Click on link to read the article in English or in Spanish: https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/2019/12/26/electricity-strikers-in-france-light-up-poor-homes-this-christmas-cut-power-and-gas-to-bosses-and-police/
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time text: 7 mins.)
Last Saturday (November 28th) saw the centenary of the Kilmichael Ambush, when a column of the West Cork IRA commanded by Tom Barry ambushed two lorry-loads of Auxiliaries and fought them to a finish, losing three of their own in the fight. It was a battle of tremendous importance in rural Ireland during the War of Independence, when the forces of British occupation of the nation turned to undisguised terrorism and employed the Auxiliaries as the knife edge of that terror. Despite the Covid19 pandemic restrictions, the 100th centenary was marked by physical commemorations in addition to on-line talks and articles. However, it appears that the “patriots” of the Far Right and fascists1 in Ireland failed to commemorate this important event – why might this be?
The Auxiliary Division were all ex-British Army officers but were recruited in July 1920 as a mobile strike force to bolster the British colonial police, the paramilitary Royal Irish Constabulary. This was in addition to another police support group which became known as the “Black and Tans”. The massive swelling of the ranks of the police was because the British rulers wanted to deny that they were fighting a liberation war and instead to present it as a policing problem (though they were obliged to use 20,000 British Army nevertheless)2. Both the ‘Tans and the Auxies gained a reputation for rough and arrogant treatment of civilians, torture of captives, theft, drunkenness and general indiscipline. However, a fear of the the “Auxies” had also grown, a feeling that they could not be beaten. The Kilmichael Ambush smashed that myth and was as important in the rural areas as the wiping out of much of the British intelligence network in Dublin was for the city.
However although they have been posing as Irish patriots, we saw no sign of the commemorative celebration of the Kilmichael Ambush from the Irish Far-Right and fascists. They have played patriotic ballads and anthems often at events and strutted around under — and sometimes wrapped in — Irish flags. They have tried to appropriate Irish patriot heroes and martyrs including Wolfe Tone, James Connolly and Terence MacSwiney. But they left Tom Barry untouched.
Niall McConnell, head of the fascist organisation (registered as a business) Síol na hÉireann, posted about James Connolly as though Connolly would have supported McConnell’s type of people and claimed Connolly was born in Ireland. Laughable though it may be to think that revolutionary socialist and anti-sectarian, anti-imperialist Connolly would ever have supported a little Ireland religious sectarian and fascist like McConnell, the latter did try to appropriate him. And although Connolly was born to Irish parents in Edinburgh, where he grew up, that was not enough for McConnell, who had to claim he’d been born in Ireland.
Wolfe Tone, a revolutionary patriotic democrat who strove to unite the mass of people in Ireland of different religions and who fought for a secular independent state, would have crossed the street to avoid the likes of McConnell – but that didn’t prevent McConnell from trying to appropriate him.
Recently we passed through the 100th anniversary of the death on hunger strike of Terence MacSwiney – and they tried to appropriate him too. MacSwiney was a devout Catholic but the IRA, of which he was a prominent officer in Cork, was a non-sectarian body. Presumably MacSwiney, like his IRA comrades, fought under the principles of the 1916 Proclamation, part of which read: “The Republic guarantees civil and religious liberty to all ….” Nevertheless, got up somewhat reminiscently of the Ku Klux Klan, McConnell led a small torchlit group allegedly to MacSwiney’s grave and had himself videoed making a speech there.
Dee Wall (real name Dolores Webster), whose Saturday afternoon screeching on behalf of the QAnon negationists and conspiracy theorists assails the ears of people passing the GPO in Dublin and whose social media tries to reach those who avoided that experience, tried to claim MacSwiney too, only she pronounced the surname as rhyming with “tiny” instead of like “sweeney” (as one who had never heard the name before might from the spelling alone).
Jim Dowson, a British fascist and sectarian Loyalist, who has shared a platform with fascists Rowan Croft (aka “Tan” Torino) and Herman Kelly of the Irish Freedom Party (but formerly of UKIP), has cheered the armed fascists of the National Party in attacking unarmed counter-protesters, calling them “my Fenians”. Yes, bizarre to call his fascist comrades anything to do with the revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood but even more so when “Fenians” is one of the hate-names of Dowson’s Loyalist brethren for Irish Republicans.
Another centenary we passed by very recently with a number of commemorations held outside the stadium was that of the Bloody Sunday Massacre in Croke Park by Auxiliaries, ‘Tans and RIC. Apparently the fascist National Party sneaked in an early videoed commemoration of their own before anyone else on the day and left a wreath among other floral tributes there.
Yet, despite this focus on recent centenaries in the Irish struggle for independence, the “patriots” of the Far Right and fascists in Ireland seem to have let that great event of the Kilmichael Ambush slip them by without a commemoration of any kind. Not a murmur, not a video, not a post, not a photo, not even a tweet from these publicity-obsessed types.
THEIR PROBLEM WITH KILMICHAEL AND TOM BARRY
What possible reason could there be for this omission by the fascists and Far Right?
Was it because Tom Barry, who led that ambush was anti-sectarian and proved it by publicly punishing two men who had robbed from a Protestant chapel in West Cork? Doubtful, because that did not stop the fascists trying to appropriate Wolfe Tone, whose main effort was precisely to end sectarianism.
Or was it because following the Kilmichael Ambush, the IRA were condemned by the Bishop of Cork, Daniel Colohan? We might be on to something there. “Demented” Dee Wall, Niall McConnell and National Party representatives all attended the anti-Muslim protest earlier this year, organised by Gemma O’Doherty, who unfurled a banner bearing the slogan “Make Ireland Catholic Again”, where they prayed the rosary through amplification. The new fascist parties, far-right organisations and the anti-mask people are building on the remaining fundamentalist hard-right reactionary core of the Catholic Church in Ireland who have seen its grip on the social and political life of society slipping over the years, due to its scandals and people’s democratic desire for equality.
By the way, Barry commented in his memoir that, although practicing Catholics, the threat of excommunication deterred the patriots of West Cork not in the least, as they were able to separate their religious from their patriotic views.
It may be that the false patriots have another problem with Barry: he fought against the Free State at least twice. Tom Barry, like the overwhelming majority of the military part of the resistance movement, rejected the terms of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1921 and refused allegiance to the 26-County Free State. The latter, in 1922 under Michael Collins, opened artillery fire upon the Republicans, launching a civil war which persisted until 1923 and during which the State, apart from those killed in battle, killed at least another 120, either through shooting prisoners, martial court executions or covert assassinations. Barry was part of the IRA’s leadership in the Civil War.
