Category: Anti-Fascism

FAKE PATRIOTS MISUSE IRISH HISTORY AND THE HOMELESS CRISIS

On By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Anti-Fascism, British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Housing, Human Rights, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In recent days we have seen the far-Right mobilise people to allegedly defend the GPO and protest homelessness, not against its causes but instead against migrants. In defence of ‘Irishness’ they also menaced an annual religious Muslim procession.

Participants in these and similar events wave the Irish Tricolour and Irish Republic flags and claim to be ‘Irish patriots’ standing up for ‘the Irish nation.’ However, it’s far from that they are in reality as we can see.

They

  • disgrace the Proclamation

The far-Right claim to honour our national history of resistance to colonialism and occupation and even display copies of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence.1

Yet they are often also seen and heard denouncing Muslims, in direct contravention of the Proclamation’s words: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty … to all”; similarly they held protests when use of Croke Park was hired to celebrants of the Eid festival.

  • disgrace the GPO as HQ of the 1916 Rising

They have and do disgrace the very symbolic building they claim to be trying to protect.

They have often held racist gatherings outside it; one of their organisers2 (e.g. of weekly protests during the Covid crisis) leading a chant of support for British fascist Tommy Robinson, who defended the Paratroopers who carried out the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry.

Their recent protest at the GPO featured as speaker a man known for his active membership of the sectarian UVF murder gang, who admitted working for British Intelligence and who called for the strengthening of the colonial British Border – and was cheered for saying so.

Cartoon by D.Breatnach
  • disgrace the flags

The far-Right disgrace and misuse the very flags they wave so keenly.

The Tricolour was presented to the revolutionary Young Irelander republicans3 by French revolutionary republican women in 1848. It signified peace and unity between the descendants of settlers and the indigenous Irish in revolutionary struggle against the British colonial occupation.

The flag with the words “Irish Republic” painted in white and gold on a green background was made on domestic material of socialist Republican Constance Markievicz (see next section) in her house and delivered by her to the GPO.

It was installed and flown on the roof at the Princes St. corner by Eamon Bulfin4 (see next section), a migrant from Argentina.

  • disown but also misappropriate real patriots

In dishonest manipulation, the far-Right claim to honour our patriots and even invoke them in their campaigns. In their agitation against migrants they hide the fact that Constance Markievicz, Thomas Clarke and James Connolly were all migrants (Connolly and Clarke no less than three times).5

Also a migrant was Eamon Bulfin (see previous section) along with many others who fought for Irish freedom and even sacrificed their lives (including Erskine Childers)6.

Placards on an anti-racist rally on Custom House Quay some years ago. The text placard quotes the 1916 Proclamation: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty to all”. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation (see earlier section), two – Pearse and McDonagh7 – were children of migrants and two were themselves migrants (Connolly and Clarke).

Among many such examples, the father of Young Irelander Republican patriot Thomas Davis (author of the song A Nation Once Again) was a migrant.

  • join with Loyalists and British fascists

A far-Right organiser calling for three cheers for British fascist Tommy Robinson was not the only such example and outside the GPO this week far-Right elements welcomed as speaker Mark Sinclair, a member of the UVF, a British colonial sectarian murder and terrorist squad.8

Prominent Irish leaders of fascist organisations have also shared a platform with Scottish fascist and Loyalist Jim Dowson.9 And of course how can we forget the desecration of the Tricolour unfurled among Union Jack and Loyalist flags in Belfast by some Dublin far-Right activists!10

Admitted UVF/ MI5 Sectarian Loyalist UVF murder gang member Mark Sinclair. (Photo sourced: Internet)
  • don’t act against British occupation

With all that background, it’s hardly surprising that the far-Right “patriots” don’t organise against the British occupation of the Six Counties or in support of Irish Republican political prisoners in jails on either side of the British Border.

  • burn buildings

Apart from misleading people and distracting them from the real sources of problems to Irish working people and seeking to intimidate refugees, what do the far-Right actually do? Ah, yes, they burn buildings that might be used as accommodation. A great help to the homeless indeed!

  • attack homeless refugee and migrant tents

But no, that’s not all. No, the brave ‘patriots’ slash tents and threaten migrants and refugees who are sleeping on the streets. They don’t take on the big landlords, bankers, property speculators and vulture funds – no, they strike down at people poorer and in worse conditions than themselves.

  • cover for the property speculators and vulture funds, big landlords, bankers

So with all this whipping up fear and hatred of migrants, the far-Right obscure the actual cause of the problems, which is not only Irish capitalism but its total subjection to foreign capitalism. The only ones to benefit from this activity are those who are the real causes of the problems.

  • are not patriots, nor nationalists

Despite their claims and flag-waving, the far-Right in Ireland are neither patriots nor true nationalists. They do not organise in defence of Irish sovereignty and against British occupation nor against foreign capitalist exploitation of Irish natural resources, labour or infrastructures.

Or the contrary, they work to distract attention away from these centrally-important issues for the Irish nation and raise false issues to divide the people. And usually their concept of ‘Ireland’ ends at the British border which the recent far-Right rally at the GPO called for strengthening!

  • are a sub-class of deprived individuals allowing themselves to be manipulated by fascists, MI5 and NATO

Many of those being mobilised against migrants come from parts of the cities neglected for generations, often associated with low educational level, substance misuse, unemployment and unresolved mental health issues.

The ideological fascists will recruit those elements to fight, not against the cause of their deprivation, the neo-colonial ruling class or the flooding of foreign capitalist companies into Ireland, assisted by banks and political decisions -but instead against migrant workers and refugees.

  • are filling a vacuum left by the Republican and Socialist movement

WILL WE LEARN FROM OUR FAILURES?

Many of those participating, while some are also unfortunate victims of Irish capitalism, will be recruited as the boot boys of fascism.

While it is true that historically capitalism in crisis turns to fostering fascism and that capitalism, including the neo-colonial variant in the Irish state is running out of other options, we must evaluate our own role in this development, examine our own failures, learn from and remedy them.

The ground was largely ceded to the Far-Right in the period of their initial growth during the Covid crisis. The socialist Left and Republican movement, in particular its organisations, had little response to the early FR mobilisations or to responding creatively to state-imposed restrictions.

Throughout that period and subsequently the socialist Left sector, despite its protestations of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, completely ceded the ground of Irish national sovereignty and its symbols to anyone who wished to occupy it.

They did not, for the most part, protest the use of State repression against Irish Republicans both sides of the British Border, whether through police harassment, special legislation and special no-jury courts, nor stand up for the human and civil rights of Republicans, including political prisoners.

Their distaste for the very issue of national sovereignty was reflected in their refusal to fly the Irish Tricolour, which, although now also the official flag of the Irish State, is originally and remains still a potent symbol of Irish Republican anti-colonial struggle over 170 years.

They might argue that they wished to be identified with the struggle of the working class rather than a nationalist one but they also chose not to fly the flag of the insurrectionary Irish working class, the Starry Plough, in among their internationally-recognised red flags.

The Irish Republican organisations in their fragmented movement, on the national question, failed to sustain unity even around opposition to repression of the states or even around solidarity with the movement’s political prisoners.

They also failed and, to an even greater extent, in fighting for universal affordable housing in a crisis which seems to offer no end and is seized upon by the Far-Right to target refugees and economic migrants, who of course have no responsibility whatsoever for the crisis.

This area too has been a notable failure of the socialist Left organisations which, although marching often enough in public demonstrations and participating in a couple of media-orientated occupations,11 failed to organise and lead a state-wide campaign of empty building occupations.

And so, here we are today, when the FR are able to bring Tricolour and Irish Republic flag-waving crowds on to the streets in false claims of patriotism, dividing and seeking to intimidate migrant workers and anti-racists, burning buildings and insisting on their definition of ‘Irish’ being correct.

Our omissions and failures, if we recognise and act to remedy them, also point the way forward.

End.

1In a travesty of frequent Irish Republican ceremonial occasions, it was even read out at the recent Far-Right gathering outside the GPO which was addressed by a known member of the UVF sectarian murder gang.

2Under the name Dee Wall (real name Dolores Webster).

3Including to Thomas Meagher ‘of the Sword’ who later recruited for, joined and fought in the Union Army in the US Civil War against slavery. Meagher unfurled the flag first in Wexford and later in Dublin, both acts in 1848.

4Bulfin came to Ireland around the age of ten with his family and later joined the IRB and the Irish Volunteers. After the surrender in Moore Street he was sentenced to death, later commuted to life sentence, then from Frongoch prison camp deported to Argentina from where he was the Latin American representative for the Movement.

5Clarke and Markievicz were both born in England. Clarke was first a migrant to Ireland, later to the US, then back again. Connolly was born in Edinburgh and a migrant to Ireland, then to England, then to the USA before his return to Ireland.

6Childers was born in England. He captained the yacht that brought the Mauser rifles and ammunition to Howth. Later he joined the IRA, took the anti-Treaty side and was executed by the Free State during the Civil War.

