IFC NewsList - June 2002
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| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net IFC POW DEPT. – ACTION REQUEST ----------------------------- Subject: Portlaoise Prison Asbestos Threat Date: 06 28 02 Over the past several months many of the Irish political prisoners held at Portlaoise Prison have become seriously ill, suffering from a variety of complaints. It has now emerged that secret asbestos removal operations have been ongoing in the prison for some time, and families visiting the prison have witnessed workmen in protective gear removing material from the walls and ceilings of the building. A serious precedent has already been set with POW Kevin Murray losing his life after a short illness incurred while serving a twelve-year sentence at Portlaoise. Supporters and Members of the Irish Freedom Committee will recall that once Kevin’s illness was recognized by the prison doctors after many months of complaints by fellow prisoners and his family members, Kevin was released to a hospital where it was determined that massive brain cancer was present, and was by that time totally inoperable. Kevin Murray was then released to his family and died a short time later (see link below). Please call, email and write the Dublin Justice Department at the numbers and addresses below and voice your concerns as to this hazardous and life-threatening condition at Portlaoise Prison. DON’T LET ANOTHER IRISH POLITICAL PRISONER DIE!! The statements below are from Marian Price in Belfast. The Irish Freedom Committee™ www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ************************************************ Re: Portlaoise Prison Asbestos Contamination Cover Up
Prisoners' rights spokesperson Marian Price released the
following
statement on behalf of the prisoners and their families. |
| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- Subject: “Direct Action” - British Spy Post hit Date: 06 27 02 A bold daylight attack on a British surveillance outpost took place at Sheriff’s Mountain in Derry this weekend, resulting in extensive damages to the station and its mast. Residents of the Creggin Estate say the outpost has powerful cameras and listening devices trained at their homes. A photographer from the Derry News managed to capture several images of the attack, which have since been confiscated by RUC colonial police. The Irish Freedom Committee will relay any news as we get it regarding the seizure of the newspaper’s photographs. The Irish Freedom Committee™ www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ************************************************ Source: STORMONT-WATCH – www.voy.com/70381/ & iapl_newsroom32@hotmail.com INTRO – This paper’s rep did hand over a disk of photos this morning at Court ------------------------ Derry News – Thursday – June 27 2002 - front page & inside reports. Police to seize Derry News attack photos: “WE BURNT DOWN SPY POST “ – Real IRA The PSNI will today go to the courts to ask a judge to order the Derry News to hand over photographs of a Real IRA attack on what they claim is a clandestine British army spy post in the city. The weekend arson attack on a communications relay station at Sheriff’s Mountain was originally blamed on vandals but sources close to the RIRA contacted the Derry News to say they were responsible. As our exclusive pictures show, the attack occurred in broad daylight. Although the station is used by emergency services in the city to relay messages to control rooms, the dissidents have insisted it was used by the security forces to spy on local republicans. An anonymous caller to the Derry News alleged that powerful cameras and listening devices on a mast at the site are trained on houses in the Creggan Estate and that undercover soldiers have been seen on a number of occasions removing items from the building under cover of darkness. The security forces have refused to confirm or deny the claim. The Derry News witnessed Saturday’s incident after earlier being informed by the same anonymous caller that a demonstration would be held to highlight the ‘hidden’ purpose of the mast. The protest, however, quickly became an all-out assault. Masked Men Shortly after three o’ clock, up to 20 masked men armed with sledgehammers and wire cutters emerged and proceeded to attack the station. In dramatic scenes, they threw powerful fireworks at the building before smashing their way through the locked gates of the compound. Once inside, a number of the men climbed up the mast and attacked electrical equipment with claw hammers. An attempt was also made to cut the cables to the cameras – while another group began sledgehammering the doors of the switch room at the site. Undeterred by the screech of an alarm siren, they forced their way into the building and threw car tyres inside before dousing the building in flammable liquid and setting it alight. As a thick smoke billowed into the sky, the group made their escape on foot, running across fields in the direction of Creggan Estate. The entire incident lasted only around 20 minutes and before they escaped one of the masked men shouted: “This is our new tactic – direct action”. The blaze was later extinguished by fire crews from the Northland Road station but fire and smoke damage had already been caused to the switch room. After taking legal advice, the Derry News informed the police of the existence of the photographs and yesterday they issued a notice of intention to seek a court order forcing the paper to hand over all material in relation to the attack. If successful, the court order would compel the Derry News to hand over all “photographic negatives photographic prints, digital photographic images and the computer disc on which they were recorded…sought in connection with the offences of criminal damage and arson”. The application is due to be heard this morning at Derry Magistrates Court. ************************************************ © The Irish Freedom Committee™ NewsList - IFC Updates |
| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- Subject: “Steaknife” a key figure in “secret” Treaty process? Date: 06 25 02 “Steaknife”, the deep mole in the provisional movement referred to as “one of the most important double agents ever recruited by the Army”, has now emerged as a key player in the so-called “Peace Process”-- opening further speculation on what the true motivations behind the 1998 Treaty were. Ed Moloney’s upcoming book “The Secret History of the IRA”, to be released in October, promises to be an explosive read. The Irish Freedom Committee™ www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ************************************************ Daily Telegraph 06 25 02 Panorama missed the real story of collusion in Ulster By Ed Moloney John Ware's two-part Panorama investigation into security force collusion with loyalist killers in Northern Ireland, A Licence to Murder, has once again placed in the spotlight the allegation that the Army and police intelligence services had a hand in the murder in 1989 of the Belfast lawyer, Pat Finucane. The case for collusion made by Panorama is simple. It is that, in the late 1980s, a unit of military intelligence known as the Force Research Unit (FRU) recruited an agent in the UDA, Brian Nelson, who became its intelligence chief. Assisted by his Army handlers, the charge continues, Nelson directed the UDA's death squads toward known IRA activists, one of whom, it is claimed, was Pat Finucane. In the background, Panorama said, were senior RUC Special Branch officers urging the gunmen on, energetically so in the case of Finucane. The charge is thus one of the gravest that can be made: that agencies of the state conspired in the murder of its citizens. The Panorama programme coincided with the completion of Sir John Stevens's third report into the Finucane/collusion allegations. It was shown at a moment when there is intense pressure to "clean up" intelligence operations in Northern Ireland, particularly to curb the old RUC Special Branch and units such as FRU, in order to make it easier for Sinn Fein to join the new policing board in Belfast. This would be the crowning achievement of the peace process, signalling the final absorption of the Provisional IRA into constitutional politics. The assertion that the intelligence agencies were out of control in Ulster and were employing the UDA to conduct a large-scale assassination campaign against the IRA in the late 1980s is superficially attractive, not least because of its simplicity. But it is not borne out by the facts. Had it been the case that the FRU and Special Branch were routinely suggesting IRA targets and facilitating missions carried out by UDA gunmen, the results would be there for all to see, in a pile of dead IRA bodies. But there is no pile. The UDA targeted and killed, predominantly, the people it had always targeted and killed, that is, innocent but easily available Catholic non-combatants. So what was the purpose of the FRU relationship with Nelson? One clue was contained in the Panorama programme, but two others did not feature at all in the two-part probe. The first clue was the disclosure that Nelson's Army handlers initially saw him solely as a source of intelligence about UDA targeting intentions, not as someone they would use to steer the UDA to murder. He would tell them, in other words, whom the UDA was planning to kill. That suggests that, initially, Brian Nelson's role was, in part, to alert the FRU about UDA plans to kill British agents in the IRA. Thus warned, the UDA could then be directed to other targets. As a result, it seems, of Nelson's enthusiasm and the indifference of his handlers, the project may then have developed into the sort of out-of-control enterprise described in the Panorama programmes. The evidence that FRU did employ Nelson for this purpose comes from a former FRU handler who uses the pseudonym Martin Ingram, although his real name is known to this writer. According to "Ingram", FRU used the UDA intelligence chief to save the life of a highly placed IRA agent, codenamed Steaknife, a figure, he says, who was one of the most important double agents ever recruited by the Army. Ingram alleges that the UDA, via Nelson and his FRU handlers, was steered instead towards an entirely innocent target, a Ballymurphy pensioner, Francisco Notarantonio, who was wrongly depicted to the UDA as a key IRA figure. He was shot dead at his home in October 1987 and Steaknife survived to continue his dangerous mission for the Army. Ingram's allegation is a very serious one, arguably more damning, if true, than anything that featured in Panorama. He claims that Steaknife was given a virtually free hand by the FRU. "Whatever Brian Nelson did - and he was involved in some dastardly acts - Steaknife was involved in far worse situations," Ingram once told me. "In effect, Steaknife used the IRA as an FRU tool to carry out its dirty tricks." It was around this time, in the late 1980s, that the infant peace process was struggling to find its feet. Those, such as Gerry Adams, who wished to push the organisation into politics faced the enormous problem of persuading IRA militants to put away their guns. One factor that did weaken the hardliners was a seemingly endless series of botched IRA operations that killed civilians. Is it possible that Steaknife had a hand in any of these bungled operations, one effect of which was to make a political path more acceptable to the IRA rank and file? The Irish government, for one, is privately terrified that any probe of Steaknife will highlight precisely this sort of allegation. There is other evidence suggesting that the FRU was acutely aware