Although because he felt the war could no longer be won and was narrowly outvoted on ending it, Barry had resigned his leadership position shortly before the end of the Civil War, he rejoined the IRA leadership in 1927 and was jailed by the DeValera Government in 1934 for seven months on a charge of illegal possession of firearms.
In March 1936 Barry was suspected — but never charged — of involvement in the assassination of retired Vice-Admiral Henry Somerville at his home in Cork, because he was attempting to recruit people into the British Naval forces3. In 1937 Tom Barry was elected Chief of Staff of the IRA after the resignation of Seán McBride but resigned the position himself in 1938 over a tactical dispute.
Yet another problem for the Far Right and the fascists is that from the 1970s onward, though he publicly disagreed with some of their actions, Tom Barry stated he supported the Provisionals and later, Republican prisoners in the H-Blocks. At a commemoration at Crossbarry in 1980, the scene of another of Barry’s famous battles, shortly before his death, he was quoted as saying:
‘I don’t want you to fall out4 until the same prayers are said for men who are being crucified in H-block, Long Kesh. I want you to say prayers for them to show our unity with these men, many of whom are completely innocent and are railroaded by the same British that killed these men whom we are commemorating.’
The Far Right and fascist “patriots” have a big problem with the Provisionals5 and others who were, during the recent war of three decades, at the time fighting against British occupation for a united, independent Ireland.
IN CONCLUSION
Of course, given their flexibility with history, logic and integrity6, there is no guarantee that at some time in the future the Far Right and fascists will not try to appropriate the Kilmichael Ambush. However, their present difficulty with commemorating the event and celebrating the memory of a true patriot, Tom Barry, exposed the false patriotism of the Far Right and fascists in Ireland. But it did more: it gave a clear indication of what they do support.
The Far Right and fascists in Ireland support:
The Far Right and fascists, for all their slogans about “freedom”, “free speech” and posturing as “patriots”, are in opposition to freedom, both national, social and individual. There is nothing patriotic about them.
End.
FOOTNOTES:
1 Though the dividing line in Ireland between most of of the Far Right and committed fascists is a thin one, it nevertheless exists but it is important to note their past cooperation in staging public events and the continued presence of fascists within the Far Right.
2 Wikipedia gives the following figures: British Army 20,000; Royal Irish Constabulary 9,700; Black and Tans 7,000; Auxiliary Division 1,400; Ulster Special Constabulary 4,000 (i.e a total of 42,000 combatants). These were opposed in fighting by little more than 15,000 IRA and about 250 ICA (although those were supported by a large network of formal and informal non-combatants).
3 With the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1921, the British had retained the three deepwater “Treaty Ports” of Lough Swilly in Donegal, Berehaven and “Queenstown” (Cóbh) in Cork. The Irish State took these ports over with British agreement in 1938. De Valera’s refusal to allow the UK to use these ports during WW2 led to a threat of invasion by Churchill and the resultant declaration of an “Emergency” by the Irish Government and recruitment into its armed forces; the threat was unfulfilled and the Irish State remained neutral through the war though generally friendly to the Allies.
4 A military parade command: “Fall out” indicates that the parade is formally over and soldiers may disperse for recreation or take up other duties.
5 However the history-illiterate Dee Wall of the QAnon group, protesting outside Maghaberry Jail in solidarity with an anti-masker jailed for a few days in Maghaberry for refusing to give his name, stated that Bobby Sands had died there. Bobby Sands, the first of ten hunger strikers of the Provisional IRA and of the INLA, died on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of the Maze prison, which was closed 20 years ago.
6 Along with their willingness to libel with the most vile and outlandish personal accusations individuals who oppose them
SOURCES:
Condemnation of the IRA by the Bishop of Cork: https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/articles/bishop-of-cork-condemns-recent-violence-threatens-ex-communication
Barry’s partial support for the Provisionals (and his IRA involvement from 1922): https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/tom-barry-2/
For those who wish to read about the Kilmichael Ambush itself: https://rebelbreeze.com/2020/11/26/smashing-the-myth-the-kilmichael-ambush/
Diarmuid Breatnach
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh
(01/11/2020)
(Reading time: 2 mins.)
On October 31st two people died, one known around the world for his cinema roles, Seán Connery, who played James Bond and many better and less well known roles. The other death was that of the Colombian liberal politician Horacio Serpa. No sooner had he died the liberals and NGOs and all the former revolutionaries began to write and comment on the life of Serpa with a script that not even Connery could convincingly play.
So, just who was Horacio Serpa and what was his role in Colombian politics? His body hadn’t time to go cold and they were already rewriting the history of the country. The headline on El Espectador said it all, Remembering an Authentic Liberal. i Of course part of the problem depends on what you understand as a liberal, as in the current times when they talk of liberals and the Liberal Party one can barely recognise that it is and always has been the party of a sector of the Colombian oligarchy, that it is the party that gave us legalised paramilitaries, it is the party of massacre after massacre and of course they talk about it as if it wasn’t Liberal Party that gave us the health reform Law 100 (the liberal senator Uribe was the the speaker to the motion on the law, but the law was a proposal from the entire Liberal Party), nor that it was the party that gave us the infamous economic aperture of 1990.
So, for starts, Horacio Serpa who was the Minister of the Interior, under Samper, a government which deepened the aperture, was a neoliberal politician. In the midst of the political poverty of the current Colombian left, such as statement comes across like a grenade thrown or a burst of gunfire against Serpa’s good name. But, how are we to describe a minister in a neoliberal government as anything else? They say we shouldn’t and part of the problem is there are those who forget who President Samper was and what his government’s policies were. Worse still, they forget their own criticisms of that government. So let’s remind ourselves. Serpa was a neoliberal. Of course, he was a neoliberal speaking out both sides of his mouth, capable of calming the angels whilst defended the devils tooth and nail. A man of the right wing at the service of the oligarchy who with his populist discourse made himself out to be a progressive. Once again, some will say he wasn’t right wing. Is there another type of Minister of the Interior? Not only was he Minister of the Interior under Samper and champion in defending him against accusations of links to drug traffickers, but also he would later be Uribe’s ambassador to the Organisation of American States.