7The father of the Pearse brothers was English, as was McDonagh’s mother.

8During his trial for bank robbery for the UVF in Glasgow, Sinclair declared he had been working for MI5 which was well known to be steering Loyalist organisations. The UVF and British Intelligence bombed Dublin and Monaghan in 1974, causing the deaths of 34 people and a full-term baby, the highest death toll of one day during the recent 30 Years War.

9Rowan Croft, Herman Kelly (Irish Freedom Party) and Niall McConnell (Síol na hÉireann).

10A prominent group among the Dublin far-Right calling themselves Coolock Says No.

11https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/07/09/former-loyalist-uvf-prisoner-addressed-anti-immigration-protest-at-dublins-gpo/

12For example, the 27-day occupation of Apollo House, Dublin, from 15 December 2016 by housing activists and homeless people, with speeches and performances by prominent musicians.

NO SHOW OF FAR-RIGHT AND FASCIST RALLY TO CLOSE DOWN DUBLIN SOCIALIST REPUBLICAN PUB

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish RepublicanismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Far from the declared aim to “close down this kip” in an online call for a rally against Peadar Brown’s pub in Dublin, not a single far-Right supporter of the call made even a token appearance at the appointed hour Saturday afternoon.

This was no huge surprise; these elements tend mostly to attack small groups of people or torch empty building and surely quickly came to the conclusion that neither of those things would they be facing in the case of Peadar Browne’s. No indeed. A full building of many people.

The on-line event poster for the far-Right rally was followed by a number of posts and comments vilifying the pub’s management for allegedly banning a customer over his racist remarks but went further to attack the pub’s history and general political ambience too.

Recently-elected fascist member of Dublin City Council Gavin Pepper had himself videoed outside the pub on Friday night after it was closed, issuing veiled threats.

Closer view of section of the crowd last Saturday outside the front of the pub. (Photo: R.Breeze)

Peadar Browne’s pub has built up a reputation over years as one of socialist Irish Republican outlook, with both external appearance in flags and mural along with the interior decorations unashamedly declaring the broad sympathies of both owners and clientele.

The venue has seen a number of events in keeping with that perspective held there, ranging from concerts to fund-raising events of various kinds, in addition to public and private meetings. The large mural of a Palestinian flag on the pub’s side also declares their internationalist sympathies.

Section of last Saturday’s crowd outside Peadar Brown’s, this one at the side of the pub. (Photo: R.Breeze)

For some time Saturday before the 3pm appointed for the rally, defenders were arriving, including Irish Republicans and Irish socialists of various organisations and none, Palestine supporters Irish and other, along with activists more specifically antifascist.

Soon both the inside and external areas of the pub were full, with extra banners and flags lining the external area facing the road. Occasionally the driver of a passing vehicle tooted its horn in solidarity, sometimes with extended clenched fist and encouraging roar from the passenger’s side.

Section of last Saturday’s crowd outside Peadar Brown’s, viewed from the middle of the road outside. (Photo: R.Breeze)

Near to the rally’s appointed hour it began to rain and continued for a while but the pub’s external area had been canopied over so few had to move – unless it were to use the toilet or refresh their glasses.

Conversations slowed on occasion as people checked their timepieces, looked outwards, shrugged and resumed talking. By 4pm most of those who hadn’t left decided they’d be staying, already in their evening weekend socialising venue, or at least for the first stage of the evening.

Section of last Saturday’s crowd outside Peadar Brown’s, this one at the top side of the pub. (Photo: R.Breeze)

In fairness, the absence of any uniformed Gardaí on the ground to protect the far-Right had been an indication that they were not expected to appear.

In Conclusion, drawing up The Balance:

The pub had one of its fullest Saturday afternoons and boosted its reputation among many who knew of it only vaguely, while online calls for a boycott were taken by many as recommendations for “a pub with no racists”. Fascists and racists in turn suffered a hit to their morale.

Some of the defenders on Saturday at the lower side with the mural behind them. (Photo: R.Breeze)

Socialists, communists, Irish Republicans and independent antifascists stood together in defence of a pub with an Irish Republican socialist ambience and strong pro-Palestine presence against a threat from far-Right and fascist elements.

Liberals, social democrats and former Republicans, usually prominent on anti-racist marches? Not so much.

End.

FAR-RIGHT MARCH AND COUNTER-DEMONSTRATION IN DUBLIN

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Racism, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

The Far-Right mobilised a large number1 of people for a national protest march in Dublin on Saturday 26th April, pretending the main target was the Irish Government and the housing and health service crises but was purely racist, anti-immigration.

A counter-rally was organised from the Left in front of the GPO, past which the far-Right demonstration was scheduled to pass. They were kettled on three sides by crowd barriers with two Garda vans and Gardaí on foot in front of them.

A number of far-right elements gathered on the sides of the confined mass to throw insults at the anti-racist there, policed very lightly and gently by Gardaí, in stark contrast to how the latter have treated some anti-fascist and anti-racist activists in the recent past.

Among the anti-racist crowd there were many flags of the People Before Profit and Labour parties, an Irish Tricolour or two, two Starry Plough flags and a couple of Palestine flags.

Section of the counter-protest to the anti-immigration march in Dublin on 26th April (Photo: D.Breatnach)

When the Far-Right march came down O’Connell Street, as might be expected from past experience, they carried a flood of Irish Tricolours and some ‘Irish Republic’ flags.

It was not the first time the Left – and these are for the most part the electoral Left – had acted so stupidly from a visual point of view. Because they claim to represent the workers, they pretend to scorn nationalist flags – well then why not at least fly the Plough,2 flag of the Irish workers?

But no, flying red and pink party flags and leaving the national stage to be represented by the Far-Right. And why not fly the flags of national rebellion anyway, are they not honoured for their anti-colonialism and revolutionary spirit? Why neglect to confront the Far-Right with the contradiction?

I have been pointing that out over years without any seeming effect on the Left (or indeed on the Republican movement). However the Mála Spíosraí (Spice Bag) artist group posted a similar objection, making many of the same points and they may have better luck with it.3

The Far-Right when they arrived were met with jeers but the marchers were jeering the anti-racists also. It was interesting to hear the anti-racist crowd switch from shouting that “refugees are welcome here” to baiting the Far-Right with: “Where’s your Union Jack?”4

Confronting the pretend patriotism of the Far-Right with their leaders’ connections to British fascists and Loyalists is much more effective than some of the slogans that are regularly shouted by the Left on these occasions. Reminding people of McGregor’s wearing a Poppy5 might be useful.

Creating slogans to expose their role in distracting attention from property speculators, big landlords, bankers and foreign multinationals on to migrants, who don’t cause any of the problems, would be very useful but expecting creativity and initiative in the electoral Left …!

At least one of the FR leaders, Malachy Steenson and some marchers were seen wearing caps in Trump imitation with “Make Ireland Great Again” printed across them. Unless pre-invasion 1169, there was no hint as to when the ‘great’ period in Ireland’s history might have been.

The country was under total occupation by the 1800s. The Irish State was set up in 1922 on a partitioned land with continuing high emigration. Steenson is an ex-Republican so presumably he knows this. Can he be hearkening to the days of the Church domination of the neo-colony?

Among the banners and flags seen among the marchers were those of Irish fascist organisations, the National Party and Irish Freedom Party. Slogans of “Ireland for the Irish” and “Get them out” were frequently to be heard and “Ireland is full” was seen on a number of placards.

The first two slogans are shouted by people many of whom have no interest in freeing the Six Counties from British Occupation nor the whole country from foreign multinational companies; in fact these are issues which the fake “Patriots” of the Far-Right never address.

On population statistics alone it can be shown that Ireland is far from “full”, given that the population of the country now is lower than the 8 million plus which was recorded in 1845. But lies of the sinister repeated by the ignorant and credulous have long been the stock of fascism.

Homelessness is due to affordable housing shortage, in turn is due to construction, sale and rental being for profit alone. We’ve had a housing shortage for centuries and expelling immigrants will not cure it – a social housing construction program can but the Far-Right never agitate for that.

Expelling immigrants might seem to shorten health service queues but in fact would lengthen them as those members of staff in paramedical services, nursing, surgery, cleaning and security left the country. But none of the anti-immigrant propaganda is about logic – quite the contrary.

A position that it’s patriotic to allow only the Irish-born to live and work in Ireland would have meant lost us four of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation James Connolly, Tom Clark, the father of Patrick (and Willy) Pearse and the mother of Thomas Mac Donagh.

The racists flying the “Irish Republic” flag may be unaware that it was painted on one of her curtains in the house of London-born Constance Markievicz, delivered by her during the 1916 Rising to the GPO and installed on the roof by Eamon Bulfin, born and reared in Argentina.

The Irish Tricolour was presented to Irish Republicans by French Republican women during the Paris Revolution of 1848. The Harp on a green background was the flag of the United Irish, nearly all of whose leaders’ antecedents had come from other countries.

