows several hours following his arrest, he admitted that he frequently met Colohan, Jeremiah O’ Leary and Devoy and that he talked of matters prejudicial to the best interests of this country and her allies. These meetings, according to Mellows, were held at the Murray Hill Hotel and the Maennercher Hall on the East Side of New York. “General” Mellows was charged with conspiring to bring about a rebellion in Ireland and pleaded guilty to the charge when arraigned before Commissioner Hitchbrook. He was held in 7,500 dollars bail and so far had been unable to procure a bondsman. When Mellows was taken to the headquarters of the Secret Service in the custom house he was put through a thorough questioning by William J. Flynn, chief of the Secret Service. His every move in this country was enquired into, and naturally Mr Flynn wanted to know who his associates were and the matters discussed when they met in conclave. According to a transcript of this testimony which came to light, Mellows attended several meetings at the Murray Hill Hotel last winter when Justice Colohan, Devoy and O’Leary were present.
Colohan, a New York politician, was the most important member of the Clan after Devoy. He was a bitter foe of President Wilson, and although a Democrat had publicly opposed the leader of his party in the 1916 elections. He believed the administration was seeking to destroy him because of it. Jeremiah O’Leary, American born like Colohan, published the satirical weekly “Bull” which Washington considered pro-German. Devoy said the Secret Service manufactured the Mellows “confession” to implicate himself and Colohan in a non-existent plot. He insisted that Mellows had not been abandoned by the Clan. He had been left in the Tombs for a reason. “They wanted him released on bail so as to use him as a bait to entrap others” he wrote in the Gaelic American” in the desperate hope that they could frame up a conspiracy case”.
Mellows may not have appreciated such reasoning. Most observers believed that the man who was making the decisions for the Clan was not the aged Devoy but Colohan. Others came to Mellows’s aid and he was freed from prison; the case was not disposed of until May, 1919, when Mellows and Mc Cartan were fined 250 dollars each for using false seaman’s papers.
The Tombs incident left a bad taste. The breach between Mellows and Devoy widened. Colohan and Devoy had tried to coerce Mellows into taking out “first citizenship” papers to “save myself”, he told Mrs Hearn of Westfield, Massachusetts in 1920. In the same letter he charged that when Ireland was “facing disaster and death” in 1918, Colohan and Devoy had done nothing. He had only contempt for “the structure that battens on the work and sacrifices of the people at home”, Mellows wrote. And he asked: “How dare the old man talk of the young men at home in view of the treatment meted out to the young men who came over since 1916, and were not a bit different from those left behind?”
The 1918 charge had to do with the second Irish Race Convention held in New York in May of that year. Colohan went to great lengths to assert the “Americanism” of the gathering and his speech was spattered with declarations of loyalty. Mc Garrity barred federal agents from the hall. Mellows delivered a powerful plea for Ireland in the course of which he denounced the “German plot” round up of Irish Republican leaders. He said:
There are times ahead for Ireland which are going to try the people of Ireland as they have never been tried before, and are we going to sit here and keep our mouths shut? We all feel these things too deeply now any longer to conceal the truth. A wrong is going to be perpetrated on Ireland the like of which even the British government never conceived before. They have stated that they discovered a German plot, in order that they might thus alienate the sympathy of the people of America from Ireland. They could then turn around and do as they liked in Ireland, while the world looked on and laughed. This wrong that is going to be done in Ireland is a terrible thing. Conscription at the hands of the British government is a crime, not alone against the Irish people, but against the whole civilised world. And I say that America, by its silence on the question of Ireland’s independence, has been and is still, until it speaks out acquiescing in England’s domination. If there is bloodshed in Ireland, if our men and boys and women and girls are slaughtered, the fight will not alone be that of the men, but the women will take part in it also. This time the fight will be for the preservation of the very life of the Irish nation. If there be bloodshed in Ireland, the blame will not rest alone on the British government; it will rest on America, unless America speaks out on behalf of Ireland.
The draft board of New York city sent Mellows a questionnaire which he returned unanswered on January 10th 1918 giving these reasons: “First, because I am an Irishman and have devoted all my humble efforts since I came to the use of reason to help free my country from the tyrannous domination of England”. He said he would have no connection under any circumstances with the armed forces of the American government which by its silence on Ireland acquiesced in England’s occupation. He added:
I am a citizen of the Irish Republic proclaimed at Easter 1916 which has the allegiance of the overwhelming majority of the people of Ireland, but which this country has not yet recognised. I owe allegiance to one country only – Ireland – and the cause of Irish freedom, which is the cause of God.
