VINCENT BROWNE ONE OF US ??

Is Vincent Browne One of Us?

 international | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis  Wednesday May 22, 2013 18:03 by Brian Clarke - AllVoices 

Ireland’s Wild West Tax Haven

Occasionally I find an article in the Irish Times that is worth reading, sometimes written by Vincent Browne, which makes me wonder is Vincent one of us ? What do you think?
"Government zealously protects the wealthy in Ireland’s Wild West tax haven
Column: There is a determination not to disturb the contentedness of the wealthy by even a modest increase in income tax

Trickle Down Republic

Occasionally I find an article in the Irish Times that is worth reading, sometimes written by Vincent Browne, which makes me wonder is Vincent one of us ? What do you think?

"Government zealously protects the wealthy in Ireland’s Wild West tax haven
Column: There is a determination not to disturb the contentedness of the wealthy by even a modest increase in income tax

Vincent Browne

The deference to financial and corporate power that impelled Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan to give the blanket guarantee to the financial institutions on September 30th, 2008, speaks again in the obsequious secret deals done with multinational companies on tax and in the fastidious avoidance of taxing high earners.
We now know that one of the largest multinational corporations operating here, Apple, pays a derisory 2 per cent in corporation tax and, according to a US congressional report, this is done by way of a deal with the Irish Government. Whatever the truth of that – more probably it was done by way of an unspoken understanding – Ireland now features among the “wild west” tax havens of our time. So much so that an ingenious tax scheme called the “Double Irish”, based on Irish tax regulatory policy, permits the wholesale avoidance of billions in tax revenue to US, UK, Irish and other coffers.
About the only promise this Government made before the last election by which it still stands is to refuse to raise the Irish corporation tax rate of 12.5 per cent. As it happens, the promise is meaningless.
According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the effective corporation profits tax rate in Ireland is 4.2 per cent. The rate in France, by comparison, is 26.8 per cent (this is quoted in Corporation Tax: How Important is the 12.5% Corporate Tax Rate in Ireland? by Jim Stewart of TCD school of business).

Complicity of State
Now new information has emerged about tax devices and Ireland, courtesy of the Economic and Social Research Institute. In an article in the current quarterly review of the economy published last Thursday, John FitzGerald shows that there has been an influx over the last few years of company headquarters from abroad, notably Britain, and the effect of this has been to boost Ireland’s gross national product by about €7.4 billion.
This has seriously distorted the GNP measurement of the Irish economy’s performance, for these companies have no presence of any kind in Ireland and are of no value to the Irish economy. However, because our contribution to the EU is measured on our GNP performance, this means, according to John FitzGerald, that we are paying €100 million more than we should be paying to the EU annually.
Nobody, as far as I know, has made any issue of this but then, given the state of the financial crisis, what is €100 million?
Enda Kenny is off to another EU summit tomorrow and in a few weeks’ time he will be representing the EU at the G8 meeting in Fermanagh. For both these meetings the issue of tax havens is on the agenda and Ireland probably will feature in the deliberations. What will Enda Kenny say about the complicity of the Irish State in these tax structures?
New information has emerged from the Revenue Commissioners on incomes and taxation here. In a written answer to a Dáil question from Labour TD Derek Nolan on April 30th last, Michael Noonan revealed the following estimates for 2013 (married couples who submit tax returns jointly are regarded as one tax unit and the data refers to tax units):
l The total gross income is estimated at €82.5 billion for a total of nearly 2.2 million income tax payers, giving an average income of €37,962 and an average income tax payment of €5,348.
l More than half (54 per cent, nearly 1.2 million) of income tax payers earning €30,000 and less have an average gross taxable income of €14,712.
l Nearly 110,000 earners getting more than €100,000 in gross taxable income have an average income of €183,750, they pay an average of €46,695 in income tax, representing 26 per cent.
l More than 22,000 earners getting more than €200,000 have gross taxable income of €389,742 on average and pay €108,666 in income tax on average – 28 per cent.
l The 141 paid more than €2 million a year have an average gross taxable income of €4.1 million. They pay an average of €1.1 million in tax – 27 per cent.
(The Revenue Commissioners’ chart is published on the Dáil record – question 151 — the above is based on analysis of it.)
The determination not to disturb the contentedness of the wealthy by even a modest increase in income tax (say an effective tax rate of 35 per for those earning more than €100,000) almost matches the zeal to protect the inviolability of the tax haven for the most powerful multinational corporations on earth. And the Labour Party goes along with this as obediently as it supports the abuse of office by Alan Shatter.
Perhaps more depressing is the conduct of the Economic and Social Research Institute. Never once has it even adverted to the social consequences of the policies it advocates in its regular economic commentaries. Never, as far as I am aware, does it address in its economic commentaries the huge discrepancies in wealth and incomes here. It now advocates more austerity and, by implication, it counsels against income tax increases, with no acknowledgment of the inevitable social consequences.
So why bother with the “social” in its title?"

Related Link: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/government-z...age=2

Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic - 1980

SOLDIER BOX Joe Glenton

“Recent history exposes the real face of the imperial project - kill-teams, Bagram prison, UK troops raping children, [Nazi] SS flags flying, Koran burning, house raids, kidnapping, torture, murder and mayhem. It is not a case of one loose cannon ruining the good work that has been done. This is a case of imperialism doing what imperialism does,” British Soldier - Joe Glenton

A former British soldier, who was jailed for refusing to fight, has revealed the horror behind the mask of “Britain as a force for good, liberty and democracy”.

Bobby Sands Lives At US Gulag
The Reason for Hunger Strikes-from Northern Ireland To Guantanamo 

By Ann WrightMay 21, 2013 "Information ClearingHouse" -"War IsA Crime" - I'm in Northern Ireland and yesterday on May 20, 2013, I spoke with several members of the Northern Ireland Parliament. With over 100 prisoners in Guantanamo on a 100 day hunger strike, the Obama administration would be wise to talk to some of them too--about the importance and legacy of hungerstrikes.