As we are in Colombia and politicians like Serpa are very deft, there is no lack of supposed lefties who will talk about how Serpa helped them. So in order to see what he was really like we should deal with some examples when Serpa did the exact opposite. In his passage through the Procurator General’s office he did nothing for the disappeared from the Palace of Justice. It was not at all surprising given his own role in that. The then Procurator Carlos Jiménez Gómez drew up a report and formerly denounced to
… the House Commission of Accusations President Belisario Betancur and his Minister of Defence, Miguel Vega Uribe for violating the Constitution and the Law of Nations now known as International Humanitarian Law.
The Procurator Jiménez’s denunciation with precise hard-hitting proof in hand was shelved through a motion presented by the representatives Carlos Mauro Hoyos, Horacio Serpa and Darío Alberto Ordoñez, arguing that “it was a typical act of government in the most important area under the remit of the President of the Republic namely to uphold public order and re-establish it wherever it has broken down”.ii
That is Horacio Serpa, the man who ensured that there would be no investigation of the events. A friend and accessory after the fact of criminals. It is worth pointing out that two of those who suppressed the accusation would later hold the office of procurator, Hoyos was the successor to the whistleblower Jiménez Gómez and Serpa then replaced Hoyos and thus the truth was buried underneath the ruins of the palace and the manoeuvres of Serpa and company.
But some claim he was a friend of the workers and an enemy of paramilitaries. Leave aside that he served in governments that actively promoted paramilitaries, those of Samper and Uribe and lets look at when workers reached out to his office to seek protection. After the 1995 massacre of palm workers in San Alberto, Cesar, the workers met with Horacio Serpa who was the Minister of the Interior at the time. In their oral history published in 2018, the workers narrate how Serpa told them “there was nothing that could be done as the paramilitary project was very big, and upon finishing the meeting and when we were heading towards the door he said ‘lads it is best that you be careful, because in this country if you stick your head above the parapet it will get knocked off.”iii Of course, he didn’t want to do anything to protect the workers of the palm company Indupalma, whilst at that exact time both he and his government maintained a military base within the plantation to protect the company’s assets. That is Horacio Serpa, loyal friend of the oligarchy, traitor speaking out both sides of his mouth to the workers, a defender of criminals such as the murderers behind the events of the Palace of Justice and a man capable of placing an entire battalion at the disposition of a company in order to protect it and not lift a finger to protect the workers in that company.
So, on October 31st, one of the greats died who we will remember fondly, with admiration, someone who contributed positively to our lives. Rest in Peace, Seán Connery.
End.
i El Espectador (31/10/2020) Remembranza de un liberal auténtico https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/politica/muerte-de-horacio-serpa-un-liberal-autentico/
ii Llano, H (16/11/2015) Palacio de justicia: mentiras públicas y verdades desaparecidas https://razonpublica.com/palacio-de-justicia-mentiras-publicas-y-verdades-desaparecidas/
iii Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (2018) Y A La Vida Por Fin Daremos Todo… Bogotá: CNMHp. 242
Geoff Cobb
(Reading time text: 2 mins.)
The ugly violent pattern that has become a norm for far-right thugs again repeated itself Saturday night in the America’s capital city as thousands of pro-Trump extremists descended on the city to support their leader’s fraudulent claim that President-elect Joe Biden stole the recent presidential election. Saturday night’s violence surprised few and was merely a repeat of scenes that repeatedly took place this summer and autumn in other liberal cities such Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Many infamous hate-group street-brawlers showed up Saturday including The Proud Boys, American Guard, Oath Keepers, and Groypers. These groups mingled in daytime with other Trump enthusiasts who carried flags and banners reading, “Trump 2020: Keep America great”, “Trump 2020: No more bullshit”, “All aboard the Trump train!” and “Trump 2020: Pro- life, pro God, pro-gun”, while Trump’s faithful shouted “USA! USA!”, “We want Trump! We want Trump!” and “Four more years! Four more years!”
The crowd’s wishes were answered when Trump himself emerged from the White House in his limousine to raucous applause, cheers, waving and whistles from hundreds of supporters lining both sides of the street. They raised fists in salute, took pictures with phones and held signs that included “Best prez ever” and “Stop the steal.” Some supporters ran excitedly behind the presidential motorcade chanting, “We want Trump! We want Trump!” and “Four more years! Four more years!”
Far right-wing celebrities egged on the crowd including notorious Info Wars rabble rouser Alex Jones and Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the extremist Proud Boys group who gained nationwide notoriety when Trump famously acknowledged them during a Presidential debate claiming they should “stand down and stand by.” Jack Posobiec, who promoted the infamous “Pizzagate” conspiracy was also part of the march.
Trump has still not conceded, denying the validity of the results of the presidential election, adding to the sullen and vengeful mood of the marchers. Many of his aggrieved supporters were not only there to protest. They were there for violence and waited until nightfall to swing into action. Large menacing throngs of Proud Boys and other violent pro-Trump brawlers combed downtown streets and commenced an orgy of violence including punching, shoving, kicking and stabbing protesters, while Metro Police seemingly ignored the brawlers and focused on restraining the Anti-Trump demonstrators. According to the Washington Post twenty people were arrested, including four charged with gun possession. One person was stabbed and had to be hospitalized.
Instead of condemning the violence Trump’s tweet seemed to revel in it: ANTIFA SCUM ran for the hills today when they tried attacking the people at the Trump Rally, because those people aggressively fought back. Antifa waited until tonight, when 99% were gone, to attack innocent #MAGA People. D.C. Police, get going — do your job and don’t hold back!!!
Trump retweeted a misleading video posted by right-wing pseudo-journalist Andy Ngo, depicting a Trump supporter being knocked out from behind by an antifascist protester. “Human Radical Left garbage did this,” Trump wrote. “Being arrested now!” However, Ngo’s video was deceptively edited to blame antifascists for the violence. Another unedited video clearly shows that the Trump supporter started the altercation by punching and shoving a protester who had been using a bullhorn, then brawling with a number of other protesters, before finally receiving a knockout sucker punch.
The Proud Boys instigated other acts of violence, deliberately attacking people who voiced opposition. The cops intervened but directed their attention at the protesters, not at the Proud Boys, who had clearly instigated the violence. Melees broke out in the middle of intersections where protesters sometimes gathered. At other times, gangs of pro-Trump rally-goers chased protesters down and beat them up. In one horrifying instance, Proud Boys knocked out a black female and left her unconscious in the street.