Coholan and Devoy barred Mellows from addressing further public meetings. When Mellows threatened to resign from the Gaelic American the quarrel was patched up. But the differences continued. He told Nora Connolly in a letter dated September 14th 1919 that a campaign of the most vile and vicious slander started which has lasted to the present time. His efforts to halt the conscription of young Irishmen were opposed by Colohan. “I was ostracised everywhere everywhere from almost everything”, said Mellows.
Liam Mellows was elected for two constituencies in the December 1918 general election: North Meath and East Galway. When the First Dail met they entered his name on the roll in Irish Liam O’ Maoiliosa and wrote ar dibirt ag Gallaibh after it. Meanwhile the deputy for North Meath and East Galway was without a job in America. He left the Gaelic American at Christmas 1918 hoping to go to California but the court case prevented that. He went to work on the docks as a casual labourer before getting a teaching job at the school run by the Irish Carmelites in Manhattan.
The Clan sponsored a meeting in New York on January 5th 1919 to congratulate the Irish people on the great election victory of Sinn Fein in December. Colohan using the Wilsonian catch cry stressed Ireland’s right to self determination. He said nothing about an Irish Republic. Mellows on the other hand declared that the Irish people have “exercised so far as lay in their power the right to self determination and they have determined that Ireland shall and must be free and independent”. Next night the Irish Progressive League meeting in the same location (the Central Opera House) expressed the determination of the Irish in America to uphold the new Irish Republic and to insist that it be permitted to work out its own destiny without British interference. Mellows was one of the speakers. Another speaker was Norman Thomas future leader of the American Socialist Party. Colohan was annoyed by the rejection of his leadership and the self determination formula and a split along ideological lines was evident.
Then on January 21st Dail Eireann held its founding meeting. The Republic proclaimed in 1916 was ratified and the radical Democratic programme – which was to influence Mellows a great deal – adopted. Cathal Brugha as Priomh Aire (Prime Minister) in a message to America urged the Irish there to work for international recognition of the Irish Republic. The third Irish Race Convention opened in Philadelphia on February 22nd and Colohan trotted out his self determination resolution once more despite the efforts of Mc Garrity, Mc Cartan and Mellows to substitute demands for recognition of the Irish Republic.
Mellows was not exactly a welcome guest. Indeed he only learned of the convention through the newspapers. Among the honoured guests was the conservative Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, and Colohan did not want any radical speeches while his eminence was listening. So he asked Mellows to speak on the first day when the Cardinal was absent; Mellows refused. Because Mc Cartan would not speak for the self-determination resolution he too was renounced as a dangerous character by Colohan. ‘As for me I’m beyond redemption’ Mellows told Nora Connolly in the letter already quoted. ‘Am looked on as wild, hot headed, undisciplined-liable to get movement into trouble - dubbed a socialist and anarchist.’
During the big flu epidemic of 1919 Mellows fell ill and almost died, he told Nora Connolly. What worried him most was that he had only three dollars - then worth 12 shillings - which was hardly enough to bury him. He told the writer John Brennan and one of the Gifford sisters of Dublin then living in New York, that the doctor who attended him said something about his illness being brought on by hunger and privation. He started to work too soon, collapsed at the famous meeting in New York when President Wilson on the eve of his departure for the Peace Conference at Versailles refused to meet a delegation of Irish-Americans unless Colohan withdrew, and suffered a relapse. Joe Mc Garrity took him to Philadelphia and afterwards to Atlantic City where the sea air did wonders for his health.
Harry Boland arrived in America in May 1919 as the representative of the I.R.B. and President De Valera followed a couple of weeks later. His law case settled Mellows planned to return to Ireland. But Boland got sick and he had to take his place of De Valera’s schedule. During the 18 months mission to America Mellows was De Valera’s advance courier to the many cities visited on the continental tour. Mellows sided with De Valera in the split with Devoy and Colohan and on March 9th 1920 wrote to Mrs Hearn:
How often I lay awake at night unable to sleep because of the indignation I feel burning into my very soul. And yet the thought comes how futile when the real enemy requires all our hatred. And I pity Colohan.