IT’S OUR FAULT

We can expose the ‘patriotism’ of those who ignore the foreign occupation of one-sixth of our land but organise against foreign workers; we can laugh at the ‘patriotism’ and ‘anti-globalism’ that thinks it fine to follow “Poppy” McGregor cosying up to a US imperialist president.

But in the end, those contradictory positions and don’t-compute beliefs won’t matter. The fascists are out to mobilise the ill-informed and gullible who have been hurt by the capitalist system and, it must be said, who have been largely ignored by the Irish Left and by Irish Republicans.

At the very least, the progressive forces could have fought for a wide public housing program. A campaign of occupations could have forced that though people would have gone to jail for it. Attempts were made by the Revolutionary Housing League but they were not supported.

The speculators, big landlords and bankers would hate it but in the end could afford to let it happen. They would still be in charge and still making money. It was not a revolutionary demand.

But the campaign was not pressed and now the Far-Right are there with a simplistic but completely wrong answer: stop immigration.

The electoral Left is not interested in fighting fascism but instead in anti-racist posturing. The Irish Republican movement is in general more interested in getting the British out of their 6-County Irish colony. Even on causes with which they agree, they can rarely stand on the same ground.

The advance of the Far-Right is the fault of the spaces left empty by the Left.

end.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

1The numbers quoted varied hugely. The first report on Breaking News had them at twice the number of the counter-protest, which they estimated at 2,000, an under-estimate to my opinion by almost a thousand. The next B News report put the anti-immigration numbers at “hundreds of thousands”, i.e at least 200,000! A more realistic guess would be around 10,000.

2The Starry Plough, flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world, formed to defend the workers from police attacks in the employers’ attempt to break the Irish Transport & General Workers Union with a Lockout of union members.

3The Tricolour will be a right-wing symbol soon if it’s not front and centre at counters. Being allergic to your own flag is moronic and damages your legitimacy as a national movement. A sea of red and pink flags without the hard won symbols of Irish nationalism plays into the right-wing narrative that left is inherently anti-Irish. Fly the tricolour if you don’t want it to end up like the St George’s flag in England.

The left have a tendency to abandon things that are being co-opted by political opponents. In a country where nationalism, socialism and patriotism go hand-in-hand, this would be extremely damaging. Look no further than the Provo/Stickie split in the 1970’s for an example of the left losing legitimacy by putting the red before the green during a crisis.

You’re not just fighting the domestic right, you’re fighting US and UK conservative media and Zionism. Ireland is unique in Europe as a post-colonial state and we can be unique in how we fight our culture war. Nationalism should not be given away, the ‘left’ should not become the generic caricature pushed by right wing media. Our national flag should vastly outnumber all other symbols — it is a symbol of resistance.

4Increasingly the Far-Right leaderships have been exposed in alliance with British fascists and racists such as Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage and with British Loyalists such as James Dowson.

5In 2015 Conor McGregor wore the red Poppy, causing controversy in Ireland as the symbol is firmly associated with the British imperialist army. McGregor claimed it represented all soldiers in all wars, which is patently nonsense. The Poppy is trademarked and produced by the British Legion to commemorate the UK soldiers killed – not even those of the Commonwealth, to say nothing of the soldiers on the other side, nor the millions of civilians killed.

DUBLIN SEES LARGE PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MARCH ALSO FASCIST PROVOCATION AND GARDA REPRESSION

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, Police Violence, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Dublin city centre on Saturday witnessed another giant Palestine solidarity march with a breakaway group; also a picket against internment of Irish Republicans; fascist provocations and Gárda repression resulting in the arrest of a demonstrator.

The national demonstration march had been called by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign as part of a solidarity and protest pattern that included fortnightly Dublin marches last year but is now generally monthly and at times with other events in addition.

One of the banners just having crossed O’Connell Bridge on the IPSC-organised march (Sourced: IPSC Facebook)

Numbers on these marches in a city of only around 1.5 million population are impressive, though they draw on some participation from outside Dublin but there also regular local pickets and demonstrations of much smaller numbers at locations of high visibility or of specific significance.1

The march set off from the Garden of Remembrance in the north city centre proceeding towards Leinster House, seat of the parliament of the Irish State, near O’Connell Bridge passing a picket with an anti-Internment banner organised by the Anti-Imperialism Action organisation.

Anti Imperialist Action displaying a banner against extradition to the passing Palestine solidarity march. (Photo sourced: Anti Imperialism Action Leinster FB page)

As the march reached the non-pedestrianised stretch of Grafton Street a half-dozen fascists made their presence felt on the sidelines by throwing insults at a section of the marchers, who responded with louder From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! and antifascist slogans.

Not just the Irish state but fascists and other far-Right elements in Ireland have a real problem with Palestine solidarity, claiming that’s because the protesters should be marching for Ireland. However those elements for the most part have zero track record in marching for Irish independence.

No, for them ‘Irish nationalism’ consists of demonstrating against immigration and burning buildings intended – or which they believe intended – for housing refugees. Clearly as fascists and far-Right what they detest about marches such as these is internationalist solidarity itself.

Placard calling for what is surely the minimum we have the right to expect from the Irish Government, followed by some of the placards of Mothers Against Genocide. (Photo sourced: IPSC FB page)

Incongruously for those who want only internal causes upheld, the fascists of the Loyalist variety in the occupied Six Counties uphold the Zionist state of ‘Israel’ and those inside the Irish state, as was seen in Dublin on Saturday too, laud and uphold as an example Donald Trump!

BREAKAWAY2

Mock Icon of Irish Central Bank carried against processing Israeli Bonds (Source photo: IPSC FB page).

Very shortly after the verbal exchange with the fascists, a section of the march diverted to walk up the pedestrianised section of Grafton Street. A couple of Gardaí, reinforced by the fascists, attempted to prevent this but the marchers flowed around the obstruction to continue up the street.

On Wednesday evening, some of those present had marched down that very street on their way to occupy O’Connell Bridge, bringing traffic in both directions to a halt for half an hour.3

Further along the pedestrianised street the breakaway, including Ireland Action for Palestine and Saoirse Don Phalaistín groups, joined with another section of marchers who had earlier broken away from the IPSC march, this one led by the Mothers Against Genocide banner.

The shouted slogans from what were broadly two differing sections tended to merge with regard to calls to stop the bombing, opposition to genocide and broad support for Palestine but differed in that one section was also calling for support for the Palestinian Resistance and resistance generally.4

Content of slogans from the groups differed less markedly in calling for Irish Government intervention in support of Palestine, with the ‘Mothers’ mostly demanding the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill5 and others condemning Government collusion in Shannon Airport.

The whole breakaway mass marched along South Stephens Green and turned north into Dawson Street, to pause inside the junction with Molesworth Street, where the tail of the main march, was already beginning to reduce although speakers and artists were performing on the IPSC platform.

Molesworth Street facing Dawson Street after the breakaway sections arrived and before the later incidents. (Source: R. Breeze)
View of the IPSC-organised march at its destination, the Garda barriers in Molesworth Street across the road from the entrance to Leinster House. (Photo: R. Breeze)

On Dawson Street, across from the junction, the fascists had installed themselves, including a man in a red ‘Trump’ hat waving a “Make America great again” flag.

Two known fascists from the group trying to harass Palestine solidarity marches from Grafton Street to Dawson Street. (Photo sourced: AFA https://www.facebook.com/afaireland)

The Palestine solidarity protesters here – some distance from the diminishing main march crowd,6 with some IPSC stewards standing watching nearby, responded to the fascists’ jeers and Trump fan with jeers of their own, slogans and some bursts of song.7

According to a report form Anti-Fascist Action observers nearby and posted later that day, a senior Garda officer approached one of the fascists and had a quiet word with them, after which the fascists packed their banner and went away quietly smiling while the Public Order Unit arrived.

Soldiers of the master race (ehem) packing up after notification from their friend in the Gardaí that the POU would soon be deployed against some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators. (Photo sourced: AFA Ireland)

These then began to aggressively push the demonstrators back towards Molesworth Street and as a demonstrator remarked it was the POU that were now blocking Dawson Street to traffic.

Soon the Gardaí seemed to decide to arrest one of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators and charged into the crowd, shoving, knocking down and even punching people who resisted strongly or just held on to the intended victim as long as they were able to.

A woman struck back at a POU man who had seized her by the throat but even so it took the intervention of one of his unit to get him to release his hold. The marks of his hand on her throat could be seen afterwards. Interestingly a press report later stated the Gardaí denied there was any incident.

( https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/cofounder-irish-government-dublin-ireland-international-holocaust-remembrance-alliance-b1218253.html)

Eventually the Gardaí succeeded in their intent and the protester was taken away to chants of Let him go! Numbers of the main march were dwindling greatly by this point but so were those of the breakaway section and people there were concerned to support their arrested comrade.

One of three police stations was the likely destination: Store Street, Pearse Street or Kevin Street. It was established that he was held at the latter station and was later released, given a few days to decide, under the Public Order Act whether to accept a caution or to be charged and face trial.

