Galway march for right to choose, Sat, June 17
“Galway Pro-Choice will be holding a ‘Rally for Repeal’ on Saturday June 17th. We are asking the public to join us from 2pm at the fountain in Eyre Square.
“The purpose of the march is to call on the government to implement the findings of the Citizens’ Assembly in which an overwhelming majority voted to mandate the Oireachtas to legislate for abortion.
“We believe that the best way to implement the findings of the Citizens’ Assembly is to hold a referendum for the repeal of the 8th Amendment.”
Prisoners statement on Maghaberry prison regime
Over the past number of months Republican Prisoners have been consistently gathering Freedom of Information statistics regarding the regime in Republican Roe House.
This has been undertaken to dispense with the false claims by NIPS (Northern Ireland Prison Service) spokespeople and unionist politicians that the restrictions in place here are due to threats.
These statistics showed that in the 6-month period between 1st September 2016 and 1st March 2017 there were no alarms hit on the wing, whilst 621 alarms were activated in other areas of Maghaberry, including over 100 in certain houses. Despite this our regime remains among the most restrictive in Europe.
These statistics have been shown to all the relevant oversight bodies, groups and political parties, some of whom had previously stated that a period of calm would leave room to open discussions with the Jail Administration regarding increasing numbers out on the landings.
These statistics were further reinforced by media coverage of a tribunal involving two former governors which revealed that the restrictive closer of a stair grill on the wing was contrived by reactionaries, and NIPS lied to a Stormont committee regarding this.
Reactionaries in the Jail Administration have responded to all of this with increased restrictions on movement and a variety of punitive measures. They are determined to demonstrate that they will not abide by the August 2010 Agreement and their actions go unchallenged by the aforementioned parties.
It is clear to us that Maghaberry Jail remains a bastion of the Orange State which refuses to heed pragmatism for a reason.
Republican Prisoners
Roe 4
Maghaberry
31/05/2017
Union leaders betray Bus Eireann workers – a bus worker responds
While workers were prepared to fight, union leaders took fright
The following is taken from Socialist Democracy’s site, where it appeared on May 22 (last Monday), here.
Let’s not beat about the bush! The demobilisation of the Bus Eireann strike is an attack on the interests of the working class facilitated by the bureaucratic leadership of our trade unions. It is a betrayal pure and simple!
The methods that could deliver victory were presented before the watching world by the sudden eruption of flying pickets and sympathy strikes which were promptly and hypocritically disowned by the Union leaders but which had the capacity to impose the will of the strikers on the struggle.
From just one day of enthusiastically supported action we get a view of what class struggle tactics would look like and how effective they would be. We now also get a plain view that complying with the full-time leaderships’ rules of engagement, agreed with the employers and the state, leads to defeat.
Leaders attempt at ‘containment’
The Labour Court deal was clearly supported by the trade union bureaucrats from the beginning as their way out of a conflict they had tried desperately to avoid. They had Read the rest of this entry
Republican POWs’ statement
Statement from Republican Prisoners, Roe 4, Maghaberry. 02/05/17
NEW AGREEMENT BETWEEN ROE 3 AND ROE 4 REPUBLICAN PRISONERS.
In 2014, Republican Prisoners announced that the Republican Prisoner communities within Roe House (Roe 3 and Roe 4) would be sharing several facilities on the wing. These facilities had previously been used separately to facilitate space for distinct prison communities; although it was agreed at that time that certain facilities would be shared. It was also agreed that the canteen and yards would remain subject to separate use.
Republican Prisoners Roe 4 are now pleased to announce that these facilities (including the canteen and yard) will now be shared by both Republican Prisoner communities as of 2nd May 2017.
This comes after discussion and agreement between both communities that the sharing of these facilities is both practical and beneficial for all. This also lays to waste recent claims by NIPS spokespersons that the ludicrously restrictive controlled movement policy was necessary due to tensions on the wing. This is of course nonsense.
This move represents a progressive development for Political Prisoners and highlights the emptiness of NIPS excuses for their reactionary policies.
We look forward to moving on with this new arrangement with mutual respect for the distinct communities on the wing.
Republican Prisoners
Roe 4
Maghaberry
02/05/17
Material in support of the new mass Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike
A couple of pieces on another blog that I’m involved in:
Fenian Declaration of an Irish Republic, 1867
Taken from An Sionnach Fionn; GRMMA, mo chara. It’s the 1867 Fenian declaration of an Irish Republic.
The Irish People to the World
We have suffered centuries of outrage, enforced poverty, and bitter misery. Our rights and liberties have been trampled on by an alien aristocracy, who treating us as foes, usurped our lands, and drew away from our unfortunate country all material riches. The real owners of the soil were removed to make room for cattle, and driven across the ocean to seek the means of living, and the political rights denied to them at home, while our men of thought and action were condemned to loss of life and liberty. But we never lost the memory and hope of a national existence. We appealed in vain to the reason and sense of justice of the dominant powers. Our mildest remonstrance’s were met with sneers and contempt. Our appeals to arms were always unsuccessful.
Today, having no honourable alternative left, we again appeal to force as our last resource. We accept the conditions of appeal, manfully deeming it better to die in the struggle for freedom than to continue an existence of utter serfdom.
All men are born with equal rights, and in associating to protect one another and share public burdens, justice demands that such associations should rest upon a basis which maintains equality instead of destroying it.
We therefore declare that, unable longer to endure the curse of Monarchical Government, we aim at founding a Read the rest of this entry
