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injured protestor attacked with bottles, stones and clubs at the Battle of Burntollet – Police looked on approvingly |
because of an MI5-spun web of deceit
Northern Ireland is the oldest colony in the
world. For over 800 years the British have
been interfering in the politics of Ireland, committing massacres (Drogheda,
Bloody Sunday etc.). To prevent Irish
Independence they released the most vicious criminals from prison put them in
uniform and let them loose on the civilian population of Ireland. To this day the Black and Tans are remembered
for the savage murdering animals that they were.
peaceful campaign for human and civil rights in the North of Ireland they were
attacked by the sectarian paramilitary police force, the B-Specials. James Callaghan, then Home Secretary, sent
the British troops into the North to protect the Catholics from the sectarian
Orange statelet but before long the military turned on the nationalist
population. At the time IRA stood for ‘I
Ran Away’. The old Official IRA (the
stickies) had all but disbanded. Ian
Paisley led vicious sectarian mobs which attacked the march organised by
Peoples Democracy at the Battle of Burntollet.
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fleeing from the sectarian statelet’s police thugs |
get a house. In Derry a Protestant vote
was worth more than twice that of a Catholic (despite Catholics being the
majority in Derry, the Unionists controlled the Council).
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British troops were meant to bring ‘peace’ to Northern Ireland in 1969 |
who favoured relations with the South was ousted as James Chichester Clark and
then the even more rabid Brian Faulkner succeeded to the office. In August 1971 internment without trial was
brought in to defeat the resurrected IRA, the rest is history. Direct rule was imposed and there followed a
war that lasted until the Good Friday agreement of December 1999, which
followed an IRA ceasefire, ended the current battle but there can be no doubt
that as long as Ireland is divided and Partition continues that the root cause
of the ‘troubles’ and sectarianism will persist.
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Tory-Unionist Prime Minister of Northern Ireland – Major James Chichester-Clark |
Ireland and Palestine. It was Winston
Churchill, who oversaw Partition, first as War Secretary and then Colonial
Secretary implemented it in 1921-2. His
relative Randolph Churchill had famously proclaimed
that ‘the Orange card is the one to play, which was later expressed in
the popular slogan, Home Rule means Rome Rule
became known as the Churchill White Paper which separated off Transjordan from
the Palestine Mandate (as had always been envisaged and to which the then Zionist
Executive – including Jabotinsky agreed.
As with Palestine, the creation of a stable settler state in a vital
strategic area, meant support for Zionism.
As the first Military Governor of Jerusalem, Sir Ronald Storres, wrote
in his autobiography, Orientations, Palestine was a ‘‘little loyal Ulster in a sea of hostile
pan Arabism.’
the British state is persecuting the heroes of the Irish liberation struggle,
Marion Price and Martin Corey and, despite the Good Friday Agreement, tearing
up their pardon and imprisoning them out of sheer malice. And when a judge releases them both on bail,
the British State moves quickly to have the judgment blocked.
fingerprints of MI5 are all over the detention of Marian Price and Martin Corey, two former prisoners who served life sentences
through the 1970s, eighties and nineties and are continuing to serve life
sentences following their forcible return to prison at the direction of the
British secretary of state Owen Paterson.
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centre of the security state – MI5 |
Ms Price and Mr Corey are at the centre of a power struggle for control over
the quality of justice and its dispensation between Britain’s intelligence
agencies and those inside the north’s justice and prison system and the courts
who seek to administer justice based on the facts they see before them and not concocted
stories woven in the minds of those inhabiting the murky world of MI5. A
carefully planned campaign of intimidation orchestrated by MI5 is directed at
David Ford, the north’s justice minister, the life sentence parole board inside
the prison and the north’s judiciary.
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protestors demand release of the prisoners who are effectively interned |
The basis of this intimidation is vacuous testimony secretly sourced and
provided by members of the intelligence agencies alleging that Ms Price and Mr
Corey are a danger to the public because of their association with dissident
republican groupings.
On Monday MI5’s interference in the justice process received a temporary and
very public setback when Mr Justice Treacy ordered Mr Corey’s release on the
grounds that there had been a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights
and that his detention was unacceptable because it relied on “closed material”
and that this was unsafe.
Within minutes of Mr Justice Treacy’s judgment directing Mr Corey’s release
Paterson moved to block it, no doubt with the approval of MI5.
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a young Marion Price |
The speed with which Paterson moved against this judgment is an indication of
the determination of those in the British intelligence system to fight to
maintain their control.
At the time of writing Mr Corey is appealing the British secretary of state’s
attempts to block his release.
And Paterson is facing additional pressure to release his grip over the north’s
justice system by the solicitor representing Ms Price. With the assistance of
Ms Price’s family and British-Irish Human Rights Watch, her solicitor, Peter
Corrigan, invited two United Nations doctors to examine her.
The examination was carried out two weeks ago and the UN doctors’ report is due
to be released shortly.
There has been concern for quite some time about Ms Price’s mental and physical
health due to the prolonged period of isolation she has experienced since her
arrest in May 2011. And although the staff at Belfast City Hospital, where she
has been moved, are professional and attentive to Ms Price, the isolation
continues. She is still a prisoner under armed guard.
There is a broad consensus among the medical team monitoring her health that a
home-based environment is essential to arrest the decline in her physical and
mental health. The minister for justice in the north’s executive, David Ford,
has been lobbied to release Ms Price on humanitarian grounds by Sinn Féin, the
SDLP and her family and supporters.
And while Mr Ford is not responsible for detaining Ms Price he has the power to
release her.
He exercised that power some time ago when he released Brendan Lillis who was
seriously ill in Maghaberry Prison.
Mr Ford was correctly praised for doing so. But it is not just the treatment of
Ms Price in prison which is a travesty of justice, it is also her continued
detention.
On two occasions Ms Price was granted bail and on both occasions Owen Paterson
personally intervened to block her release.
When she was hours away from being released he revoked the pardon she was
granted in 1980 and reimposed the life sentence she was given for bombing the
Old Bailey in London in 1973.
Her solicitor pursued Paterson to hand over a copy of the pardon which
triggered her release in 1981 because he believes the pardon will show that her
conviction and life sentence were overturned.
Conveniently for Paterson, the pardon search ran cold. He claimed it was either
lost or shredded.
Ms Price and Mr Corey are prisoners of MI5 and the web of deceit it has woven
around them.
They should be released immediately.
By Jim Gibney.