More confrontations of various sorts are likely as the Zionist genocide in Palestine ratchets even higher and frustration mounts at the Irish Government’s persistent refusal to end their collusion with the Zionist state and with its main supplier, US imperialism.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Mostly by organisations not part of the IPSC.

2Breakaway actions by groups often take place when they seek another target to that of the march organisers or to spread the visual and auditory impact of the demonstration or to break the ‘normalisation’ pattern, as when protesters feel the IPSC leadership is organising set marches of minimum disruption, on routes agreed with the Gardaí (which is not legal requirement in the Irish state).

3See https://rebelbreeze.com/2025/03/21/dublin-traffic-clogged-up-as-palestine-solidarity-protesters-march-around-city-centre

4There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime!

5 Agreed years ago in the Irish Parliament before but prevented from enactment by successive coalition Governments.

6As soon as the IPSC march arrives numbers always begin to leave, either to commence return home journeys or because they feel they are not going to hear anything new and their contribution was to be part of a visible mass, which they have now done.

7The Irish-language Gráinne Mhaol and English-language Come Out Ye Black n’ Tans.

THE MISREPRESENTATION AND REPRESSION CONTINUES

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Israeli Zionism, Journalism, Mass Media Criticism, Palestine, Political Analysis, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Not only has the retaliation against the violence and racist and fascist provocation of a Zionist football team ultra thugs been misrepresented as ‘anti-semitism’ but the Dutch authorities send the provoked to jail.

And the western mass media continues to misreport the events. It’s an absolute disgrace.

What actually happened in Amsterdam is that many ultra fans of the ‘Israeli’ football team Maccabi, arriving in Amsterdam on 6th November, the day before the game, went on a provocative rampage through the city, celebrating the murder of Palestinian children and chanting anti-Arab slogans.

They armed themselves with bottles and material from a building site, chased people they identified as ‘Arabs’ and attacked a taxi driver’s vehicle. In addition they were filmed trying to tear down Palestinian flags from outside people’s houses, in one case successfully.

By and large the Dutch police did not intervene though one was later reported injured. The following day, that of the football match of Maccabi Tel Aviv Vs Ajax, the provoked responded and handed out retribution.

Separately, the city authorities had refused permission for a Palestine solidarity picket near the game and ‘dispersed’ those who attempted to demonstrate nevertheless1 which may have encouraged some rioting and some attacks on the police.

The media reports that 60 arrests were made of which only 10 had ‘Israeli’ addresses.2 Because of the clear bias in reporting and in the trials so far, one can almost guarantee that none of the latter will be handed prison sentences.

However the evidence of the true nature of the events was available in videos of the actions of the Maccabi Tel Aviv ultras and in reports of eyewitnesses and even in some media reporting, but usually far down the report after repeating the slurs of “anti-Semitism” and alleged crimes.

That follows the wide political media misrepresentation with such accusations of anti-Semitism by western political leaders from USA’s Biden to Amsterdam’s Mayor, Femke Halsema, (later admitting that accusation had been misused as propaganda in describing the events).3

However the Dutch premier Dick Schoof did not retract his accusations of “anti-Semitism”,4 even though he also referred to the violence and provocation by Maccabi ultras, conflating the retribution on the ultras or Israelis with attacks “on Jews” (as did the western media in general).

Of course, leader of the current ‘Israeli’ fascist and genocidal government Netanyahu was quick to make a similar accusation, even going so far as to compare it to the Nazis’ Kristalnacht in 1938, when Jewish businesses and homes were attacked and an estimated 91 Jews killed.

The German media had played its part assisting the climb to power of the Nazis in the 1930s, and the western mass media misrepresentation today also facilitates the repression of Palestinian solidarity and the continuation of daily Zionist genocide.

This is particularly egregious while Palestinian journalist colleagues risk their lives reporting the facts from the ground and over 141 have been murdered since October 2023.

Maccabi Tel Aviv ultras in Amsterdam for their team’s game against Ajax in which they were beaten 5-0. (Photo: AP)

The reputation of the Maccabi ultras did not contradict their actions in Amsterdam, having a name for violent behaviour and racist slogans.5 They were recorded in Amsterdam chanting in celebration that “there are no schools in Gaza because there no children left”6 and “Death to Arabs!”

The trials were in the context of wide-scale repression of Palestinian solidarity across the West, losing or threatening the livelihoods of academics, information technologists, journalists and the studies of students. Activists have been charged, fined, jailed or threatened by the authorities.

Despite the judge’s admission that the crimes alleged would have normally warranted sentence of community service, five of the accused were jailed because of “the seriousness of the offence and (in) the context … only imprisonment is appropriate.” 7

What is that if not a clear admission of political motivation and bias in the sentencing?

Why was the incident so blatantly misrepresented? What is the reason for the repression of Palestinian solidarity in the West? It is all simply so that the genocide in Palestine may continue without any obstruction from within the fortresses of western imperialism.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/24/amsterdam-football-violence-ajax-maccabi-tel-aviv-men-found-guilty

2Ibid.

3Ibid.

4“The images and reports for Amsterdam and what we’ve seen this weekend of antisemitic attacks against Israelis and Jews are nothing short of shocking and reprehensible,” he told journalists. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78dzr432x7o No reports of attacks “on Jews” as such had been verified, though certainly passports were examined to establish whether people were Israelis. It was their origin from the Zionist state that was the issue in the context of its ongoing genocide and the fans racist, arrogant and violent behaviour the previous dayl

5https://www.left-horizons.com/2024/11/09/what-most-media-dont-tell-us-about-maccabi-tel-aviv/

6https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnFNkZB-RE0 and https://www.instagram.com/aljarmaq_news/reel/DCJobsZtQ1_/

7https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/24/amsterdam-football-violence-ajax-maccabi-tel-aviv-men-found-guilty

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/amsterdam-court-sentences-five-men-over-violence-linked-to-ajax-maccabi-game-1711453.html

What most media don’t tell us about Maccabi Tel Aviv

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/8/israeli-football-fans-clash-with-protesters-in-amsterdam

Leader of the Dutch social-democratic minorities-based Denk party denounces the actions of the Maccabi ultras and the biassed response of the right-wing Government, also using the events for racist propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwobmhPNu2g

WHAT KIND OF ‘IRISH NATIONALISM’ IS THIS?

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Fascism, Human Rights, Palestine, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Claiming to be ‘Irish nationalists’, denouncing refugee accommodation, calling LGBT people “paedophiles”, promoting “Christian values” and attacking Muslims, calling people “traitors” for expressing solidarity with Palestinians.

What kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this?

In recent years far-Right elements in Irish society have been pushing an ideology composed of the elements listed above, while claiming to represent the Irish people and the Irish nation. In their justifications they sometimes refer to struggles in Irish history and to Irish culture.

They do this not only in words but also in debasing flags of the Irish struggle, such as the Tricolour and the ‘Irish Republic’ flag, by waving them at their public events and even, on occasion by playing Irish Republican ballads on their PA machines.

Plenty of Irish Tricolour flags brandished on this anti-immigration march in Dublin in May (2024). Flags of the fascist National Party can also be seen. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Yet with a tiny unrepresentative exception, these elements have not been involved in the promotion or creation of Irish music or dance. They have not struggled for the promotion of the Irish language nor do they themselves speak the Irish language.

As to the history of Irish struggle, again with the exception of a miniscule minority, the far-Right elements have not fought against the British occupation, not picketed British Occupation buildings, not confronted the colonial police nor agitated in solidarity with Republican prisoners.

Again, I ask, what kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this?

Palestine solidarity ‘treason’?!

As Ireland experienced a wave of solidarity with the Palestinian people facing a campaign of genocide by the Zionist regime and its Western powers allies, these far-Right elements not only disdained that solidarity but harassed and labelled those who expressed it as “traitors”.

Again, I ask, what kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this?

How is opposition to genocide or solidarity with another colonised and oppressed people the activity of ‘traitors’? Surely it is the natural reaction of people with our history? Doesn’t the term ‘traitors’ mean that the accused have aligned themselves with enemies of the Irish people?

In fact, that is precisely what these far-Right elements are doing themselves. They are aligning themselves with a number of Western imperialist powers but in particular, in the case of Ireland, aligning themselves with the rulers of the UK, invader and occupiers of the Irish nation.

That connection was amply demonstrated when the colonial police savagely attacked people attempting to set up a Palestine solidarity camp in the grounds of Queen’s, the colonial university in Belfast. As it is also by burning Palestinian flags alongside the Tricolour on Loyalist bonfires.

A sectarian July bonfire with the Irish Tricolour, ‘Irish Republic’ and Palestinian national flags on top awaiting burning. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Or by English fascist and Loyalist flags accompanying Zionist flags on demonstrations in England. And by far-Right posters and activists who called for friendship with English fascist Tommy many-names Robinson, notorious for supporting the Paratroopers’ 1972 massacre of protesters in Derry.

Love Irish history?

Recently a far-Right person posting on social media, while claiming to “love Irish historical sites”, denounced efforts to save the Moore Street market and 1916 Battleground because “it’s not Irish any more” and called for it to be torn down “to get them1 out”.