In 1981, Pat Sheehan was one of the Maze Prison hunger strikers-a hunger strike that brought huge international attention to the Northern Ireland "Troubles," with the goal of forcing the British government to treat those imprisoned as political prisoners, not criminals. Hunger strikers demanded the right to wear civilian clothes, the right to education and recreational opportunities, freedom from work obligations, and a set of other benefits not afforded to other inmates. Pat was on the hunger strike for 55 days and still alive when the hunger strike was called off by the prisoners.

Bobby Sands became the most famous of the 10 who died during the hunger strikes when he was elected to Parliament while on the hunger strike-Francis Hughes, Raymond McLeish, Patsy O'Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee, Michael Devine also died.

After one prisoner died from his lung punctured from a feeding tube through the throat, the British ended force feeding those on hunger strikes. The British government eventually granted most of the hunger strikers’ demands. Public opinion changed dramatically in favor of those imprisoned and on the hunger strike.

Now Pat Sheehan is a member of the Northern Ireland Parliament. The Good Friday Peace Accord brokered by the Clinton administration brought to a close, a violent chapter in British and Northern Ireland relationships. The Peace Accord allowed former political prisoners to become part of the political process.

One never knows the future of those who have been imprisoned for political crimes--after peace talks, many may become political leaders, like Gerry Adams and Pat Sheehan. No one can predict the future paths of those in Guantanamo, but one can be assured that the continued imprisonment of those cleared for release from Guantanamo is disastrous for the individual and for the United States.

President Obama would be wise to call former hunger striker and now Northern Ireland Parliamentarian Pat Sheehan!Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. She also worked as a US diplomat for 16 years and served in US Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the US government in 2003 in opposition to President Bush’s war on Iraq. In 2006, she was on a delegation to Guantanamo, Cuba to challenge the US prison at Guantanamo.

McKevitt appeal decision 'another injustice'

Republican News - Dublin19.05.2013

The Republican Network for Unity has condemned the decision of a court in Dublin not to allow an appeal by Michael McKevitt to proceed, describing the case as a miscarriage of justice.
Mr McKevitt was arrested in 2001 on the word of a paid informer David Rupert who identified him as a leader of the 'Real IRA'. In August 2003, he became the first person in the history of the 26 County state to be jailed on the charge of 'directing terrorism'.

His lawyers had argued that a search warrant used to raid his home was invalid, as it was issued under an act later found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; and that evidence used against McKevitt was taken while he was not legally represented.

In a recent ruling, the three judge panel accepted an argument by the State that Mr McKevitt had already exhausted his right of appeal. It also acceded to the State's application to strike out the matter because his application was "unstateable and unarguable."
"Once again Michael McKevitt and his family have been denied any semblance of justice," the RNU said.

"This man is now entering his 12th year of imprisonment. He was convicted on the word of David Rupert an agent and convicted fraudster, in the pay of MI5, FBI and in all probability also in the employment of the 26 county intelligence services. "Michael McKevitt was tried and convicted in the media long before he appeared before the special criminal court, he was arrested on a warrant that has now been ruled unlawful -- but not in Michael's case. Even after all the long years of his imprisonment these agencies still fear his principled unyielding Republicanism.

"This case is yet another example of interment via judicial process along side Marian Price from Belfast, Tony Taylor from Derry and Martin Corey from Lurgan.

"RNU once again calls for the immediate release of of these prisoners and demand Amnesty International declare them political prisoners."

GCHQ staff scolded over claiming Julian Assange was Framed

By Melanie Hall

11:52AM BST 21 May 2013

Internal GCHQ emails obtained by Mr Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since seeking refuge there last June against extradition to Sweden, showed staff saying they thought the charges were “definitely a fit-up”.

Mr Assange obtained the emails by requesting the material under the Data Protection Act, and GCHQ has asked staff to behave more professionally after the Wikileaks founder, who has been ordered to stand trial in Sweden over the sexual assault allegations, revealed the contents.

One email sent in September 2012 by a GCHQ officer to a colleague, and which refers to the publication of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, says: "They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ... It is definitely a fit-up... Their timings are too convenient right after Cablegate".

In another email, sent in August 2012, an employee writes: "He reckons he will stay in the Ecuadorian embassy for six to 12 months when the charges against him will be dropped, but that is not really how it works now, is it? He's a fool... Yeah... A highly optimistic fool.”

Mr Assange revealed the emails during an interview with a Spanish television channel, telling the presenter: "This is what the spies are discussing among themselves.

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"It [GCHQ] won't hand over any of the classified information. But, much to its surprise, it has some unclassified information on us. We have just received this. It is not public yet."

A GCHQ spokesman told the Independent: "We acknowledge that some of these comments were inappropriate but emphasise that no decisions were taken by GCHQ on the basis of these comments, nor was any reliance placed on them. We have reminded staff of the importance of professional behaviour at all times.

"As was made clear to Mr Assange when the information was disclosed to him, the comments he referred to were a small number of casual observations on current affairs issues made by a handful of staff on GCHQ's informal communications channels... We have given him all of the information that he is entitled to under the Act.”

“We are not able to comment on whether or not any material has been exempted,” the spokesman added.

Mr Assange and his supporters have claimed that the rape allegations made against him by two women in Sweden are part of an international conspiracy in a bid to silence him after WikiLeaks caused huge embarrassment in Washington when it released thousands of us administration diplomatic cables,

His final appeal against extradition to Sweden was dismissed by the UK Supreme Court in June 2012, and four days later he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Bradley Manning, a US soldier, has been charged with supplying classified material to WikiLeaks, and his trial is due to start next month.