One of the victims wounded in the melees was journalist Talia Jane, who was stabbed from behind in the ear. Jane was also punched by an assailant who simply approached her and knocked her down. She got treated and continued reporting the rest of the night with a bandage wrapped round her head. Other journalists were harassed and even chased. MSNBC reporter Ellison Barber was chased by Trump thugs who chanted ‘fake news, fake news. ”
During the evening, a crowd of pro-Trump thugs were filmed destroying six large Black Lives Matter signs on the front of the Laborers International Union of North America building, near McPherson Square, while police stood by and failed to intervene. They then stomped on and destroyed other BLM signs.
Amazingly Trump and his supporters in the media have blamed such violence not on right wing extremists and brawlers, but on Antifa and sadly, millions of Americans have believed this false narrative. Hopefully, the new administration will crack down on these thugs and end the orgy of violence on the streets of America’s cities.
End.
Rebel Breeze postcript, from Wikipedia: Gavin McInnes co-founded Vice magazine in 1994, but he was pushed out in 2008 due to “creative differences”. After leaving, he began “doggedly hacking a jagged but unrelenting path to the far-right fringes of American culture”, according to a 2017 profile in the Canadian Globe and Mail.[43] The Proud Boys organization was launched in September 2016, on the website of Taki’s Magazine, a far-right publication for which white nationalist Richard B. Spencer had once served as executive editor.[5] It existed informally before then as a group centered around McInnes, and the first gathering of the Brooklyn chapter in July 2016 resulted in a brawl in the bar where they met. The name is derived from the song “Proud of Your Boy” originally created for Disney’s 1992 film Aladdin but left out following story changes in production and later featured in the 2011 musical adaptation. In the song the character Aladdin apologizes to his mother for being a bad son and promises to make her proud. McInnes interprets it as Aladdin apologizing for being a boy. He first heard it while attending his daughter’s school music recital. The song’s “fake, humble, and self-serving” lyrics became a running theme on his podcast. McInnes said it was the most annoying song in the world but that he could not get enough of it.
Geoffrey Cobb
(Reading time: 8 mins.)
If people know anything about the Lakota nation, known to Americans as the Sioux, then it is the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which the Lakota dealt the United States Army a humiliating defeat, completely destroying the Seventh Cavalry of General George Custer. This battle, however, was merely one chapter in the continuing struggle of the Lakota people against the ongoing colonialism practiced by the United States government.
The Lakota, a semi-autonomous people whose reservations occupy huge Areas of North and South Dakota have defined themselves over generations by stubbornly clinging to their culture, language and values against the forces of cultural assimilation wielded against them by the United States government.
In the 1860s, conflict arose as settlers entered the Lakota homeland, which covered a huge swath of the American Great Plains. A nomadic people, the Lakota lifestyle centered around hunting the massive herds of bison. The Lakota signed treaties protecting their homeland in 1851 and 1868, but the United States government broke them before the ink was even dry. After the disaster at Little Big Horn, the American army hungered for revenge and it responded with a campaign of terror, beginning with the Wounded Knee massacre, in which soldiers slaughtered hundreds of Native people, including women and children.
The sovereignty of the Lakotas depended on bison, and the American government embarked on a program of systematic extermination of these herds, In a three-year period, hunters butchered more than three million bison, close to 3,000 animals a day. Their food source gone, the Lakota were forced to end their armed struggle and live on reservations, which was often the poorest and most desiccated land.
The Lakota were to experience even worse horrors than the destruction of their traditional way of life. Their very culture was targeted for extermination. The American government mounted a nearly 100 year-long calculated assault on the Lakota as the state tried to force them to assimilate. The government banned the Sundance, the Lakota’s most sacred ceremony, with its days of fasting and ritual bloodletting and they were forbidden to openly practice their religion. However, perhaps most devastating to the Lakota psyche were the boarding schools, in which generations of Indians were forced to assimilate into white culture. Lakota children were severely beaten for even speaking their native tongue. As a result, many Lakota began to doubt the worth of their indigenous culture and lack of cultural pride still is an issue haunting many Lakota today.
The Lakota still struggle to cope with the attempts to destroy their culture. Their reservations are the scenes of grinding poverty. The Lakota have tragically high rates of unemployment, alcoholism, drug addiction, family abuse and suicide. There is a severe housing shortage on the reservations, which has magnified the effects of the covid pandemic on the Lakota.
Lakota culture, though, proved difficult to exterminate and their faith survived. Central to that faith is the belief that nature is our mother and that humans should live in harmony with nature. This belief manifested itself in 2014 when the Dakota access pipeline was announced. The 3.78 billion dollar underground oil pipeline was intended to run for 1,172-mile-long (1,886 km) across Lakota lands. The Lakota immediately objected to the project because it not only threatened the Missouri River, their water supply, but also would destroy sites of cultural, historic and religious significance to the Lakota.
In the Spring of 2016, The Lakota mobilized to protest the pipeline, but it seemed like David fighting Goliath. The protests, which lasted months through sub-zero winter temperatures, were organized by Lakota teenagers on the Standing Rock Reservation. In the vanguard of the protesters were women who defied mace attacks, arrests and strip searches. The police used teargas, bulldozers and “military-style counterterrorism measures” to suppress the protesters, but the Standing Rock protests attracted tens of thousands of Native Americans from across the continent, becoming the largest Native American demonstration against the government in over a century. The rallying cry of the protestors in Lakota was “Mni wichoni! Water is life!” The protests became a cause célèbre, drawing media attention from around the world, as international environmentalists supported the Lakota defiance.
President Donald Trump supported construction of the pipeline and spoke out in favor of crushing the Native American protestors, but in a shocking decision on August 5, 2020, a district court ruled in favor of the Lakota. ” Mike Faith, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, expressed delight at the verdict, “Today is a historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the many people who have supported us in the fight against the pipeline.”
Trump, though, was not finished in his battle with the Lakota and would continue disrespecting them. Trump deliberately chose to target the Lakota by celebrating the July 4th holiday of American Independence at an inflammatory site: Mt. Rushmore, where massive heads of American presidents were carved into mountains the Lakota hold sacred. “Wherever you go to connect to God, that’s what the Black Hills are to the Lakota,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of NDN Collective, an Indigenous activist group. Prospectors seized the land during a gold rush in the 1870s, violating the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which recognized the Black Hills as Lakota property. In 1980, A Federal Judge sided with the Native Americans in a suit to reclaim the Black Hills but awarded them a monetary settlement in lieu of the land. The Lakota, offended by the decision, have never touched the money.