She called for the destruction of the oldest street market in Ireland and the site of the last stand of the GPO Garrison, the 1916 Battleground where at least four Volunteers were killed and the last place of freedom for hundreds, including five of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation.

Again, I ask, what kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this? It is in fact aiding the property speculator who wants to demolish and obliterate Irish history and heritage, a speculator currently based in Britain, though actively assisted by Dublin City Managers and successive Irish governments.

Another poster on social media calling itself “Christian Wisdom” asked people to vote for “Irish nationalist candidates” in the forthcoming elections within the Irish state, the sub-text being against migrants or Left-wing candidates and presumably for religious sectarianism.

What kind of ‘Irish nationalism’ is this?

It aligns itself with the western imperialist powers, including the invader that has been in occupation of some part of our country for 800 years and still is.

It denies people the democratic rights to express their sexuality.

In promoting Christianity as ‘Irish’ and in opposition to free expression of sexuality, it seeks to put us back under religious social control and also opposes the 1916 Proclamation, which guaranteed “religious and civil liberty and equal opportunities… for all.”

In blaming migrants and refugees for homelessness, it is covering up for the actual people who cause that crisis: the bankers, property speculators and big landlords who keep making huge profits out of people’s needs and misery.

Who are they really? They are certainly not ‘Irish nationalists’ in the sense of the many who fought and sacrificed all in the struggle to free the Irish nation through 800 years of Irish history.

Fascists and racists based in Coolock, North Dublin city photographed in joint rally with loyalists in Belfast in 2024. (Photo sourced: Internet)

What it really is and what they really are

What they are disseminating is not at all Irish nationalism.

On rational examination of the evidence, I must conclude that these people are not Irish nationalists at all. But since they claim very stridently that’s what they are indeed, I must conclude that they are using that label to cover their real identity.

What they are really is simply nothing more nor less than Irish fascists, serving property speculators, corporate landlords, bankers, the native Gombeens and foreign imperialists. Or the ignorant manipulated tools of those fascists.

In total, enemies of the Irish nation, of working people and of all democratic freedoms.

End.

1Presumably meaning people born abroad (as were James Connolly, Tom Clarke, Constance Markievicz, Eamonn De Valera, Eamon Bulfin, the father of the Pearses and mother of Thomas Mac Donagh, father of Thomas Davis … and hundreds of other Irish patriots).

Britain secretly helped Chile’s military intelligence after Pinochet coup

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, British imperialism, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Latin America, Political Prisoners, Popular Resistance, Torture, US ImperialismLeave a comment

John McEvoy 5 September2023

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

NB: Rebel Breeze shares this near the anniversary of the fascist military coup in Chile, the same date as the Twin Towers massacre years later.. The article is a year old but relevant as long as British imperialism exists.

As the Pinochet regime rounded up and murdered its political opponents after the 1973 coup, a UK Foreign Office propaganda unit passed material to Chile’s military intelligence and MI6 connived with a key orchestrator of the coup, newly declassified files show.

  • Foreign Office helped Pinochet regime to develop a counter-insurgency strategy based on British military campaigns in Southeast Asia
  • MI6 officer David Spedding was attached to British embassy in Santiago in 1972-4, and had relations with a key member of the military junta

The UK government assisted Chile’s military intelligence in the aftermath of the brutal 1973 coup against elected president Salvador Allende, newly declassified files show.

The assistance was authorised by the Information Research Department (IRD), a secret Foreign Office propaganda unit which worked closely with Britain’s secret intelligence service, MI6.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office building, Whitehall, London. Many a dark deed was planned here. (Photo accessed: Internet)

The IRD had long seen Allende as a political threat. As Declassified previously revealed, throughout the 1960s, the unit had sought to prevent Allende from ever becoming president through election interference and covert propaganda operations.

After Allende was elected in 1970, the IRD’s distribution of propaganda material became “strictly limited”, with the British embassy having fewer reliable contacts in the Chilean government. 

This all changed after the coup.

In January 1974, the IRD began to “extend the distribution” of its material, which was now passed “to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government information organisations” and, crucially, the dictatorship’s “military intelligence” services.

At this time, Chile’s security forces – including the country’s intelligence apparatus – were responsible for massive human rights violations, including the widespread use of torture as a political weapon.

The UK government was under no illusions about this. As Foreign Office official Christopher Crabbie noted three months after the coup in December 1973, “I do not think that anyone seriously doubts that torture is going on in Chile”. 

Reliable figures indicate that, between 1973 and 1988, Chilean state agents were responsible for over 3,000 deaths or disappearances and tens of thousands of cases of torture and political arrests. This was in a country which, in 1973, had a population of only 10 million people.

‘Our major interest is copper’: Britain backed Pinochet’s bloody coup…

Chile Army 1973 coup soldiers watch detainees – many were shot, many more tortured then shot, many more still ‘disappeared’, probably tortured and shot. Many, many more were jailed where they were also tortured; young children were also abducted and given to fascist childless couples. (Photo accessed: Internet)

‘Hearts and minds’

The nature of the information passed to Chile’s military intelligence remains unclear, though the files suggest it may have included material for use in propaganda, research reports on left-wing activity, and even manuals on domestic security operations.

For instance, newly declassified files show how the UK government secretly helped the Chilean authorities to develop a counter-insurgency strategy, using techniques refined during Britain’s colonial interventions in Southeast Asia.

The idea for such assistance was first raised during the visit of British navy chief Sir Michael Pollock to Chile in late November 1973, two months after the coup. 

The timing of Pollock’s visit was “politically tricky”, noted the British ambassador in Santiago, Reginald Secondé, since there was “much critical attention” being given “to the Chilean Government’s treatment of their political opponents”.

However, there were “two frigates and two submarines for the Chilean Navy under construction in British yards” – an arms deal worth around £50m – and “this was not a moment to prejudice the historic tradition of Anglo-Chilean naval friendship”. 

“This was not a moment to prejudice the historic tradition of Anglo-Chilean naval friendship”

In Santiago, Pollock and Secondé met with a number of regime officials, including navy chief José Toribio Merino Castro, defence minister Patricio Carvajal Prado, and foreign minister Ismael Huerta.

With Huerta, the British officials spoke about the UK government’s “hearts and minds” campaign in Northern Ireland, a counter-insurgency strategy inspired by Britain’s war in Malaya (1948-60).

Huerta “seemed impressed with the concept”, and Secondé “later twice heard him muttering to himself ‘hearts and minds’”.

Subsequent meetings were held between Secondé, British information officer Tony Walters, and Captain Carlos Ashton, the director of overseas information in Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Like Huerta, Ashton was “very receptive to the idea that this kind of approach to Chilean security problems might be the right answer”, and requested “details of what practical measures a ‘hearts and minds’ exercise would involve”.

Exclusive: Secret cables reveal Britain interfered with elections in Chile

Counter-insurgency advice

Ashton’s request for assistance was forwarded to Rosemary Allott, the head of the IRD’s Latin American desk.

In a letter dated 15 February 1974 and marked ‘secret’, Allott agreed to provide the Chilean regime with counter-insurgency advice, but limited this to material on Britain’s past colonial interventions.

“In view of the delicate political considerations involved”, Allott wrote, “it would be best to confine, at this stage at least, the material we send you of insurgencies of the past, rather than those currently preoccupying HMG” such as Northern Ireland.

The Pinochet regime was soon issued with three books on British counter-insurgency strategy, alongside a “Manual of Counter Insurgency Studies”. 

“Britain agreed to share its colonial policing methods with the Chilean junta”

Allott also tracked down “various official reports on Malaya” including “The Fight Against Communist Terrorism in Malaya”, the “Review of the Emergency in Malaya (1948-57)”, and “two booklets on the Philippines insurrection”. 

Britain’s military campaign in Malaya involved the “resettlement” of over 500,000 civilians, aerial bombardment, and an intensive propaganda operation. 

Embassy officials suggested that they were teaching Chilean officers “tactics of tolerance and magnanimity”. However, brutal repression often lay behind the UK government’s rhetoric about “winning hearts and minds”, and the Chilean authorities were only sharpening their repressive techniques.

None of the material given to the Pinochet regime was “for attribution to HMG”. This meant that the Chilean authorities could use the information but not source it to the UK government. 

The extent to which Britain’s advice was acted upon remains unclear; the Pinochet regime was certainly not lacking in support from the CIA. 

Nonetheless, it is clear that Britain agreed to share its colonial policing methods with the Chilean junta, with the goal of stabilising Pinochet’s regime against domestic opposition.

MI6 in Chile

Evidence of British assistance to Chile’s intelligence services raises further questions about what Britain’s own secret intelligence service, MI6, was doing in Chile. 

In 1972, MI6 officer David Spedding was attached to the British embassy in Santiago – his only foreign posting outside of the Middle East throughout his career. 

This was not Spedding’s first visit to Chile. As a postgraduate student at Oxford University during the mid-1960s, Spedding had spent his gap year in Santiago and found work as an assistant in the British embassy’s press office. 