OGLACH RAY McCREESH

Died May 21st, 1981
A quiet, good-natured and discreet republican

The third of the resolutely determined IRA Volunteers to join the H-Block hunger strike for political status was twenty-four-year-old Raymond McCreesh, from Camlough in South Armagh: a quiet, shy and good-humoured republican, who although captured at the early age of nineteen, along with two other Volunteers in a British army ambush, had already almost three years active republican involvement behind him.

During those years he had established himself as one of the most dedicated and invaluable republican activists in that part of the six counties to which the Brits themselves have – half-fearfully, half-respectfully – given the name ‘bandit country’ and which has become a living legend in republican circles, during the present war, for the courage and resourcefulness of its Volunteers: the border land of South Armagh.

Raymond’s resolve to hunger strike to the death, to secure the prisoners’ five demands was indicated in a smuggled-out letter written by Paddy Quinn, an H-Block blanket man – who was later to embark on hunger strike himself – who was captured along with Raymond and who received the same fourteen year sentence: “I wrote Raymie a couple of letters before he went to the prison hospital. He wrote back and according to the letter he was in great spirits and very determined. A sign of that determination was the way he finished off by saying: Ta seans ann go mbeidh me abhaile rombat a chara’ which means: There is a chance that I’ll be home before you, my friend!”

Captured in June 1976, and sentenced in March 1977, when he refused to recognise the court, Raymond would have been due for release in about two years’ time had he not embarked on his principled protest for political status, which led him, ultimately, to hunger strike.

FAMILY

Raymond Peter McCreesh, the seventh in a family of eight children, was born in a small semi-detached house at St. Malachy’s Park, Camlough – where the family still live – on February 25th, 1957.

The McCreeshes, a nationalist family in a staunchly nationalist area, have been rooted in South Armagh for seven generations, and both Raymond’s parents – James aged 65, a retired local council worker, and Susan (whose maiden name is Quigley), aged 60 – come from the nearby townland of Dorsey.

Raymond was a quiet but very lively person, very good-natured and – like other members of his family – extremely witty. Not the sort of person who would push himself forward if he was in a crowd, and indeed often rather a shy person in his personal relationships until he got to know a person well. Nevertheless, in his republican capacity he was known as a capable, dedicated and totally committed Volunteer who could show leadership and aggression where necessary.

Among both his family and his republican associates, Raymond was renowned for his laughter and for “always having a wee smile on him”. His sense of humour remained even during his four-year incarceration in the H-Blocks, as well as during his hunger strike where he continued to insist that he was “just fine.”

SCHOOL

Raymond went first to Camlough primary school, and then to St. Coleman’s college in Newry. It was at St. Coleman’s that Raymond met Danny McGuinness, also from Camlough, and the two became steadfast friends. They later became republican comrades, and Danny too then a nineteen-year-old student who had just completed his ‘A’ levels was captured along with Raymond and Paddy Quinn, and is now in the H-Blocks.

At school, Raymond’s strongest interest was in Irish language and Irish history, and he read widely in those subjects. His understanding of Irish history led him to a fervently nationalist outlook, and he was regarded as a ‘hothead’ in his history classes, and as being generally “very conscious of his Irishness”.

He was also a sportsman, and played under-sixteen and Minor football for Carrickcruppin Gaelic football club as well as taking a keen interest in the local youth club where he played basketball and pool, and was regarded a good snooker player.

When he was fourteen years old, Raymond got a weekend job working on a milk round through the South Armagh border area, around Mullaghbawn and Dromintee. Later on, after leaving his job in Lisburn, he worked full-time on the milk round, where he would always stop and chat to customers. He became a great favourite amongst them and many enquired about him long after he left the round.

RESISTANCE

During the early ‘seventies, the South Armagh border area was the stamping ground of the British army’s Parachute regiment, operating out of Bessbrook camp less than two miles from Raymond’s home. Stories of their widespread brutality and harassment of local people abound, and built-up then a degree of resentment and resistance amongst most of the nationalist population that is seen to this day.

The SAS terror regiment began operating in this area in large numbers too, in a vain attempt to counter republican successes, and the high level of assassinations of local people on both sides of the South Armagh border, notably three members of the Reavey family in 1975, was believed locally to have been the work both of the SAS, and of UDR and RUC members holding dual membership with ‘illegal’ loyalist paramilitary organisations.

Given this scenario and Raymond’s understanding of Irish history, it is small wonder that he became involved in the republican struggle.

JOINED

He first of all joined na Fianna Eireann early in 1973 and towards the end of that year joined the Irish Republican Army’s 1st Battalion, South Armagh.

Even before joining the IRA, and despite his very young age, Raymond – with remarkable awareness and maturity – became one of the first Volunteers in the South Armagh area to adopt a very low, security conscious, republican profile.

He rarely drank, but if occasionally in a pub he would not discuss either politics or his own activities, and he rarely attended demonstrations or indeed anything which would have brought him to the attention of the enemy.

It was because of this remarkable self-discipline and discretion that during his years of intense republican involvement Raymond was never once arrested or even held for screening in the North, and only twice held briefly in the South.

Consequently, Raymond was never obliged to go ‘on the run’, continuing to live at home until the evening of his capture, and always careful not to cause his family any concern or alarm.

Fitted in with his republican activities Raymond would relax by going to dances or by going to watch football matches at weekends.

WORK

After leaving school he spent a year at Newry technical college studying fabrication engineering, and afterwards got a job at Gambler Simms (Steel) Ltd. in Lisburn. He had a conscientious approach to his craft but was obliged to leave after a year because of a fear of assassination.