The statues were carved by a white supremacist with strong ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Harold Frazier, the chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, called the monument a “brand on our flesh” that needed to be removed. He said,” Visitors look upon the faces of those presidents and extol the virtues that they believe make America the country it is today. Lakota see the faces of the men who lied, cheated and murdered innocent people whose only crime was living on the land they wanted to steal.” Washington and Jefferson were both slave owners, and Lincoln ordered the hanging of 38 Lakota men in Minnesota after an uprising of 1862. Theodore Roosevelt once said, “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are.”
Trump’s arrival again spurred Lakota protests and at least fifteen activists were arrested for blocking the highway leading to Mount Rushmore. One of the activists, Michael Patrick O’Connor, said he came because he wanted to express his outrage at the desecration of his people’s sacred lands and his frustration at a president who has failed the people of America. “I couldn’t find any reason not to be up here,” he said. “I felt like I owed it to the grandmas and grandpas, owed it to the people who suffered before us to do something and to come here because our people were gathering.”
Good Voice Elk, a spiritual advisor for the Lakota, was among the older protestors. He said this was by no means his first protest. “I grew up in protests,” he said. “The seventies were really bad, and those kids, now they are the leaders.” Protesters ranged in age from senior citizens to children as young as 10. One girl was brought by her father from the Ute Mountain tribe in Colorado so she could experience Indigenous communities coming together.
Nick, Tilsen, the leader of the non-violent protest, has been singled out for retribution by local officials. He is facing felony charges that bring his potential prison sentence to 17 years. Tilsen is just the latest victim in the American government’s attempt to crush Lakota resistance. Despite the heavy-handed response to the protests, it’s hard to imagine the tenacious Lakota giving up anytime soon.
End.
USEFUL LINKS
Defend, Develop, Decolonise collective: https://ndncollective.org/
Clive Sulish
(Reading time text: 5 mins.)
After a military invasion by the Moroccan Kingdom into the “buffer zone” in Western Sahara, the Polisario Front, liberation and resistance organisation of the Saharawi, gave the MINURSO (UN) mission in Western Sahara 12 hours to leave the territory. Meanwhile the Polisario also retaliated against the Moroccan occupation with an attack against the Wall, while young Saharawi confronted occupation forces in a number of localities.
According to sources close to Polisario, the Saharan People’s Liberation Army, in response to the Moroccan invasion, undertook artillery strikes against Moroccan military targets along the Moroccan military wall that cuts through Western Sahara. The targets of the attacks were the following Moroccan military bases and surveillance points along the wall: Moroccan military base No.23 (Mahbes), Moroccan military base No.4 (Hauza), Surveillance Point No.71, Moroccan military base No.17 (Oust), surveillance point No.172, Moroccan military base Nos. 17 and 18. A press release from the Saharan People’s Liberation Army added that its fire on Moroccan military positions led to human casualties and material losses for the Moroccan Army and that Moroccan soldiers fled some of their positions along the Moroccan Wall.
The Polisario also alleged that Moroccan forces had attacked Saharawi civilians who had gone to protest peacefully at the first breach of the buffer zone, at Guerguerat, civilians which subsequently the Polisario had evacuated safely. Subsequently Moroccan military had breached the zone at another three points, it alleged.
The General Secretary of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, gave a press statement in which he announced the retaliatory attacks against what he called a violation of the 1991 ceasefire, “repeatedly violated by Morocco” but which, with the invasion of the buffer zone, “has now gone past the point of no return”.
“DIFFICULT TO RESTRAIN THE YOUTH”
Over the years since 1991, as no progress towards independence seemed to be made, the Polisario leadership has at times found it difficult to restrain its youth from returning to armed struggle. And Moroccan police have carried out much repression of peaceful protest demonstrations, plain-clothes officers beating even women and children in the street. At a conference in Dublin last year (see Rebel Breeze report link below) representatives of the Saharawi people spoke about the human rights abuses by the Moroccan authorities in Western Sahara and about the discrimination and deprivation of the Saharawi people in a number of important areas of life.
At the above conference, despite reference by a number of people to a “Western Saharan peace process”, in reply to a direct question from the floor, the European representative of the Polisario, Mr. Mohamed Belsat, tacitly admitted that no such process existed and talked about the Polisario’s difficulty in restraining the Saharawi youth.
A source close to Saharan activists from the city of El Aaiún confirmed that dozens of young Saharauis in the El Inach Matalaa and Tatan districts were confronting Moroccan gendarmerie and police patrols during the early hours of Friday evening. According to the sources, these protests against the occupation and support for the start of war against the regime have shifted and hardened in the Ghiyadet, Bucraa and Lahum districts. The source consulted stated that as of Friday night, the riots against the occupation administration in the city of El Aai ún were continuing.
BACKGROUND
The Spanish colony of Western Sahara (also known in the past as “Spanish Sahara”) was abandoned by the Spanish State in 1975; instead of decolonising it and facilitating a referendum on independence, the Spanish State’s evacuation cleared the stage for two neighbouring states to invade the country: the Kingdom of Morocco and Mauritania.
The Saharawi people formed the Polisario Front guerrilla organisation to resist the invasion and occupation of their land and also formed a government in exile, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, in Tindouf in Algeria. Mauritania relinquished the territory it occupied and any claim to Western Sahara in 1979 but Morocco continues to pursue its annexation and its attendant repression of the Saharawi people.
“Western Sahara has been described as the last colony in Africa and has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975. Morocco is obliged under international law and as a member of the UN to allow a vote of self-determination for the people of the territory. Yet for 35 years 165,000 Saharawi people have lived in refugee camps in Southern Algeria, ethnically cleansed from their own country. Morocco built a 2,700km wall visible from Google earth to stop the Saharawi people returniing to their country.” (From press release at the launch of Western Sahara Ireland Action group in November 2010).
Formally the UN considers that the Saharawi people have the right to self-determination and recognises the Polisario Front as the legitimate representative of the Saharawi people. In 1991 the UN brokered a ceasefire and established a mission on the territory. However over the years the UN has failed to take any action and many people have wondered at the point of its mission there. Interestingly, it is the only UN permanent mission that does not have a human rights watch brief. At the same time, the Moroccan authorities put a media blanket over Western Sahara to prevent reports of repression, including torture, emerging or, if leaked out, being investigated by journalists.