Spedding’s first role in the diplomatic service was thus in the same British embassy that had been directing covert propaganda operations against Allende throughout the 1960s. The job gave him “an entrée into SIS [MI6]”, historian Nigel West noted.

Spedding remained in Chile until September 1974. He was subsequently made responsible for MI6 operations across the Middle East, and would go on to become MI6 chief between 1994 and 1999.

‘Our relationship with Admiral Merino’

Spedding’s name rarely appears in declassified Foreign Office files on Chile.

Yet in one file, dated 4 December 1973, Spedding informed the Foreign Office that 2,800 civilians and 700 armed forces personnel had been killed during and after the coup. 

“In order to protect our relationship with Admiral Merino”, Spedding noted, “we would not like these figures to be quoted, at least for the time being”. 

Admiral Merino was one of the key orchestrators of the 1973 coup. He was head of the Chilean navy in September 1973, and remained in post until the fall of the dictatorship in 1990. Merino claimed responsibility for convincing Pinochet to join the coup.

Some of the culprits saluting (Photo accessed: Internet)

One of Spedding’s roles, then, was to ensure close collaboration with the Chilean junta by covering up its responsibility for massive political repression and human rights violations. 

The MI6 station in Santiago was only closed down in 1974 amid the UK Labour Party’s return to government.

It would not be surprising if MI6 played a supporting role to the CIA’s covert operations against Allende during the early 1970s. It was recently revealed that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) had “opened a base in Santiago to assist in the US Central Intelligence Agency’s destabilisation of the Chilean government” in 1971.

Britain’s secret assistance to the Pinochet regime was consistent with the UK government’s position on the coup. 

The Conservative government under Edward Heath had welcomed the coup and rushed to give diplomatic recognition and arms to the Chilean junta, with the Foreign Office noting that it had “infinitely more to offer British interests than the one which preceded it”.

The coup against Allende inaugurated a 17-year dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet, who only left office in 1990.

end.

John McEvoy is co-directing a forthcoming documentary investigating Britain’s hidden role in the death of Chile’s democracy and rise of the Pinochet dictatorship. You can support the film’s production here.

THE TRICOLOUR IN LONDON RECENTLY

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, British imperialism, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Irish Diaspora, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, Political Analysis, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Pat Reynolds & Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main report: 3 mins.)

The photo of the massive antifascist rally in London on 28th July following a march from Russel Square shows the recapture of Trafalgar Square from Tommy Robinson and his sea of Union Jacks. Not for the first time, the Irish made their mark upon the place.

There the only two high flying flags were the Irish Tricolours and the Palestinian flags, the Irish contingent being one of the few on the day to see the fight in Britain against the fascists as part of the same fight against the fascist Zionist regime.

Irish and Palestinian flags in Trafalgar Square rally against racism, end July 2024 (Photo cred: PA)

We are mindful of the history of our occupied territories and our 1930s fight against the anti-Semitic Blackshirts1 in London (e.g. standing with the Jewish community at the Battle of Cable Street, 1936) and against the Bridgeton Billy Boys in Glasgow in the 1930s.2

On 28th July our flags sent out a message: We stand against all fascists, at home or abroad. That day we could not but remember all our brave men and women who marched past here from 1971 to 1998 carrying our fight to the heart of government3 in harder times.

We also know that the anti-racist movement now takes its new life from the strength of the Palestinian solidarity movement in Britain and needs to recognise this.

It was strange being in Trafalgar Square again with Tricolours given that we were barred from being there during the ‘Troubles’. Irish solidarity events were banned from using the Square under any circumstances from 1972 to 2001, well after the Good Friday Agreement.

The ban was lifted only once for an Irish event during that period and that was for the Peace Women4 (sic) calling for an ‘end to violence’ (mainly that of the Resistance) and famous US folk singer/ political activist Joan Baez displayed her ignorance of the Irish situation by speaking there.

It was interesting that a reporter for GB News of the British mass media was aware that a picket had been held in Dublin in protest against the assassinations of Palestinian and other Arab resistance leaders. He tried to link the Irish contingent in Trafalgar Square with ‘support for Hamas’.

The linkage was hinted in his broadcast report though he was careful enough not to report a direct link as the Irish group in Trafalgar Square had in fact no connection with the Dublin group. The reporter asked how to pronounce ‘Saoirse Don Phalaistín’ — but still got it wrong in his report.

One of the Irish contingent spoke to the young GB News journalist: He had the stuff from Dublin on his phone and wanted to say that the Irish in the Square were part of the Dublin group.

“Next thing you’d know the Zionists would call for a ban on the Irish for ‘supporting Hamas’”,5 commented one of the veteran Irish activists. “We also get targeted because of the flag and our placards.”

The UK State and the police are all pro-Zionist and the Zionist press tries to trap the Irish into dangerous statements but “We know our history and are well able for them; we just say we support Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation just as we did with the British in Ireland.”

Irish contingent with flags on Palestine solidarity march to Downing Street very recently (not sure whether the SW person is part of it). (Photo sourced from participant).

The Irish Tricolours, often in the company of the Palestinian national flag with Saoirse Don Phalaistín printed on it have been seen on Palestine solidarity marches in London since the current Zionist genocide began but also on anti-fascist rallies and in support of Julian Assange.

This is in keeping with the history and tradition of the Irish in Britain who helped found the republican United Englishmen6, the Chartists,7 many trade unions, a section of the First International8 and also gave the British working class their anthem9 and their classic novel.10

Classic novel of the working class in Britain was written by Robert Noonan, aka Robert Tressell, from Dublin. (Image sourced: Internet)

In later times they were prominent in organising solidarity with Vietnam and of course Ireland, against repressive legislation and fascist organisations, solidarity with Nicaragua, Palestine etc. and in struggles against state repression, including within the jails.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act (1974), forerunner of the current Terrorism Act (2000) specifically targeted the Irish community in Britain with suspension of habeas corpus for a period of up to five days, refusal of access to solicitor, as did also the framing of a score of people.

In the midst of the Irish Hunger Strikes of 1981, the Irish community broke out of the State terror stranglehold and formed the Irish in Britain Representation Group, among its objectives being the abolition of the Labour Government-introduced Prevention of Terrorism Act.

End.

Saoirse don Phalaistín and Irish Tricolour flags on Palestine solidarity march this year photographed against Westminster’s ‘Big Ben’. (Photo cred: being investigated)

NOTE ON AUTHORS

Pat Reynolds is a former trade unionist, social worker, a veteran anti-racist, anti-fascist activist, also for Irish independence and for rights for the Irish community in Britain. He was PRO for the Irish in Britain Representation Group for two decades, founding the Haringey Branch and the Green Ink Bookshop. Reynolds is from Granard in Co. Longford and lives in London.

Diarmuid Breatnach is a former trade unionist, worker with homeless/ substance misusers (manual worker before that), also a veteran anti-racist, anti-fascist activist and campaigner for Irish independence. For a decade he was on the Ard-Choiste of the IBRG, founder of the Lewisham Branch and of the Lewisham Irish Centre. Breatnach is from Dublin to which he has returned to settle.

FOOTNOTES

1The British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Moseley which had substantial support in the British elite, including the publisher of the The Daily Mail with police attacks on anti-fascists.

2The Billy Boys were founded and led by Billy Fullerton, a former member of the British Fascists. Fullerton also later became a member of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. The Billy Boys adopted a militaristic style of behaviour, marching on parades, forming their own bands, composing their own songs and music, and all dressed in a similar manner.[3] The Billy Boys also formed a junior group whose members were teenagers called the Derry Boys. (Wikipedia)

3From Trafalgar Square to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster runs a broad thoroughfare, in the centre of which is the Cenotaph and a little further, the entrance to Downing Street.

4The organisation/ campaign was founded by Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan in 1976 after a car driven by an IRA fighter mortally wounded by British soldiers in Belfast crashed into pedestrians and mortally wounded three children of Anne Maguire, sister of Mairead. Branding itself as against all violence the Peace Women in fact targeted primarily the Republican movement, secondarily the Loyalist paramilitaries and hardly ever the Occupation Army. Williams accused the IRA unit of having fired on the Army unit that killed the driver which was untrue (but is repeated on her Wikipedia entry). Both founders received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 and a substantial cash prize. Williams resigned from the group in 1980 and disappeared from Irish-related activities though prominent externally. Corrigan however remained politically active in Ireland and elsewhere against war and has campaigned among other things for the end of the ‘Israeli’ siege on Gaza, being arrested with crew and passengers on the Spirit of Humanity aid ship in 2009 by by the Zionist navy, taken to ‘Israel’ and subsequently deported.

5Hamas is proscribed organisation in the UK since March 2001 and a person promoting it would be liable to prosecution under the Terrorism Act.

6A spin-off from the United Irishmen in Ireland; the English chapter led the Spithead and Nore naval mutinies. The Irish also reformed the United Scotsmen when it was faltering.