Each day he travelled to work from Newry, in a bus along with four or five mates who had got jobs there too from the technical college, but the prevailing high level of sectarian assassinations, and the suspicion justifiably felt of the predominantly loyalist work-force at Gambler Simms, made Raymond, and many other nationalist workers, decide that travelling such a regular route through loyalist country side was simply too risky.

So, after leaving the Lisburn factory, Raymond began to work full-time as a milk roundsman, an occupation which would greatly have increased his knowledge of the surrounding countryside, as well as enabling him to observe the movements of British army patrols and any other untoward activity in the area.

ACTIVITY

Republican activity in that area during those years consisted largely of landmine attacks and ambushes on enemy patrols.

Raymond had the reputation of a republican who was very keen to suggest and take part in operations, almost invariably working in his own, extremely tight, active service unit, though occasionally, when requested – as he frequently was – assisting other units in neighbouring areas with specific operations. He would always carefully consider the pros and cons of any operation, and would never panic or lose his nerve.

In undertaking the hunger strike, Raymond gave the matter the same careful consideration he would have expended on a military operation, he undertook nothing either a rush, or for bluff.

CAPTURE

The operation which led to the capture of Raymond, his boyhood friend, Danny McGuiness, and Patrick Quinn, took place on June 25th, 1976.

An active service unit comprising these three and a fourth Volunteer arrived in a commandeered car at a farmyard in the town land of Sturgan a mile from Camlough – at about 9.25 p.m.

Their objective was to ambush a covert Brit observation post which they had located opposite the Mountain House Inn, on the main Newry – Newtonhamilton Road, half-a-mile away. They were not aware, however, that another covert British observation post, on a steep hillside half-a-mile away, had already spotted the four masked, uniformed and armed Volunteers, clearly visible below them, and that radioed helicopter reinforcements were already closing in.

As the fourth Volunteer drove the commandeered car down the road to the agreed ambush point, to act as a lure for the Brits, the other three moved down the hedgeline of the fields, into position. The fourth Volunteer, however, as he returned, as arranged, to rejoin his comrades, spotted the British Paratroopers on the hillside closing in on his unsuspecting friends and, although armed only with a short range Stengun, opened fire to warn the others.

Immediately, the Brits opened fire with SLRs and light machine-guns, churning up the ground around the Volunteers with hundreds of rounds, firing indiscriminately into the nearby farmhouse and two vehicles parked outside, and killing a grazing cow!

The fourth Volunteer was struck by three bullets, in the leg, arm and chest, but managed to crawl away and to elude the massive follow up search, escaping safely – though seriously injured – the following day.

Raymond and Paddy Quinn ran zig-zag across open fields to a nearby house, under fire all this time, intending to commandeer a car. Unfortunately, the car belonging to the occupants of the house was parked at a neighbour’s house several hundred yards away. Even then the pair might have escaped but that they delayed several minutes waiting for their comrade, Danny McGuinness, who however had got separated from them and had taken cover in a disused quarry outhouse (where he was captured in a follow-up operation the next day).

The house in which Raymond and Paddy took cover was immediately besieged by berserk Paratroopers who riddled the house with bullets. Even when the two Volunteers surrendered, after the arrival of a local priest, and came out through the front door with their hands up, the Paras opened fire again and the Pair were forced to retreat back into the house.

On the arrival of the RUC, the two Volunteers again surrendered and were taken to Bessbrook barracks where they were questioned and beaten for three days before being charged.

REMARKABLE

One remarkable aspect of the British ambush concerns the role of Lance-Corporal David Jones, a member of the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute regiment. According to Brit statements at the trial it was he who first opened up on the IRA active service unit from the hillside.

Nine months later, on March 16th, 1977 two IRA Volunteers encountered two Paratroopers (at the time seconded to the SAS) in a field outside Maghera in South Derry. In the ensuing gun battle, one SAS man was shot dead, and one IRA Volunteer was captured. The Volunteer’s name was Francis Hughes, the dead Brit was Lance-Corporal David Jones of the Parachute regiment.

In the eighteen months before going on hunger strike together neither Raymond McCreesh or Francis Hughes were aware of what would seem to have been an ironic but supremely fitting example of republican solidarity!

After nine months remand in Crumlin Road jail, Raymond was tried and convicted in March 1977, of attempting to kill Brits, possession of a Garand rifle and ammunition, and IRA membership. He received a fourteen-year sentence, and lesser concurrent sentences, after refusing to recognise the court.

In the H-Blocks he immediately joined the blanket protest, and so determined was his resistance to criminalisation that he refused to take his monthly visits for four years, right up until he informed his family of his decision to go on hunger strike on February 15th, this year. He also refused to send out monthly letters, writing only smuggled ‘communications’ to his family and friends.

The only member of his family to see him at all during those four years in Long Kesh two or three times – was his brother, Fr. Brian McCreesh, who occasionally says Mass in the H-Blocks.

HUNGER STRIKE

Like Francis Hughes, Raymond volunteered for the earlier hunger strike, and, when he was not chosen among the first seven, took part in the four-day hunger strike by thirty republicans until the hunger strike ended on December 18th, last year.

Speaking to his brother, Malachy, shortly after Bobby Sands death, Raymond said what a great loss had been felt by the other hunger strikers, but it had made them more determined than ever.

And still managing to keep his spirits up, when told of his brother, Fr. Brian, campaigning for him on rally platforms, Raymond joked: “He’ll probably get excommunicated for it.”

To Britain’s eternal shame, the sombre half-prediction made by Raymond to his friend Paddy Quinn – Ta seans ann go mbeid me abhaile rombat – became a grim reality. Bhi se. Raymond died at 2.11 a.m. on Thursday May 21st, 1981, after 61 days on hunger strike.