On September 1st 1920 as Terence Mc Swiney was fasting in Brixton Prison, Mellows wrote to Mrs Hearn’s son John:
Oh dear! How small we all appear in the face of this terrible tragedy. How little indeed are the ambitions that have brought the movement into such a pass here compared with the great principles for which Mc Swiney is giving up all.
Are we genetically impaired after generations of British oppression with native collaboration incapable of recognising the twin evils that has been catalogued throughout our history of sell outs, and betrayal for elite economic gain?
Our struggle has always been national and social revolution which should be affirmed as often as necessary until there is no ambiguity and we consolidate our forces to achieve our goal.
Liam Mellows’s mentor James Connolly said:
We mean to be free and in every enemy of tyranny we recognise a brother wherever be his birthplace. In every enemy of freedom we also recognise our enemy though he were as Irish as our hills.
What is our problem with recognising that some Irish find that their class interests are more important than their national difference and thus become enemies of our freedom? I have no doubt if the British had not executed James Connolly in 1916 The Treaties Free Staters would have in 1922. Because his grasp and understanding of the struggle and our past history would leave no hiding place for their treachery and hypocrisy we had well documented.
TONE:
He was crucified in life, now he is idolised in death, and the men who push forward most arrogantly to burn incense at the altar of his fame are drawn from the very class who were he alive today would hasten to repudiate him as a dangerous malcontent. False as they are to every one of the great principles to which our hero consecrated his life, they cannot hope to deceive the popular instinct, and their presence at the ’98 commemorations will only bring into greater relief the depth to which they have sunk. Our Home Rule leaders will find that the glory of Wolfe Tone’s memory will serve, not to cover, but to accentuate the darkness of their shame. It will be thus seen that Tone built up his hopes upon a successful prosecution of a class war, although those who pretend to imitate him today raise up their hands in holy horror at the mere mention of the phrase.
FAMINE
A Poor Relief Bill in 1847 made provision for the employment of labour on public works but stipulated that none should be employed who retained more than a quarter of an acre of land; this induced tens of thousands to surrender their farms for the sake of a bite to eat, and saved the landlords all the trouble and expense of eviction. When this had been accomplished to a sufficient extent 734,000 persons were discharged, and as they had given up their farms to get employment on the works they were now as helpless as men on a raft in mid ocean.
We must write our history correctly identifying 1847 as genocide. People in this society will preach to preserve the free market. In recent time the government received a report recommending a cap on land prices agricultural rate plus 25% which they ignored. God forbid that they would put people before their free market masters. The result; social crime of devastating proportion that has destroyed families’ peace and home serenity paramount to children’s development. The inflated cost of the most human requirement of every person a modest roof over our heads. That has been allowed to spiral out of control to feed the appetite of greed of bankers, speculators and developers by governments who ignored the report. They dare not to interfere with the free market that is the heart that drives capitalism and is what has destroyed our society for all our citizens. For example; in the greedy free market system a portion of land is offered for sale which attracts interest of speculators. Their bankers have long dispensed with the recommended regulation. The bidding is excessive. The banker who funds the speculator is paid a huge bonus. The speculator sells to a developer. The banker gets a bonus. The developer passes the excesses onto every house. Our children pay for it all. Their income is not sufficient so the lending institution changes their regulation and in some cases gives 100% mortgages. Some of our children still can’t afford to buy. They are presented with continue to rent or move to another county which some opted for which means getting up at 5.30am taking children out of cots and beds transporting them to minders, go to work and collect them in the evening, not arriving home till late to bed and repeat the same process day in day out. No life and no way to bring up children. All because of the unrestricted greed of a few with the support of governments.
From 2006 onwards they even issued cost of living indexes excluding houses. The single most draining part of our income because of the uncontrolled greed of the aforementioned and stamp duty that had the government awash with money to pay for junkets to far destinations all over the world. Extravagance beyond belief. When you realise every struggling mortgage holder is paying 100,000 plus which was the speculators’ reward for the misery inflicted with the aid of government. The most outrageous statement that beggars belief came from the banks. That they are going to stress test new mortgage applicants. After all the citizens are stretched to their limit bailing out the same banks, insurance companies, foreign banks, speculators, developers decreed by the government and the EU who through their greed added 100,000 plus to the cost of mortgages.