In addition, the ceasefire agreement authorised Morocco to administer two-thirds of the country and most of the Atlantic coastline, which has facilitated its plunder of Western Sahara’s natural resources and by others, including by EU states. One of the big member states of the EU, France is a big supporter of its former colony, the Kingdom of Morocco and the US has also tacitly to date supported Morocco.
A referendum was supposed to be held after 1991 but it kept getting blocked as Morocco disputed the terms under which it would take place. About 85,000 voters were identified by the UN in 1991, nearly half of which were in the Moroccan-controlled parts of Western Sahara, with the others scattered between the Tindouf refugee camps, Mauritania and other places of exile. The Polisario accepted this voter list, as it had done with the previous list presented by the UN (both of them originally based on the Spanish census of 1974), but Morocco refused and, as rejected voter candidates began a mass-appeals procedure, insisted that each application be scrutinised individually. This brought the process to a halt once more.
The ceasefire agreement of 1991 also provided for a buffer zone in Western Sahara which, in effect, protects the Moroccan wall from Saharawi attack but was supposed to protect the Saharawi also from further Moroccan incursion. This zone by Morocco’s Wall was to be patrolled by the UN but it was that same zone which the Moroccan Army has now invaded; the Polisario have obviously lost patience with the state of affairs, retaliated against Morocco’s troops on the Wall and ordered the UN Mission to leave the country.
SOURCES & USEFUL LINKS
https://www.facebook.com/groups/256377861125569
“THE LAST COLONY IN AFRICA” — REPRESENTATIVES SPEAK IN DUBLIN
Geoffrey Cobb
(Reading time: 3 mins)
In London in 1847 (i.e the worst year of the Great Hunger — Editor Rebel Breeze), though images of the suffering and starvation in Ireland appeared in newspapers, few upper class British people were moved to help. One exception to this indifference was a Polish count who became a naturalized British subject, Paul (Pawel) Strzelecki. A new exhibit at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin: A Forgotten Polish Hero in the Great Irish Famine, Paul Strzelecki’s struggle to save thousands, honours this selfless Pole who helped feed at least 200,000 starving people in the west of Ireland. Created by Nikola Skowska-Moroney at the Polish Embassy in Dublin, the exhibition will be part of a nationwide tour at various venues throughout the country.
Strzelecki was not only a great humanitarian, but also a fascinating character in his own right. Born into a minor aristocratic family, he served in the Prussian army and had his heart broken when the family of the young woman he had fallen in love with refused his offer of marriage on account of his modest means. Crushed, he decided to leave Poland and traveled the world, visiting Africa, North and South America before traveling to Polynesia and Australia. He became a self-taught scholar in geography, geology and anthropology and corresponded with Charles Darwin. In Australia, he climbed the continent’s highest peak, naming it for the great Polish revolutionary Tadeusz Kosciuszko and explored Tasmania. He became a British subject in 1845 and published his Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, for which he received the Founder’s medal of the Royal Geographical Society.
In 1845, he returned to London where he became friendly with Samuel John Lloyd, an associate of the powerful banker Baron Lionel de Rothschild. The two bankers, moved by the suffering of the Irish, founded the British Relief Association, which collected money for famine relief. Strzelecki volunteered to go to Ireland as an unpaid agent of the B.R.A. Traveling across the famine stricken land, Strzelecki was shocked by the suffering and death he saw around him. In Co. Mayo, Strzelecki organized soup kitchens and gave cash to relief committees. He focused much of his relief work on children. Strzelecki decided to stay in Ireland because, unlike others, he correctly predicted that famine would return to Ireland the following year. The B.R.A. named Strzelecki as agent for all of Ireland and he helped the hungry until the organization’s funds were depleted. He then returned to London where he pled for further funds and explained that humanitarianism must take precedence over every other consideration. In 1849, he again returned to Ireland where he tried to feed the hungry.
Strzelecki also helped many Irish families to emigrate to Australia and the United States. His efforts were recognized by the Crown and he was knighted in 1849. For many years Strzelecki’s heroism was forgotten, but the Polish Embassy in Ireland has sponsored the exhibition to remind Ireland of this great Polish humanitarian. Hopefully, Strzelecki’s story will resonate both with the Irish and with the many Polish people who now call Ireland home and bond the two groups closer together.
End.
Postscript from Editor Rebel Breeze: There is a plaque in Dublin commemorating this man on the side of the Clery’s building in Sackville Place, at the corner with O’Connell Street. Do our readers know of any other such plaques or monuments to him, for example in Mayo?
Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 5 mins.)
In the midst of an arrest operation on Wednesday of 21 people for alleged misuse of public funds to assist the Catalan independence movement, the Spanish State issued a statement alleging that Russia had offered the movement 10,000 Russian soldiers to aid their struggle. It wasn’t the only Russian connection to the Spanish police operation, which they had named Operación Volkhov.
The arrests this week form part of measures by the State against Catalan independence activists since 2017. That year, a coalition of pro-independence political parties and a huge grassroots movement in Catalonia pushed for a referendum to vote for or against an independent Catalan republic, which the pro-Spanish union opposition called on people to boycott. The Spanish State sent its police to raid Catalan regional government offices, confiscate ballot papers, search for ballot boxes (unsuccessfully) and, on the day of the Referendum itself on October 1st, to storm polling stations and beat up voters.
Since then, the Spanish State has jailed seven Catalan politicians and two leaders of grassroots movements on charges of sedition, charged senior Catalan police officers with disobedience (recently acquitted), charged activists with possession of explosives (turned out to be fireworks), other Catalan politicians – including the former President — are in exile, the current President of the regional government has been banned from holding office, 700 local town mayors are under investigation and others are facing charges arising out of strikes and acts of civil disobedience such as blocking streets and a motorway (for which one activist was charged with terrorism). The raid this week comes in addition to all those legal processes.
There is something of an irony in charging Catalan activists with misuse of public funds in pursuance of independence, given that independence is what many of the Catalan public desire but even more ironic considering the rampant corruption endemic in Spanish political circles and the Monarchy itself, the former King Juan Carlos resigning amidst allegations of financial corruption and being allowed to flee the country ahead of an investigation.
Whatever about the charges of misuse of public funds it is unlikely that most political observers will take the allegations of an offer of Russian military intervention seriously and not only because it comes from Guardia Civil intelligence, a police force maintaining the fascist Franco dictatorship for four decades and, according to many, especially Basques and Catalans, not much changed since. The notion that Russia would risk a war with the EU and the US-dominated NATO, in order to help free a nation of 7.5 million people nowhere near its own territory, must be laughable.