Irish Republican News · May 17, 2013    ‘HIGH LEVEL’ COLLUSION ADMITTED Senior British government officials permitted a campaign of state-backed killings by unionist paramilitaries and the RUC (now PSNI) police to be conducted at the height of the conflict, a senior security adviser for the British government has finally admitted. The admission in advice to British Prime Minister David Cameron comes after the Downing Street continues to block a genuine inquiry into the 1989 murder of Pat Finucane, a US congressional committee was told on Wednesday. The point-blank assassination of the Belfast lawyer, who was gunned down in front of his wife and children as he ate his Sunday dinner, remains one of the most controversial state killings in the North.Last year, Cameron made an apology in the British parliament to the Finucane family, admitting “shocking” collusion in his murder between Loyalist paramilitaries and the RUC. However, he denied any political conspiracy existed, while refusing a public inquiry which could have exposed that claim as false. However, a letter written in July 2011 by senior official Ciaran Martin admits that internal classified documents supported the Finucane family’s claims. “[S]ome of the evidence available only internally could be read to suggest that within government at a high level this systematic problem with loyalist agents was known, but nothing was done about it,” said the letter. “It’s also potentially the case that credible suspicions of agent involvement in Mr Finucane’s murder were made known at senior levels after it and that nothing was done; the agents remained in place. These two points essentially aren’t public.” Mr Cameron was accused of perpetuating a “massive injustice” for his continued refusal to allow a public inquiry or to admit that the collusion was politically sanctioned.In a hearing in Washington DC this week, Mr Cameron was accused of seeking to protect politicians and senior British government officials who had turned a blind eye to the murder. Chris Smith, chair of the human rights sub-committee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs castigated him for its refusal to allow a full inquiry. “The British government has reserved one final, yet massive injustice,” he said, “it continues to protect those responsible for the murder of Pat Finucane.” Mr Finucane’s son, Michael, told the committee that he believed the collusion with unionist paramilitaries “was a deep-rooted, officially sanctioned policy of selecting targets based on their degree of opposition to the State. “The more troublesome the individual, the more likely the State was to deploy its killers-by-proxy to erase the ‘problem’.” The British government had first offered a public inquiry into his father’s killing in 2001 during peace talks but then consistently “welshed” on the commitment, Mr Finucane said. In 2004, a review by Canadian Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory called for a public inquiry, but after repeated delays the British government agreed in 2011 only to a’review’ of the case papers. “My family would not be permitted to see any of the documents nor would we be allowed to hear witnesses called to give evidence or ask them any questions,” said Mr Finucane, arguing that the review was totally inadequate and repeating calls for a full judicial inquiry. The existence of the security letter first emerged last month at a Belfast High Court hearing challenging Downing Street’s decision not to allow a full inquiry. The judge ordered the government to hand over minutes of the July 2011 cabinet meeting at which the decision was taken to deny a public inquiry, and correspondence between Downing Street officials and MI5. It is still unclear whether the documents will actually be made available to the Finucane family.

© 2013 Irish Republican News

THE IRISH TIMES West Brit News

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Fintan O'Toole

Literary Editor

Fintan O’Toole is literary editor of The Irish Times, and has been an op-ed columnist for the paper since 1988. His column on political and social affairs appears every Tuesday and Culture Shock, which is mostly about the arts, runs on Saturdays. He has written over a dozen books, most recently A History of Ireland in 100 Objects, based on his Irish Times series. Awards include the AT Cross Award for Supreme Contribution to Irish Journalism and TV3 Tonight Show’s Journalist of the Year in 2011.

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A commoner in British Occupied Ireland, can be designated a “terrorist” on the secret, unaccountable dictat of the unelected British Viceroyal Villiers, without notice and without a trial. Under CMPs(Closed Material Procedures) any Irish person may be jailed, simply on vaguely-defined, highly paid “material support,” against any person or group, labeled by the Viceroyal as “terrorist.” Any political dissent, such as wearing green, as in a recent incident, or singing a 'Celtic Song', or holding a piece of paper at an Easter ceremony, can be labeled as “terrorism” or “material support for terrorism,”

Price of In Justice

Two essentials are driving the trampling of democratic rights in British Occupied Ireland and the shift towards authoritarian Viceroyal fascist rule there. The first is the massive social inequality, which the British Chief Constable in Ireland, Matt Baggott, referred to recently, when pleading for greater efforts to counter the economic and social roots of Irish republican dissent, in turn driven by the historic crisis, of British sponsored sectarianism, within their capitalist system of further inequality. Britain as usual, looks to sponsored state terrorism, police state repression, wartime political internment without trial, as a means to preserve their status, power and wealth.

The second is that real democracy is incompatible, with such high levels of sectarianism, social inequality and injustice, it is also incompatible with low intensity imperialist war, such as Britain is still conducting in Ireland, under the guise of a fake Peace Process. The UK military and intelligence agencies, have for centuries been wading in the blood of every country in the world, with the exception of just 10, in a drive to plunder the world's resources. The dead, wounded, interned and displaced numbered in the millions, with Ireland its first colony of 800 years suffering incessant genocide and invasions.

A knock on the door! In the early hours of the morning. A door smashed with British jackboot of state terrorism, and armed men breaking into your home. They call them military and British paramilitary police, as you are dragged from your bed. Jail, internment camps, no charge, no trial, indefinite detention. This has been the institutionalized pattern of political internment in Ireland, for more than a hundred years now. It is still happening today, as the well documented cases of Marian Price and Martin Corey still testify, despite a much touted Peace Process.

The current international struggle against real and state sponsored “terrorism” is the latest political cover, misused by the British, for their centuries old, worldwide arrest and murder of tens of thousands of political opponents, youth, workers, intellectuals and other enemies of their colonialism or pirate rape of worldwide communities along with their resources. The UK government, currently asserts the power, to subject anyone Irish who disagrees, as a designated “terrorist,” subject to arbitrary arrest and detention without trial indefinitely. Political internment without trial has become institutionalized in Ireland.