You Joe Citizen pay for your house plus the lavish lifestyles of the aforementioned and accepted a 50,000 debt around your children’s necks. Is it any wonder they want to stress test you? And the government for their part are introducing home tax starting at 100 euro and by 2014 rising to 1300 including water tax. The sale of the best of our semi state companies in an attempt to prop up this vicious self serving monetary monster that is sucking the life blood out of the citizens of Europe. And of course the Free State parliament exercising its loyalty by giving away our children’s inheritance - our natural resources. Vast quantities of gas and oil have been discovered under Irish waters in the Atlantic ocean over the last fifteen years.
The government figures puts the value of these resources at 420 billion but it is a very conservative estimate, the true figure with global prices of oil and gas rises. The wealth will be leaving Ireland thanks to a deal made between FF and multinational oil companies. Minister Ray Burke later jailed for corruption changed a law in 1987 reducing the states share in our offshore oil and gas from 50 % to 0 and abolished royalties in 1992. Minister Bertie Ahern reduced the tax rate for the profits made from the sale of these resources from 50 to 25%. The respected economists Colm Raffle said, the amount of tax will be very low and will not be paid for years into the operation. Because the deal allows the companies to write off 100% of costs even the cost of shutting down the operation before they declare the profits to be taxed.
In major oil and gas producing countries the state takes an average medium of 68% of the value of gas and oil. But not in Ireland the state is using tax payers money to force the people of Mayo to allow shell to bring the gas to shore and take it away free.
This is a declaration of war on the people of Ireland and must be confronted before our people are totally impoverished and are natural resources stripped bare.
In conclusion, I would like to send our support to the Shell to Sea campaign and wish them the best of luck in their endeavours."
- 112 days ago via site
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BBC SEXED UP - http://www.causes.com/bbcBIGOTRY
- 112 days ago via site
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BBC SEXED UP - http://bit.ly/xayKjy
- 114 days ago via site
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BBC PRESSTITUTES - http://bit.ly/BIGOTSdebate
- 114 days ago via site
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Bigoted Biased Corrupt BBC DEMOCRACY LIVE MARIAN PRICE DEBATE| http://bit.ly/BIGOTSdebate
- 116 days ago via site
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BLOODY SUNDAY 40 Years Political Internment Torture Censorship Occupied Ireland http://bit.ly/ThePRICEofJUSTICE
- 121 days ago via site
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THE PRICE OF JUSTICE - http://www.causes.com/FREEePRICE
- 125 days ago via site
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LAS MALVINAS ROCK ON ! THE PRICE OF JUSTICE - http://www.causes.com/FREEePRICE
- 126 days ago via site
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IRISH SISTER SOS @ http://www.causes.com/FREEePRICE
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FREE PRICE in British Occupied Ireland - http://www.causes.com/FREEePRICE
“I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one’s mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything.”
–Nelson Mandela, from his 1994 autobiography The Long Walk to Freedom… Read More
- 127 days ago via site
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WOMAN BEHIND THE WIRE SISTERS !
First they came for Irish republicans,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't Irish or a republican.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the women,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a woman.
Then they came for Marian Price,
and I didn't speak out because I didn't care.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me !
http://www.causes.com/FREEePRICE
- 128 days ago via site
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Gay liberation in Ireland attacked by the above Brit/PSF propaganda reactionary video, is a collaboration that contradicts the liberation heritage of Ireland.
"ANARCHIST SEX RADICALS, were interested in the ethical, social, and cultural place of homosexuality within society, because it lies at the nexus of individual freedom and state power." Oscar Wilde once said he was "something of an anarchist" after his trial and imprisonment, at a time when his plays were banned and his books removed from library shelves by fascists in Britain and Catholics like Adams in Ireland. Alexander Berkman's plays were also banned by the reactionary British. Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, a best-seller published by Goldman's Mother Earth publishing house in 1912 with a frontspiece excerpt from Wilde‘s "Ballad of Reading Gaol", was one of the most important political texts dealing with homosexuality to have been written by an Irishman before the 50s.
Link - http://www.causes.com/FREEePRICE
- 128 days ago via site
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Political Internment by Remand Injustice British Occupied Ireland - Go to : www.causes.com/FREEePRICE
- 129 days ago via site
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