7Karl Marx called the Chartists “the true mass movement of the working class” – two of its principal leaders, Bronterre O’Brien and Fergus O’Connor were Irish, as their surnames would suggest.

8The Fenians were accepted into the First International Workingmen’s Association.

9The lyrics of The Red Flag were composed by Jim Connell from near Kells, Co. Meath and set to the brisk air of The White Cockade, later changed to the mournful air of Tannebaum.

10The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists was written by Robert Tressell (real name Robert Noonan) from Dublin.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

https://libcom.org/history/bloody-sunday-trafalgar-square

THAT FLAG IS NOT THEIRS – BUT IT’S NOT YOURS EITHER!

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, History, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

The Irish Tricolour has been in the news recently in an unhappy circumstance. The flag was featured borne in a group of anti-immigration racists carrying a banner declaring Coolock Says No,1 next to Union Jacks2 and Loyalist flags at a Belfast riot.

This was a bizarre juxtaposition given that Loyalists are hostile to any signs of Irish Republicanism, of which the Tricolour is chief among its historical symbols. Furthermore, the Unionist state banned its public display in most situations between 1954 and 1987 leading to resistance and arrests.3

In the sectarian society created by the British in its occupied Six County colony, the Tricolour is burned annually on British Loyalist bonfires and is reviled by Unionism and its more extreme progeny, Loyalism, which in turn is associated with state-sanctioned sectarian murder gangs.4

The strange juxtaposition was remarked upon in mass media not only in Ireland (both sides of the Border) but even in Britain — and Irish State Taoiseach (prime minister) Simon Harris remarked that he found the flag in association with racism to be “repugnant”.5

But does Harris have the moral right to make that comment?

Origin and History of the Irish Tricolour

The Tricolour as we know it and its use dates from its sewing in silk by revolutionary women in Paris in 1848 and presentation to a delegation of the Young Irelanders, a revolutionary Irish Republican group of that period and its subsequent unfurling in Ireland by Thomas Meagher.

Thomas Francis Meagher as captain in the Union Army (Source: Drawing in Library of Congress, USA)

Irish revolutionary Thomas Francis Meagher was convicted by the English Occupation of sedition during trials around the planning and carrying out of the Irish Rising of 1848 and, with death sentence commuted, transported to Australia as a felon, from which he escaped to the USA in 1852.

As the American Civil War approached, Meagher, along with most of the Irish in the USA took the side of the Union, leaving only a rump following Mitchell, formerly a comrade of the Young Irelanders, to side with the slave-owning Confederacy in the conflict.

Meagher not only fought in the Union Army in the American Civil War against the slave-owning Confederacy, gaining the rank of Brigadier but he and his wife raised a regiment, the 69th New York Infantry, unofficially called The Irish Brigade or even Mrs. Meagher’s Own.

Plaque in Lower Abbey Street (opp. side of Abbey Theatre) to the first unveiling of the Irish Tricolour in Dublin, 1848. (Source: Internet)

The Young Irelanders were Republicans and the Tricolour was always seen not only as embodying the unity of all in Ireland, regardless of origin, against the British occupation but also for national liberation, against Monarchy and for complete separation of Church and State.

In addition, it had a strong internationalist element in that it was associated with revolution throughout Europe, presented to us in solidarity by French revolutionary women and flown alongside French Tricolours in Ireland at celebrations of the French revolution of 1848.

It was the principal flag of Irish anti-fascism too in the 1930s when Irish Republicans fought the fascist Blueshirts on Irish streets and a number of them went to fight in defence of the Spanish Republic against the fascist military coup of Franco and his Nazi German and Italian Fascist allies.

More recently when Irish Republicans and socialists mobilised against the attempts of the Irish ruling class to promote NATO and to ease cooperation with that alliance of Western imperialism, Harris also ranted against supporters of Anti-Imperialist Action flying of the Irish Tricolour.

The Tricolour among Loyalists was of course newsworthy and was covered by Irish mainstream media and Unionist mouthpiece The Belfast Telegraph along with photos by The Guardian on line. But all without comment on its presence in Palestine solidarity events in London.

Irish Tricolours have been flown at every current Palestine solidarity march in London (ten of them at the most recent London march) and, along with Saoirse Don Phalaistín printed on the Palastinian flag, have been seen also at university solidarity encampments and at events to free Julian Assange.

Section of Palestine solidarity protest at Barclays Bank, Tottenham Road, London on 24th April this year, showing Irish Tricolour and Saoirse Don Phalaistín flags. Zionists and British fascists are united in opposition to them across the road. (Photo cred: Northern Times)

The Tricolour Flown by Racists and Fascists?

Given its origins and history, why is the Tricolour being flown by fascists?

In recent years it seemed that whenever one saw a crowd with Tricolours among them, it was most likely a fascist or at least racist-led event. One reason for this is that the fascists historically try to portray themselves as nationalists, i.e organising ‘for the nation’.

In all cases historically, the “nation” represented by the fascists turned out to be that of the ruling class, the financial and industrial elite – never that of the working people, not even of those sections of the lower middle class that supported the rise of fascist movements.

Fascists however have also frequently colluded with the invader of their nation, for example with the Nazis in Europe, particularly in France, Greece, Yugoslavia, Ukraine.6 The fascists in Ireland today represent the neo-colonial,7 colonial and imperialist financial-industrial interests in Ireland.

Racist group from Dublin suburb finds common cause with British Loyalists in Belfast anti-immigration demonstration and riots 3 August 2024 (Photo cred: Irish News)

In that context, the unity of fascists from the Twenty-Six Counties with Loyalists from the Six Counties is not surprising, nor even with notorious English fascist Tommy Robinson. Prominent Irish fascists have had friendly interactions with Loyalist Jim Dowson and British fascist Farrage.

Portraying themselves as saviours of the nation, as moral guardians etc., just as the German Nazis did in the 1930s is hypocritical but absolutely necessary for them. If they revealed the class interests they represent and the kind of regime they really want, where would they get supporters?

The fascists are few and need those supporters, their easily-led mobs and stormtroopers. It is among sections of the down-trodden in society that they will find them, the ignorant, marginalised, abandoned by the capitalist system but all too often by the liberals and the Left also.

Substance addiction, mental illness, crime and cultural poverty is rife in these communities and it is sections of those who are presented with false enemies – migrants, LGBT people, muslims – by false saviours masquerading as patriots. Many in those communities are ripe for manipulation.

But the attempted takeover of the Tricolour and subversion has not occurred by Fascist manipulation and through historical and political ignorance alone.

When antifascists mobilise, rarely is the Tricolour seen amongst them, assisting the impression that it is the racists and fascists that are representing the nation. Understandably, Anarchists may not wish to fly the flag of a state and socialists may feel that the flag is representing a capitalist state.

Often too in the past, Republicans have been absent from antifascist mobilisations but on occasion too went to them ready for physical confrontation and therefore without flags. But what message do antifascists think is presented by Palestinian flags among them and Tricolours on the other side?8

Invited to speak at a conference on anti-fascism in Dublin some years ago, I raised the question of the appropriation of the Tricolour by fascists and how it was necessary for the antifascists to show it among themselves also but my recommendation did not win approval9.

It is depressing to see that the situation has not noticeably improved in this regard some years later.

A welcome recent exception to the rule: a number of Irish flags including the Tricolour among antifascists outnumbering fascists and racists in Dundalk, Co. Louth on 4 August 2024 (the day following the Belfast racist riots). The fascists and racists had to be escorted out of town by the Public Order Unit of the Gardaí (Source photo: Anti-Imperialist Action FB site)

The Irish state and the Tricolour

It took some time for the Tricolour to be adopted as the national flag in the Republican movement until its fluttering above the GPO at the Henry Street Corner during the 1916 Rising.10 Thereafter it represented the forces of national liberation in the War of Independence (1991-’21).

The Irish Tricolour (Photo cred.: Getty Images)

Facing treason and counter-revolution in 1922, it was the flag of the Anti-Treaty forces, the neo-colonial traitors only flying it in order to deny it to the Irish Republicans. Despite that fact it has remained the flag of Irish Republicanism, irreconcilable with neo-colonialism, racism or fascism.

Republican women activists of Cumann na mBan designed ‘Easter Lilly’ paper lapel pins to raise funds for dependants of Republicans imprisoned or killed during the Civil War and they did so in the colours of the Irish Tricolour: Green, White and Orange. The emblem is worn to this day.

The counter-revolutionary faction that spawned the fascist Blueshhirts11 did not formally adopt the Tricolour as the State flag in law, that was done by the next wave of counter-revolution, Fianna Fáil,12 while in government, situating it in the 1937 Constitution.

The Tricolour is in a sense the flag of everyone in Ireland who does not reject it or defile it but evidently too, in its origins and among those who bore it forward, it is anathema to racism.

Furthermore, it is symbolically anathema to colonialism, loyalism, neo-colonialism and monarchy. Clearly the Tricolour is not legitimately the flag of racists and fascists but neither is it of the gombeen regime that flies it; Harris and the neo-colonial State claiming it is also repugnant.