of the secret progress being made in the peace process at around this time. Steaknife was not the only IRA figure whose life the unit saved. Thanks to Brian Nelson, Army intelligence learnt that the UDA planned to kill Mr Adams by placing a limpet mine on the roof of his armoured car as he was being driven in Belfast. FRU arranged for the limpet mine to be discovered in a routine security search and Mr Adams lived to deliver the IRA ceasefires. Writing about this incident later in his private journal, Brian Nelson said that his handlers had told him that assassinating Mr Adams would have been "totally counterproductive. Adams and his supporters were committed to following the political path." Those campaigning for a full public inquiry into the allegations of security force collusion with loyalist groups have always ascribed official resistance to a dread on the part of the Government of what might be revealed about the Pat Finucane case. But is there another reason? A fear, perhaps, that a probe might disclose evidence that, at key moments, the authorities manipulated events to the benefit of a very secret peace process? ----------------------- Ed Moloney's A Secret History of the IRA is to be published by Penguin in October ************************************************ ************************************************ © The Irish Freedom Committee™ NewsList - IFC Updates |
| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- Subject: US Constitution Upheld Date: 06 24 02 A US Federal judge has delivered a resounding affirmation of the United States Constitution, in a ruling today which unilaterally dismissed the US Justice Department’s case against seven men accused of funneling charitable donations to illegal causes in Iran. Federal Judge Robert M. Tagasuki called the 1996 law classifying foreign charitable groups as terrorist; “unconstitutional at its face”. He referred to the secrecy of the US State Department designation of proscribed organizations in his ruling, saying the defendants were “deprived of their liberty based on an unconstitutional designation that they could never challenge”. There has never been a better time to re-examine the circumstances of the construction of the US Constitution and the mindset of its authors. ----------------- “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated “ --The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution “Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty.” -- Benjamin Franklin "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." -- Abraham Lincoln ----------------- For a full reading of the United States Constitution, including the attached 27 amendments and the first ten amendments known as the BILL OF RIGHTS; please go to: http://members.freespeech.org/irishpows/bb3/links.htm#UNITED%20STATES%20-%20History%20and%20Rights The Irish Freedom Committee™ www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ************************************************ New York Times June 24, 2002, page A16 Case Against Seven Tied to Group Labeled Terrorist Is Dismissed By GREG WINTER A federal judge has dismissed the Justice Department's case against seven people accused of funneling charitable donations to an Iranian military group deemed partly responsible for the 1979 takeover of the United States Embassy in Tehran and still labeled a terrorist threat. After deliberating for months, Judge Robert M. Takasugi of Federal District Court in Los Angeles ruled on Friday that a 1996 law passed by Congress to classify foreign groups as terrorist organizations is "unconstitutional on its face," and thus cannot be used as the basis of criminal charges. That antiterrorism law, a cornerstone of the government's case against John Walker Lindh, the American accused of aiding a foreign terrorist group, makes it a crime to provide "material support" to any foreign organization that the State Department deems a threat to national security. But the law gives these groups "no notice and no opportunity" to contest their designation as a terrorist rganization, a violation of due process, Judge Takasugi ruled. "I will not abdicate my responsibilities as a district judge and turn a blind eye to the constitutional infirmities" of the law, Judge Takasugi wrote. Because the government made its list of terrorist organizations in secret, without giving foreign groups a chance to defend themselves, the defendants "are deprived of their liberty based on an unconstitutional designation that they could never challenge," he said. The Justice Department said yesterday that it had not decided whether to appeal the ruling. Wearing badges and flashing pictures of starving children, the seven defendants stopped "unwitting travelers" at Los Angeles International Airport for years, filling buckets with donations from passers-by, federal prosecutors charged. While the group presented itself as a legitimate charity, the government charged that it took orders from the People's Mujahedeen, an organization the administration blames for the murder of at least six United States citizens in the 1970's. Instead of sending money to the needy, the government contended, the defendants wired more than $1 million into overseas accounts to sustain People's Mujahedeen military camps in Iraq, where the group trains under the protection of Saddam Hussein. The defendants, some of whom were born in Iran but are now American citizens, denied the charges. Started in the 1960's by educated, middle-class youth, the People's Mujahedeen, much like the Iranian fundamentalist movement that arose alongside it, sought to expel the shah and purge the country of what it considered pervasive Western influences. Shortly after the Iranian revolution, the secular Mujahedeen movement found itself at odds with a government ruled by clerics. Since the early 1980's, the State