For those facing charges, under investigation, in exile or already in jail, the situation is not humorous. And then there is the sinister name of the police operation. During WW2, General Franco, dictator of a neutral Spain sent fascist volunteers to aid the Axis in Europe, many of them fighting on the Russian front. Franco had quite recently led a successful military-fascist uprising against the Spanish left-wing Popular Front Government, for which he had been aided by Nazi German and Fascist Italian armament and men. His victory was followed by a repression that left Spain with more mass graves than anywhere else other than Cambodia. The Spanish volunteers to fight Soviet communism formed the Blue Division – blue, from the colour of the Falangist shirts and uniforms.
SPANISH FASCISTS ON THE VOLKHOV FRONT
Among the Nazi German forces in the Volkhov region were the men of the Blue Division and it seems they carried out a successful night crossing of the Volkhov River on 18th October 1941. A subsequent Red Army advance in January 1942 failed ultimately because not all the components of the operation had advanced according to plan. In August 1942 the Blue Division was transferred north to take part in the Siege of Leningrad, on the south-eastern flank of the German Army.
However in February of that 1943, operations on the Volkhov Front formed Part of the Red Army plan to first break the siege of Leningrad and then trap Nazi forces in encirclement. According to what seems a Spanish-sympathetic Wikipedia account of the battle at Krasny Bor, in the vicinity of Volkov, the Blue Division fought stubbornly from 10-13 February 1943. On February 15, the Blue Division reported casualties of 3,645 killed or wounded and 300 missing or taken prisoner, which amounted to a 70–75% casualty rate of the troops engaged in the battle. The remnants were relieved and moved back towards the rear.
Red Army casualties were much higher and, although forces attacking well-fortified positions backed by good artillery and tanks, all of which the Nazis had, can expect to lose three attackers for every one defender, Russian analysis later blamed bad leadership, ineffective use of artillery and clumsy use of tanks for their losses.
A Spanish police force evoking today the memory of Spain’s fascist troops in WW2 might seem ominous but to those who believe that the Spanish ruling class and their police force have never ceased to be fascist, the only surprise will be its effrontery. To the Guardia Civil, the fighting in the vicinity of Volkhov in October 1941 might seem the finest hour of the Blue Division but they might do well to remember that effectively it also met its end there in 1943: the Division ceased to exist and was reformed as the Blue Legion, soon afterwards to be disbanded, some soldiers absorbed into the Waffen SS and others withdrawn home.
RUSSIAN TROOPS FOR CATALONIA?
Fast forwarding to the present, the Russians, at least in their Embassy in Madrid, treated the allegation of their offering troops to support Catalan independence as a joke. The following post in Spanish appeared on their electronic notice and comment board (translated):
Note: The information that appeared in the Spanish media about the arrival of 10,000 Russian soldiers in Catalonia is incomplete. It is necessary to add a further two zeros to the number of soldiers and the most shocking thing of all this conspiracy: the troops were to be transported by “Mosca” and “Chato” planes assembled in Catalonia during the Civil War and hidden in a safe place in the Catalan Sierra (mountain range) until they received the encrypted order to act through these publications.
End.
SOURCES:
Police operation name, raid and arrests: https://english.vilaweb.cat/noticies/spains-paramilitary-police-names-newest-raid-after-ww2-fascist-victory/
History of the Volkhov Front, WW2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkhov_Front
Battle of Krasny Bor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Krasny_Bor#Soviet_Union_–_Leningrad_Front
Russian Embassy humorous comment: https://spain.mid.ru/es_ES/-/replica-de-la-embajada-sobre-la-informacion-aparecida-en-los-medios-espanoles-sobre-la-llegada-de-10-mil-soldados-rusos-a-cataluna?redirect=https%3A//spain.mid.ru/
Diarmuid Breatnach
El 18 de agosto, se llevaron a cabo redadas contra partidarios del partido republicano irlandés Saoradh tanto en los Seis Condados ocupados como en el estado irlandés. Las redadas en los Seis Condados fueron coordinadas por el MI5 (Servicio de Inteligencia británica) y las de los 26 Condados (el Estado Irlandés) a instancias de los británicos o planificadas por ellos (el jefe de la Gardaí, Drew Harris, es un exdiputado jefe de de la policía colonial británica, el PSNI y sería un activo del MI5, por lo tanto).
Las redadas en los 26 condados, aunque derribaron violentamente las puertas de las casas y atemorizaron a las parejas y los niños, hasta la fecha no han dado lugar a cargos, pero las de los Seis Condados, facilitadas por un agente del MI5, resultaron en cargos graves y encarcelamiento de ocho. sin fianza en espera de juicio sin jurado en el Tribunal Diplock.
Todos los detenidos en los Seis Condados fueron encarcelados en la cárcel de Maghaberry, teniendo primero que pasar dos semanas en cuarentena en Foyle House. La instalación donde los presos fueron obligados a soportar este período ha sido descrita por los presos como “sucia y ruinosa” y con “cartones de leche pegados a la pared con heces” pero, habiéndolo soportado, fueron trasladados a la población general de presos políticos en Maghaberry.
Uno de los detenidos es el doctor Issam Hijjawi, que tiene problemas de salud por lo cual hace tiempo que buscaba hacerse una resonancia magnética. Finalmente se le concedió y fue trasladado bajo custodia al hospital donde se realizó el procedimiento. Sin embargo, a su regreso, fue nuevamente enviado a Foyle House para pasar otras dos semanas en esas condiciones insalubres, aunque fácilmente podría haber sido acomodado en la cárcel cerca de los otros presos para concluir otras dos semanas de cuarentena allí. Además, la naturaleza punitiva es clara cuando uno se entera de que los funcionarios de prisiones que acompañaron al doctor Issam Hijjawi no estaban obligados a ponerse en cuarentena y cuando la “focalización concertada de molestías que ha sufrido desde que entró en Maghaberry”, según los presos, se lleva a la cuenta.
El doctor Issam Hijjawi se declaró en huelga de hambre en protesta y el 17 de septiembre 20 presos políticos en Roe House Maghaberry y 25 en E3 y E4 en las cárceles de Portloise se embarcaron en una huelga de hambre en solidaridad (tres presas políticas de Hydebank prisión también se incorporó la semana pasada). Se trata de prisioneros que están bajo el cuidado de la IRPWA (Asociación de Bienestar de Presxs Republicanxs de Irlanda), que tiene una estrecha relación con el partido Saoradh.