Effigy of Simon Harris showing the bloody hands of collusion in the ‘Israeli’ genocide against Palestinians at a Palestine solidarity protest last weekend (organised by Mothers Against Genocide, North Wicklow Against Genocide, Arklow Against Zionism) at the annual Bray Air Show which features UK Military fliers. (Photo cred: Aisling Hudson)

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Coolock (from the Irish place-name An Chúlóg) is a Dublin city suburban district that has seen riots and arson recently against plans to house refugees in a disused factory building there.

2Common name for the flag of the United Kingdom, more derogatorily known as ‘The Butcher’s Apron’, featuring heraldic cross and salterres of the nations of England, Scotland and Ireland (Wales had already been conquered and incorporated into the Kingdom of England).

3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_and_Emblems_(Display)_Act_(Northern_Ireland)_1954

4Such as the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force (see also ‘the Glennane Gang’) which targeted most of their victims on the assumption of their being of the Catholic faith but also occasionally those from the Protestant community they considered disloyal (see ‘the Shankill Butchers’) or with which they were in competition around gang crime. All operated with colonial police and British Army assistance.

5https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/08/04/cafe-and-supermarket-burnt-out-after-anti-immigration-protests-in-belfast/

6These fascist groups supplied police and auxiliary units to the Nazi occupation, collecting information on the antifascist Resistance and on fugitive Jews and Roma. In some cases, as in Ukraine, they also acted as prison and concentration camp guards (but their chief leader, Stepan Bandera, was nominated as a national hero by the current Kiyv regime).

7Sometimes called ‘comprador capitalist’ or ‘client regime’, a term describing a state that is nominally independent but is under the actual domination of an external state or states. The Irish state has been in turn dominated by Britain, the USA and the EU imperialists.

8This is an issue on Palestine solidarity marches and pickets upon which I have also commented before.

9A speaker from a very sectarian migrant group ridiculed the idea but no-one else spoke up in support.

10Incidentally, at the other corner of the GPO above Princes Street in 1916 flew the green flag with the words “Irish Republic” inscribed upon it in white and gold letters, which had been created for the occasion in the home of Constance Markievicz, socialist revolutionary of a settler landowning family and born in London. And the man who erected it was Argentinian-born-and-raised Eamon Bulfin. It is ironical in the extreme that this flag also is sometimes brandished by Irish racists opposing immigration.

11Irish fascist organisation officially called the Army Comrades Association (later The National Guard), led by former Gárda Commissioner Eoin O’ Duffy which later joined with two conservative parties to form the current Fine Gael, currently in the Coalition Government with its erstwhile opposition Fianna Fáil and the Green Party.

12A major split from Sinn Féin in the early 1930s, currently in the Coalition Government with its erstwhile opposition Fine Gael and the Green Party.

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_and_Emblems_(Display)_Act_(Northern_Ireland)_1954

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shankill_Butchers

References to the Tricolour at Belfast racist riots: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/08/04/cafe-and-supermarket-burnt-out-after-anti-immigration-protests-in-belfast/

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/far-right-irish-thugs-spent-night-drinking-with-uda-in-belfast-loyalist-bar/a1541636214.html

Origin & History of the Irish Tricolour: https://www.1916rising.com/cms/history/leaders-soldiers-and-poets/history-of-the-irish-flag/

CATALANS DENOUNCE A TORTURE POLICE STATION

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Canción en Lucha, Catalunya, Current Event Report, History commemoration, National Liberation, Police Violence, Political Prisoners, Song, Song in Struggle1 Comment

R. Breeze

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

On July Tuesday evening, a number of uniformed police officers watch the people in the road outside their police station on Via Laietana in Barcelona, the Catalan capital, many in the crowd holding placards protesting torture and impunity and a number carrying a banner.

The MC, a slim elderly woman, approaches the microphone stand, her back to the police station. Speaking in Catalan she reviews the reason for their rally which is to renew the historical memory of the Spanish State’s repression of dissent through torture with impunity.

The MC at the event speaking briefly (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)

A number of torture survivors address the crowd, sometimes experiencing difficulty in reading some passages of their notes. The crowd, mostly middle-aged or elderly, listen in silence. Some of them were victims too, many knew victims personally, many of the latter now dead.

For the past three years, the campaigners have been coming here every two weeks, renewing the historical memory and campaigning for a change of use in this building on one of the main roads of their city.

One of the torture survivors displaying the Vermella, the socialist version of the Catalan independence flag. (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)
Torture survivor speaking (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)
Another torture survivor speaking, Catalan independence flag visible in the crowd. (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)

REPRESSION AND TORTURE HEADQUARTERS

During the Franco fascist Dictatorship (1936-1975), this police station was the Barcelona HQ of repression and torture, its victims ranging from democrats to anarchists, republicans and communists. The Resistance methods were also varied: unarmed, industrial or armed.

The crowd takes to the street in front of the police station

After Franco’s death, repression continued through the period known as the Transition with torture as a standard police practice continuing for decades afterwards. Claims of torture were routinely ignored by judges who sentenced activists on the basis of their retracted admissions.1

On the few occasions when torture claims were investigated, it was done cursorily and on the much rarer occasions of trial and conviction for torture, the perpetrators as a rule saw no jail time.

The police station with a history of torture on Via Laietana, Barcelona, as demonstrators begin to gather in front. (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)
Commemorative plaque near the police station, regularly defaced and regularly repaired. (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)

The methods are known by police and military torturers across the world: punches, slaps and baton blows through towels (causing pain but leaving no marks), forced stress positions, electrical shocks of particularly sensitive areas, simulated asphyxiation through plastic bags, simulated drowning …

In the past these included suspending victims upside down by their ankles or upright balanced on toes. Of course all tortures are also accompanied by threats to the victims and their families, humiliation (including nakedness), sometimes sexual threats and even actual penetrations.2

Crowd gathering to begin their event. (Photo cred: D.Breatnach)

IRISH SONG IN THE STREET

The MC returns to the microphone at the conclusion of the witness testimonies and asks the crowd to welcome an activist, writer and singer from Ireland. The Irishman says he is honoured to speak at a location of struggle and even more so to bring solidarity from one nation’s struggle to another.

Though the fact is routinely overlooked or even denied, he says there are political prisoners in Ireland and because of the recent mistreatment of one of those in a prison in the British colony, all his comrades protested and were in turn supported by political prisoners in the Irish state jail.

Wearing a Palestinian scarf, speaking in Spanish, having apologised for his lack of anything but a few words in Catalan, the Irishman highlights the role of police stations as local centres of repression on behalf of the bourgeoisie, the repression all too often including torture.

The Irishman applauds the protesters’ upholding of historical memory and also their campaign to have the building reappointed as a social centre, before continuing to introduce his choice of two short songs of resistance from his homeland, one in English and the other in Irish.

The Irishman singing (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)

The first song he sings is Four Green Fields,3 which he has explained symbolises the four provinces of Ireland, the nation represented by an elderly woman. This is followed by Gráinne Mhaol,4 the nation again represented by a woman but younger, a warrior and pirate clan chieftain.

Following the applause, the MC returns and begins to read out a long list of known police and military individuals, after each one the crowd roaring “Torturadors!”

Crowd singing L’Estaca (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)

The event concludes with the singing of L’Estaca (The Stake – a song of resistance composed by Catalan Lluis Llach during the Franco dictatorship), many doing so with clenched fists raised. Soon afterwards, the crowd begins to break up, the road open to traffic once more, shoppers and tourists going by.

Section of the crowd at the anti-police-torture event with the Cathedral of Barcelona, destination of many tourists, visible in the background. (Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)
(Photo cred: Albert Bergadá Corso)

End.

FOOTNOTES
1A number of cases alleging torture found their way to the European Court of Human Rights but the Spanish State has never been found guilty of torture there (although in the case of one Basque woman, awarding her damages payment for failure of the State to investigate her allegations, the judges concluded almost in an aside that she had probably been tortured). It seems that the Strasbourg Court required the kind of evidence that could not reasonably be produced by the alleged victims. A number of judgements and payments have been recorded against the Spanish State on failure to investigate allegations of torture against political activists.

2 In the latter category two cases are well known, each suffered by Basques, one a woman and the other a man.

3 Composed by Tommy Makem who regularly performed with the Clancy Brothers folk group.

4 Composed by Pádraig Mac Piarais/ Patrick Pearse but structurally based on a much older Irish traditional song welcoming a bride to her new home. The heroine of his song is Gráinne Ní Mháille, a 17C clan chief in Co. Mayo.

SOURCES AND USEFUL LINKS

The campaigners may be followed on X (Twitter)
@comissdignitat
@p_represaliades

Torture in the Spanish state: https://www.amnesty.org/es/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/eur410011993en.pdf

https://www.omct.org/en/resources/blog/spain-reversing-the-long-lasting-impunity-for-torture

https://www.coe.int/en/web/cpt/-/anti-torture-committee-publishes-2020-visit-report-on-police-and-prisons-in-spain