Free her now!
Roisín McAliskey is in a jurisdiction which despises Irish
political prisoners. Their conditions of imprisonment are
designed to torture them
and it is about time there was an almighty outcry.
The most urgent case is that of Roisín McAliskey and the support
for the campaign to secure her release is growing all the time.
There are those who say that when the Irish Independent calls for
her to be given bail, surely the British must realise the weight
of opinion behind her.
But hope that they will act in a humane manner has been so often
misplaced in the past. The campaign must grow and it must be
pushed with energy and imagination. Roisín McAliskey must be
freed and only a massive, loud and angry campaign can secure
that..
Rotten to its sectarian core
Baroness Denton has called on a tactic beloved of British
government politicians in trouble.
When her wrongdoing was exposed - she oversaw the transfer of the
victim, rather than the perpetrator of sectarian harassment from
her office - and pressure was mounting on her to resign, she
ordered an inquiry. It will buy her time - she may even be
confident of surviving until the Westminster election.
But it doesn't take an inquiry to find the significance of this
incident. Not only was this British government unwilling to
confront sectarianism and triumphalism in the Orange Order, the
Unionist Party and the RUC but it was unwilling to face down
sectarianism in the private office of one of its own ministers.
And not any minister. The minister responsible for fair
employment.
Who now can say the state isn't rotten to the core?