Leaving to one side for a moment, how morally grotesque all of this is, one does not have to be particularly bright, to see, that such obvious injustice, has no place in building a genuine peace process.Those secret service puppets, stooges, who are called politicians in British Occupied Ireland, who have curried favour and made lucrative careers, by exclusively condemning non British state violence, are quite comfortable with all of this institutionalized violence, to the point where a mercenary British Chief Constable was forced to highlight some of it, in a one party British sponsored kleptocracy .

It is vital where ever we are, to oppose such criminal British assaults on freedom, in the first instance, no matter who is targeted, because such state kidnap, when unopposed, has become institutionalized. Now that it has happened, this is difficult to stop, because once it happens, it inevitably occurs, that internment without trial, will expand way beyond just the Irish and other groups originally targeted, to include all of the people of no property, wherever criminal privilege, ensnares.

Anyone Irish who has been paying attention, knows that British concepts of "guilt" and "innocence" are quaint relics of a dead Magna Carta and a discarded habeas corpus. All that matters today in British Occupied Ireland, is how many convictions a prosecutor can get and how many secret service careers are advanced in the secret "injustice" system, of a scum sectarian state, sponsored by supremacist British Tories, under the watch of Viceroyal Villiers. "Justice," just like everything else in " British civilized" society, is an industry and a product, that keeps the British Tory ruling classes happy with the restless Irish natives still under the colonial jackboot.

Freedom and truth are not part of the equation as with the ruling class worldwide, now in the advanced stages of preparations for the inevitable confrontation with the international people of no property. We need to make our own preparations, conscious of the examples elsewhere, of progressive, evolutionary, political struggles to genuine government by the people of no property, for the people of no property. It is they and only they, who can be trusted to avert the threats of dictatorship and guard a genuine democracy, with social equality and real justice.

After World War II at the Nuremberg Tribunals, the principal Judge said of the purpose of Nuremberg: “We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it.” The intent was to establish a precedent against aggressive war like, Iraq, just 57 years later. Jackson said: “Let me make clear, that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes and if it is to serve a useful purpose, it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.

“We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law. This trial represents mankind’s desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world’s peace and to commit aggression against the rights of their neighbors.”

On April 24, 1946, one of the Nazi defendants Wilhelm Frick, told the Tribunal, “I wanted things done legally. After all, I am a lawyer.” Frick drafted, signed and administered laws that suppressed trade unions and persecuted Jews. He insisted he had drafted the Nuremberg Laws for “scientific reasons,” to protect the purity of German blood. Frick also knew that the insane, aged and disabled (“useless eaters”) were being systematically killed, but did nothing to stop it.

Frick was sentenced to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal and hanged on Oct. 16, 1946.

I do not advocate capital punishment, even for the likes of Viceroyal Villiers and her ancestor also called Viceroyal George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, who ruled over the genocidal holocaust, that murdered millions of Irish people, in what they call the Great Hunger. I simply want the Villiers and Tories held accountable, as their faux-lawyer Nazi counterparts were. Otherwise Britain has made a liar out of Justice Jackson and made a mockery of the Nuremberg principles, which so many working class people, gave their lives for, including their loyalists in Ireland, which will be revealed as just another case of “victor’s justice” despite promises to the contrary. Their own Churchill called internment, an Act of War in the highest degree Odious and the mark of an authoritarian regime.

I do not know how British law, hold it's supposed professionals to account but I do know that Viceroyal Villiers obtained a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) from Jesus College, Oxford, in 1991. After graduating she worked as a barrister and as a lecturer at King's College London (1994–99). It is understandable that these international colleges may simply be places of ill repute and vice, bearing in mind the British track record, of not honouring it's Royal pardons and their SS shredding her Majesty's writs. But if by chance, they even aspire to any claim of morality in their lawless neo-colony, then they sshould not need me to explain to them, how to commence what the Price of Justice requires.

As with freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, is also meant to be guaranteed, in a democratic peace process, with the reality, however being, that political assembly is a semi-criminal activity in British Occupied Ireland. Political protests are routinely met with vastly disproportionate police mobilizations, “kettling” (in which protesters are surrounded and forcibly moved in one direction or prevented from leaving an area), beatings, tear gas, pepper spray, stun grenades or plastic bullets are the standard British response to a peaceful, political protest, in a massive show of force, complete with riot gear and police snipers on rooftops. What is this but a police state, repression, combined with internment without trial, death squads, that murder human rights lawyers and journalists. A foundation for a Peace Process?

Ask the people of no property ghettoized across the neo-colony. They will tell you justice is locked up, it is political interned right now, in the form of Marian Price and Martin Corey. Like a slow burn fuse, internment without trial, is an instrument of war that burns in the Irish psyche and heart. It has no place in a peace process. Nobody can be that stupid, not even the Brits but to realize, it guarantees more war, especially in the instance of icons of Irish street resistance, to British colonial occupation in Ireland. It hasn't worked in a hundred years and it will not work now. No, like recent British aggressive wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria the British industrial war complex, demands permanent wars of profit and political research laboratories for their state terror in police state neo-colonies, such as British Occupied Ireland.

Ireland: Political prisoner Marian Price victim of British injustice

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

By Steven Katsineris

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, veteran Irish civil rights leader, said in response to the case of Irish republican Marian Price, who was returned to jail in 2011: “It is a clear signal to everyone who is not 'on board' and who is not of the same mind as the government that no dissent will be tolerated.

“No dissent will be tolerated and you challenge the status quo at your peril.”.