Saoradh y la IRPWA organizaron piquetes de protesta en varias partes de Irlanda, incluidas Dublín, Belfast, Derry, Tralee, Kilmainham Jail, que contaron con el apoyo de militantes del amplio movimiento republicano y antiimperialista.
Para el 26 de septiembre, el día 11 de la huelga de hambre, también organizaron una protesta frente a la cárcel de Maghaberry, con discursos, cánticos y fuegos artificiales. Más tarde ese mismo día, el PSNI (la policía colonial británica, antes RUC) detuvo a dos de los partidarios de Saoradh, incluido su presidente de la sucursal de Derry, por “comportamiento desenfrenado”, “comportamiento desordenado” y “posesión de fuegos artificiales ilegales”.
Los participantes que iban al estacionamiento para apoyar a los detenidos fueron recibidos por policías coloniales con equipo antidisturbios que, según testigos republicanos, empujaron, golpearon, estrangularon y tiraron del cabello a los manifestantes.
Mientras que los dos republicanos de Derry fueron llevados por la policía colonial a la Unidad de Interrogatorios de Musgrave, más policías coloniales con equipo antidisturbios se trasladaron al campo de solidaridad frente a la cárcel de Maghaberry y detuvieron a dos partidarios del grupo juvenil republicano Éistigí, que también fueron llevados a la Unidad de Musgrave.
Dos días después, el lunes por la mañana, los cuatro comparecieron en el Tribunal de Lisburn a través de un enlace de video de la Unidad Musgrave, donde se les concedió la libertad bajo fianza en condiciones que violaban sus derechos civiles: no se les permite estar en compañía del otro ni en contacto; no deben estar a menos de 100 metros de una protesta o procesión notificada o no notificada; los cuatro hombres tienen que presentarse en un cuartel británico tres veces por semana.
La policía colonial quería aún más, que fueran etiquetados electrónicamente, en el toque de queda de 16.00 a 8.00 y no se les permitiera viajar en ningún “vehículo privado” — pero al final no se impusieron.
Luego, aunque les habían concedido la libertad bajo fianza, los cuatro fueron esposados y llevados a la cárcel, dos a Foyle House (anexo a la cárcel de Maghaberry) donde observaron lo sucias que estaban las celdas y posteriormente ambos fueron despojados a la fuerza y cacheados íntimamente por los guardias de la prisión. Los otros dos detenidos, ambos menores de 21 años, fueron trasladados a Hydebank.
Cuando finalmente fueron liberados, los cuatro detenidos tuvieron que viajar a casa en automóviles separados debido a las condiciones de fianza que se les impusieron, a pesar de que tres de ellos vivían en la misma ciudad. Un automóvil fue seguido por policía, detenido y expulsado a sus ocupantes y el automóvil registrado en Glenshane Pass. Otro fue detenido y registrado en la ciudad de Derry.
Los cuatro manifestantes ahora están recibiendo asesoramiento legal sobre su detención ilegal, cacheo desnudo y encarcelamiento por las fuerzas de la Corona británica.
El Dr. Hijjawi ha sido devuelto ahora a Roe House en Maghaberry y las protestas sobre ese tema han concluido. El carácter político vengativo del aislamiento en Foyle House se ha confirmado con la información de que once presos no republicanos, dos de ellos Lealistas, han estado de viaje fuera de la prisión sin que fueran puestos en cuarentena a su regreso en Foyle House.
En otro tema, las autoridades penitenciarias de los Veintiséis Condados (Estado de Irlanda), como consecuencia de la pandemia de Covid19, han reducido a la mitad el número de visitantes permitidos y han restringido los horarios de visita de los presos. El preso republicano Kevin Hannaway ha solicitado una revisión judicial de esta restricción alegando que viola sus derechos humanos. En su acción ante el Tribunal Superior, Hannaway afirma que según las reglas de la prisión, un preso tiene derecho a al menos una visita semanal de un familiar o amigo de no menos de 30 minutos de duración. Hannaway fue torturado en 1971 durante la introducción del internamiento sin juicio en los Seis Condados y es uno del grupo conocido como “los hombres encapuchados” porque les mantuvieron encapuchados durante sus días de tortura. Su caso fue dictaminado como tortura en el Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos, pero luego fue modificado, en una apelación del Estado británico, a ser “trato inhumano y degradante”.
El Acuerdo del Viernes Santo de 1998 no vació las cárceles de los presos republicanos irlandeses, aunque los pertenecientes a los Provisionales fueron liberados con licencia y algunos otros aceptaron los términos y fueron liberados de manera similar. Sin embargo, se estaban realizando nuevos arrestos y encarcelamientos de republicanos que no apoyaban el Acuerdo (“disidentes”) y a algunos otros se les revocó la licencia y fueron devueltos a la cárcel sin cargos ni juicio.
Actualmente hay alrededor de 70 prisioneros republicanos irlandeses en cárceles de la autoridad colonial británica y del Estado irlandés. Aunque algunos están en espera de juicio (a veces hasta dos años), la mayoría está cumpliendo condenas, habiendo sido condenados en los Tribunales Especiales sin jurado utilizados para juicios políticos en ambas administraciones. Los problemas de los que se han quejado los presos republicanos incluyen el registro sin ropa, el acoso por parte de los funcionarios de prisiones, la ausencia o las restricciones en las instalaciones educativas y los largos períodos de aislamiento para algunas personas. Algunos presos también se enfrentan a la extradición del estado irlandés a los Seis Condados o al extranjero.
Fin.
Lista de presos sin referencia a organización: https://www.facebook.com/end.internment.520
Concentración en Dolphins Barn, Dublin 23 Agosto 2020 video: https://www.facebook.com/SaoradhDublin/videos/646882499591068
Protesta piquete linea blanca, Falls Road, West Belfast Occidental video: https://www.facebook.com/irpwa/videos/694999108038430
La huelga de hambre, protestas solidarias y el campamento cerca de la cárcel de Maghaberry:
https://www.facebook.com/irpwa
Buscando revisión en el Tribunal Superior del Estado irlandés: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/high-court-challenge-brought-over-reduction-of-prisoner-visits-due-to-covid-19-1.4366884
Lista de presos sin referencia a afilación organizal: https://www.facebook.com/end.internment.520
rebelbreeze 