Department says, the group has waged a sporadic war against the Iranian government, attacking its embassies around the world, bombing its oil pipelines and assassinating some of its high-ranking officials. The Clinton administration listed the People's Mujahedeen as a terrorist organization in 1997, making it illegal to raise money for the group. Yet hundreds of members of Congress have balked at the label and embraced the Mujahedeen as a viable opposition to the Iranian leadership, arguing that the organization's only objective is to overthrow one of America's staunchest foes. The Mujahedeen "are not our enemies, they are our allies," Senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey, one of about 30 senators and 230 representatives to publicly defend the organization in the last five years, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last August. Since Sept. 11, however, many of the Mujahedeen's former advocates in Washington have withdrawn or tempered their support, saying that their tolerance for the Mujahedeen's tactics, even though they were directed at one of the nation's adversaries, has waned. A year ago, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the State Department had sidestepped the Constitution by listing the People's Mujahedeen as a terrorist organization without giving it a chance to argue otherwise. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company ************************************************ © The Irish Freedom Committee™ NewsList - IFC Updates ************************************************ |
| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- Subject: A License to Murder Date: 06 21 02 Part One of the BBC Panorama documentary, “A License to Kill”, was broadcast last night in Ireland and Britain. Many felt that the documentary might have been banned at the final hour due to the thoroughness of its investigation into extensive and ongoing collusion between British security forces and loyalist paramilitary assassins. This documentary and the results of the Stevens Inquiry published last week (for link see below) vindicates what the families of over 100 Irish Nationalists assassinated in the North have known for years – that the British military and the British government worked hand in hand with loyalist paramilitary assassins to execute their loved ones. This government instituted policy of extra-judicial execution puts Britain front and center for an International investigation into its numerous and ongoing War Crimes. The Irish Freedom Committee™ www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ************************************************ (Copy and paste address into Real Player browser)
Links to TRANSCRIPTS of "A License to Kill" can be found here: ************************************************ Exposed: Security Force Links to Loyalist Killer Gangs - The Guardian, 06 14 02
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| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- DISPATCH FROM IFC POW DEPT. Subject: POW Crisis Situation Publicized in London Date: 06 20 02 The Irish Freedom Committee™ www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ************************************************ From prisoners' rights supporters in London: " Members of (a prisoners' rights support organization) lobbied the British House of Commons today - to highlight the serious situation now existing in Maghaberry prison in the North of Ireland. " Protestors handed out leaflets headed - 'DON'T LET HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF' - to visitors, tourists, MP's - and House of Commons clerical staff luncheoning in Westminster Park! " Spokesperson for the lobbyists Michael Holden said - ''We decided to lobby the Mother of Parliaments directly - as the media has deliberately chosen to ignore what is happening in Maghaberry prison and are blatantly supporting government attempts to isolate and stifle all opposition to the policy of criminalising captured combatants involved in the national liberation struggle. We spoke to many people outside the House of Commons today - and found no hostility to what we were doing. " Holden said -'' We are seeking a civilised solution to this problem, it's time to introduce segregation now and end criminalisation - before this crisis becomes irreversible.'' (We) are planning further protests during the summer months - the British Tourist Board Offices and holiday destinations in the South East. ''Where the media ignore Maghaberry prison we shall bring the message about what is happening there to the people ourselves - like we did today at the House of Commons - through direct action.'' ************************************************ For more information on the crisis situation at Maghaberry please visit the IFC POW Dept site at www.irishfreedomcommittee.net You can Help!!!! ************************************************ © The Irish Freedom Committee™ NewsList - IFC Updates ************************************************ |
| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- Subject: Collusion Documented: RUC, British Intelligence plotted murders over many years Date: 06 15 02 A rash of stories appeared in the British and Irish media since yesterday following the release of a leaked report from the Stevens Inquiry in the Guardian newspaper. The Stevens Inquiry is a three-year investigation into widespread allegations of collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Special Branch, and British Military Intelligence; with members of loyalist paramilitary groups; and the resultant assassinations of over one hundred Nationalist civilians. 06 14 02 By Louise McCall June 14, 2002 |
| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- DISPATCH FROM IFC POW DEPT. |
| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- DISPATCH FROM IFC POW DEPT.