Marian Price, 59, is a long-time Irish republican activist and ex-Irish Republican Army volunteer. She was given two life sentences over bomb blasts in London in March 1973 that targeted a British army recruitment centre and Old Bailey courts. Price was one of nine republicans sentenced, including her sister Dolours and Gerry Kelly, who is now Sinn Fein MLA for North Belfast.

Price was given a “royal pardon” in 1980 and left prison suffering from poor health and weighing only five stone. The Price sisters had spent 200 days on hunger strike demanding to be transferred to a jail in Ireland's north, where republican prisoners had political status.

They were both forcibly restrained and force-fed three times a day over the last 167 days of the hunger strike.

Despite her health issues and prolonged jailing, Price remained politically active after her release. Her outspoken criticism of British rule caused problems for the British administration, who had probably hoped she would quietly fade from the political scene.

Price’s continued activism and vocal support for republicanism kept her under scrutiny and made her a target for British security services.

Jailed on orders of government official

Price was returned to prison in 2011, not on the basis of fresh evidence or any new offence. Rather, then-British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson ordered her detention and charged her with encouraging support for an illegal organisation.

The basis of this charge is that Price attended a 1916 Easter Rising Commemoration held in Derry; one of many held by Irish republicans each year. At the event, Price held up a piece of paper for a masked man from the 32-County Sovereignty Movement as he read out a message.

Three days later, Price was arrested. She was then granted bail, but arrested again after she left the court on Paterson's orders.

This time, the reason was based on secret information from the British intelligence services, which claims the evidence cannot be revealed due to national security concerns.

Later, Price was also charged with “providing property for the purposes of terrorism”; this allegedly related to her purchase of a phone, which authorities “think” was later used by attackers who killed two soldiers in 2009.

Price's supporters believe this is merely an attempt by the British authorities to link her with a crime. No evidence or connection to the incident was produced and she was again granted bail by the court.

Yet Price remains in prison due to Paterson's order.

Price's real transgression seems to be her critical remarks about conditions in the six Irish counties still claimed by Britain, and of the Good Friday Agreement that lead to the power-sharing arrangement between Sinn Fein and parties that support British rule in the north.

Solitary confinement

After her arrest, Price was held in solitary confinement in the all-male Maghaberry high security prison for more than nine months, despite not being convicted of any crime.

Then in February last year, Price was taken to Hydebank Women’s Prison where she served another nine months in solitary confinement.

In May last year, the so-called charges involving the Easter Commemoration incident were thrown out of court by a judge. Still Price remained in prison as her mental and physical health rapidly deteriorated.

Then in June, by now seriously ill, she was transferred to a secure ward at Belfast hospital.

The European Court and former Commission on Human Rights, as well as the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), have said the use of solitary confinement can be classified as torture, depending on the circumstances.

The CPT has also said that solitary confinement “can amount to inhuman and degrading treatment” and has on several occasions criticised such practices. It has recommended reforms such as abandoning specific regimes, limiting the use of solitary confinement to exceptional circumstances, and/or securing inmates a higher level of social contact.

Furthermore, the revised European Prison Rules of 2006 have clearly stated that solitary confinement should be an exceptional measure and, when used, should be for as short a time as possible.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has also stated that prolonged solitary confinement constitutes a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment prohibited under Article 5 of the American Convention on Human Rights.

The UN’s lead investigator on torture, Juan Mendez, has called for governments to end the use of long spells of solitary confinement in prison. Mendez said such isolation could cause serious mental and physical damage and amounted to torture.

He further said that short term isolation was permissible only for prisoner protection, but all solitary confinement longer than 15 days should be banned.

Support for Price

In a joint statement in November last year appealing to US officials visiting Ireland to support calls for the release of Price, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein deputy first minister of the Northern Ireland Executive Martin McGuinness said: “[Price's treatment is a] serious case of injustice and denial of human rights and judicial rights in the north of Ireland.

“We believe that her detention is unjust and runs contrary to the principles of natural justice. We believe very strongly that Marian Price McGlinchey should be released.

“ Her human rights have been breached. She has been denied justice and due process. She is seriously ill. Her detention undermines the justice system and the political process.

“She clearly presents no threat to anyone.”

The campaign to release Price has encompassed a diverse range of people and political, social and community organisations across Ireland and elsewhere. Calls for her freedom have been backed by the two parliamentary nationalist parties in the north, Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP).

Adams called for Marian’s release in November, January and again in March. McGuinness has also appealed several times for her release, most recently at Sinn Fein's Ard Fheis (congress). He also attended and gave evidence at the Parole Commissioners hearing a short time ago.

SDLP leader Alistair McDonnell called for her release on March 30. SDLP MLA Pat Ramsey has been a vocal supporter of the release of Price, as has Lisburn independent councillor Angela Nelson.

The campaign is also supported by a wide range of republican and national groups, including the 32 County Sovereignty Movement (of which Price is a member), Irish Republican Socialist Party, Republican Network for Unity, Eirigi, Republican Sinn Fein, Irish Freedom Committee, Friends of Irish Freedom, the Celtic League, the United Celtic Brotherhood and the 1916 Societies.

Calls for Price's freedom have also come from Dublin City Council, Fermanagh Council, Dungannon Council, Galway Council, Derry Council, Sligo Council and Omagh Council.

Among other groups calling for Price’s release are the Scottish Republican Socialist Party and Human Rights Watch UK.

Justice

Devlin McAliskey said: “I think what is very important for people to recognise that what is happening to Marian is not an isolated case. While it's happening here in Northern Ireland and we have had to call upon the UN Rapporteur for Health to exercise his authority to examine it ... [it relfects] the arrogance [of] many of the Western powers ...

“I think Marian's case is symptomatic of those things we see every day ... That people can still be imprisoned without due process and that many countries, particularly in the very powerful Western alliances, feel that UN resolutions and UN protections are for protecting them from their enemies, but not people from powerful states.