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| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- DISPATCH FROM IFC POW DEPT.
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| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- Subject: Film Review: “Sunday” Date: 06 11 02 When the highly-acclaimed Gaslight documentary “Sunday” premiered this weekend in LA, Southern California Irish Freedom Committee member Sarah Bohr was on hand to distribute information on the Irish Freedom Committee; and to review the film for national members and supporters who have not yet had the opportunity to see it. Sarah’s words speak hauntingly of a film which has shattered audiences worldwide with its brutal honesty since its debut earlier this year in Derry. A link to the production company’s website for the film is attached below the review. The Irish Freedom Committee™ www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ******************************************************** “Sunday” Film Review By Sarah Bohr 06 10 02 Irish Freedom Committee, Southern California -------------------------------- Trying to fit the events of one fateful day and the weeks leading up to it into a feature-length film might seem to some like a recipe for disaster. "Sunday", produced by Gub Neal for the newly formed Gaslight Productions, succeeds in a stark, heart-wrenching portrayal of Bloody Sunday and it's aftermath. Shot on location in Derry and Manchester, "Sunday" is a faithful retelling that brings to life the victims and their families without sacrificing the hard facts behind the tragedy of 30 January, 1972. "I made this film so that the victims of Bloody Sunday wouldn't just be another statistic," said writer Jimmy McGovern. "For 30 years truth has been suppressed and justice denied. That is wrong." Director Charles McDougall stressed, during an open discussion after the screening, that every event portrayed in the film could be backed up with hard evidence obtained during the two years of intensive research that included interviews with families of victims, survivors, British paratroopers who were in Derry that day, and government figures. Several people who were witnesses to the events on 30 January '72 attended the screening. One woman, who was eighteen on Bloody Sunday, grew emotional and she recalled the friends she lost that day. She also gave the film her endorsement, saying that it was "as close as possible to what really happened." "Sunday" uses a dry humor and subtle wit to draw you into the lives of these people who you know are headed for disaster, which lends an undercurrent of foreboding to the happier moments of the film. From the time the first shots are heard echoing through Derry, "Sunday" will grab your heart and twist, and you will be so captivated by the awful truth of that day that you won't even notice the tears rolling down your cheeks. Geraldine Richmond, a Derry woman who witnessed the deaths of family and friends, thanked McGovern for humanising the people who experienced Bloody Sunday. "Now our story is being told," she said. ************************************************ “Sunday” http://www.sundayfilm.net/Default.htm Written by Jimmy McGovern Directed by Charles McDougall Produced by Gub Neal This film is a dramatised reconstruction of events between 1968 and 1973. Although there have been minor changes to chronology and certain events have been dramatised to aid clarity, this drama is based entirely on fact using British Government documents, interviews, eyewitness reports and court transcripts. Developed by Gaslight Productions in association with Box TV Produced by Sunday Productions ************************************************ © The Irish Freedom Committee™ NewsList - IFC Updates ************************************************ |
| IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE NEWSLIST www.irishfreedomcommittee.net ----------------------------- Subject: Belfast Report: Short Strand Under Seige Date: 06 07 02
www.irishfreedomcommittee.net
The trouble began at about 9:30 am this morning Belfast time when a gang The casket and those attending the funeral were then hurried into the When the RUC/PSNI (police force) finally arrived at the church (from The deceased, Mrs. Jean O'Neill, mother of nine, passed away this past After the Loyalist gang was moved back away from the front doors of the The Loyalist paramilitaries then began rioting, burning cars and
Vehicles were hi-jacked and burnt by the loyalist mob numbering several Reports put the mob at being upwards of 500. They threw stones, bottles Ironically, while the loyalist sit-down protest continued the UUP © The Irish Freedom Committee NewsList - IFC Updates ************************************************ |