“Marian's case is not just something peculiar to the Northern Ireland situation. The increasing confidence with which fundamental human rights and due process and protections are being ignored ― I think is frightening.”

The treatment of Price amounts to a return to the bad days of interment without trial, enforced by the British on the nationalist community in Ireland's north in the early 1970s.

Price is being held purely because of her views and criticisms. She is being selectively targeted because she refuses to remain silent in the face of British coercion and repression.

The British justice system’s mistreatment of Price has again exposed it as the disgraceful, hypocritical and discriminatory structure that it is, a fact that Irish people have experienced throughout the colonial occupation of Ireland.

Price’s case reveals the contempt the British judicial system has for genuine fairness and due process.

Twice she was granted bail by judges, only to be rearrested due to orders signed by the Northern Ireland secretary of state. Price has been illegally imprisoned. The lack of a genuine case against Price and her jailing without due process is a travesty that must be remedied by her unconditional freedom.

Price’s human rights are being grossly violated by her long-term incarceration. She is effectively detained without trial, sentence or release date. This means she could be held for an indefinite time, an illegitimate procedure that allows the British administration to hold her for the rest of her life if it so desires.

On the basis of compassion, legal, civil and political rights, and those of common sense, Price should be released immediately.

Statement on Martin Corey by Jim McIlmurray

On Tuesday, April 16th, 2013, Lurgan man Martin Corey will have spent three years in Maghaberry Prison without any charges ever being placed against him. During that time, police have never questioned or interviewed Martin regarding any incident, occurrence or event relating to his imprisonment.

So who is Martin Corey ?

Martin Corey is a 62 year old man who served 19 years of his life in Long Kesh as a republican prisoner. He was released by the prison authorities in 1992 and began to rebuild his life. He is a popular figure from a well respected, hard-working family in the town.

It was a proud day for Martin when he was granted a loan to purchase his own mechanical digger. After a time, he gained the contract as the parish grave digger, covering several cemeteries in the greater Lurgan area. Many people, myself included, will recall his compassionate approach and professionalism during the time of families' bereavement.

In all the time I have known Martin, I have only known his interests to be his family, his friends and his love of coarse fishing.

On Friday, April 16th, 2010, the police arrived at his O’Neill’s Terrace home and told him they had a warrant for his arrest. Martin was brought to Lurgan PSNI station and later that day transferred to Maghaberry prison. It was stated he broke the terms of his Life Licence release. When his solicitor requested to know what Martin was alleged to have done, he was told it a matter of National Security and the subject of closed file information.

For the past three years, his solicitor and barristers have challenged his unlawful detention on numerous occasions in the High Court. On Monday, the 9th of July, 2012, a High Court judge, Justice Seamus Tracy, who has a background in the European Human Rights Courts, ordered Martin’s immediate release, stating that his Human Rights had been breached under sections 4 and 5 of the European Human Rights act and that there were no charges for which he should answer. I waited for 4 hours outside Maghaberry with Martin’s family that day, only to be told at 4:15pm that the then current Secretary of State, Owen Patterson, had overruled the High Court judge and blocked Martin's release. I was 25 yards away from Martin when I received that call. I watched him step out of the prison van at the reception centre and watched him walk back to the van to be returned to his cell. As he got into the van, he paused and starred at me and that will always be one of the hardest and cruelest moments I have ever witnessed in my life.


Martin has a legal entitlement to an annual Parole Board review every twelve calendar months to reevaluate the reasons for his continued detention. I have been accepted to speak on Martin’s behalf; however, every date set for a hearing for Martin last year was followed by a cancellation by the Parole Board, citing numerous excuses. Martin hasn’t received a parole review in 18 months, an action deemed illegal by the Court of Human Rights in Strasburg. We are currently awaiting a date to take this case to the High Court for a judicial review.


Martin has been subjected to a number of incidents during his time in Maghaberry Prison. These incidents include waiting over three weeks for an emergency dental appointment; of note, a veterinarian would have a legal obligation to report a pet owner for cruelty if he found an animal to be suffering for that period. Also, Martin's request for compassionate leave to attend the funeral of his brother was denied by both the Prison Service and the Courts without any reasons given. He was only granted leave to attend 1 hour before the service started after a request was made to the Justice Minister on humanitarian grounds. I had to make three requests to the Prison Ombudsman to intervene in cases concerning material submitted by myself for Martin for use in his cell crafts. The prison staff either confiscated the printed image materials or refused to provide them to Martin. The Prison Ombudsman upheld all three decisions in Martin’s favour, ruling against the Northern Ireland Prison Service and determining that the material must be provided to Martin.

Martin’s case has been in the High Court in Belfast several times over the past three years, without any finding of criminal offence with which to charge him. Had Martin been charged with possession of an illegal firearm during his arrest three years previously, he would have been released six months ago. There is no other name for his illegal detention other than internment without trail.

As a close friend of Martin's, I am in a better position than most to know if he was ever involved in any activity that could be deemed illegal or “a threat to National Security”, a phrase often utilized by faceless, nameless individuals in the courts. I can say without fear of contradiction that Martin is an innocent man. Everyone should make their voice be heard and call upon the Secretary of State to either bring charges against him or release him immediately.

I speak to Martin by telephone on a daily basis and visit him regularly in Maghaberry Prison, and can assure everyone that his spirits remain high despite his total lack of confidence in the judicial system in the North of Ireland. He thanks everyone for their continued messages of support .

We are currently awaiting a date to attend the Court of Appeal in London to challenge his illegal detention. If unsuccessful there, we will take his case to the European Courts of Justice. We will continue our presence at the Belfast High Court to request the Parole Board to give an explanation as to why Martin has been denied his legal right to an annual Parole Review.

Jim McIlmurray

Spokesperson for Martin Corey