Free Derry - Free Palestine

The Bloody Sunday March Committee says Palestine will be at the centre of a packed programme of events lined up for the 52nd anniversary commemoration of Bloody Sunday. The committee confirmed Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, will be the main speaker at the march on Sunday, January 28, and have published a statement and calendar of events.

CONTEXT

One of the reasons Western governments are confident they’ll get away with supporting genocide in Gaza is that they’ve gotten away with it in other places, time and time again. Bloody Sunday is just one example.

There is a vast difference in scale between the atrocities in the Bogside and in Gaza. What happened around Rossville Street seems microcosmic when placed alongside Gaza City or Khan Younis. But the same principles are in play.

Both the Parachute Regiment in Derry and Israeli forces in Palestine have acted as if those who strayed into their line of fire are subhuman with no entitlement to dignity or rights.

The Paratroopers were sent to Derry to draw out and take on “terrorists”, thereby to subdue a community projected by the British authorities as complicit in terrorism. The strategy was lifted straight from the colonial playbook.

Wounded Knee, Amritsar, Kherson, Darfur, Srebrenica, Ballymurphy. The pattern is clear, the precedents obvious.

When we march against murder on our own streets, we are in lockstep with everybody everywhere withstanding the same horror.

All, or almost all, who watch as events in Palestine unfold cling to hope for an end to the misery of masses of people. But hope too often feels forlorn.

Death rains down on residential streets. Phosphorus sears flesh off the bones of children, women and men. Hordes of humanity stumble ever onwards towards imagined respite. Just as Gerry Donaghey fled pell-mell across the courtyard of the Rossville Flats, desperately seeking sanctuary.

Everywhere, the terror comes overwhelmingly from the guns of oppressive governments, not from groups opposed to governments.

It’s not true that there’s nothing we can do. Massive assemblies have gathered in every art and part to cry together for peace and freedom for Palestine. It is here that hope survives. When we link arms for Palestine, we are part of something huge happening all over the world.

We don’t have to be lookers-on at genocide.

It is for these reasons that the banner of the Bloody Sunday March Committee is raised at every show of solidarity with Palestine. It’s for the same reason that the issue of Palestine will again be front-and-centre at the annual Bloody Sunday march on January 28.

CALENDAR
Thursday, 25th January

7.30pm: Stephen Gargan: There & Back Again

On November 27, 2022, Bloody Sunday March Committee member Stephen Gargan passed away. A grandfather, father, brother, son, partner, friend, and activist, he is missed every day. Born in Dublin, Stephen was involved in community activism in Derry for many years.

A film ‘There & Back Again’ will commemorate the late Stephen Gargan.

A founding member and former festival director of Gasyard Wall Féile, he also was a co-founder and director of Gaslight Media Trust. A leading campaigner for the Bloody Sunday families for many years, he co-produced the drama-documentary film ‘SUNDAY’. Until his untimely passing, he was a key member of the Bloody Sunday March Committee. Féile have co-produced a film celebrating Stephen with his family, friends, and comrades.

Friday, 26th January

3pm-4.30pm: Hostages: Mansoor Adayfi and Tommy McKearney in Conversation

Mansoor Adayfi is writer, artist, activist, and a former Guantánamo prisoner held by the United States for over 14 years without charge, spending 8 of those years in solitary confinement. A Yemeni national he was released to Serbia in 2016. His memoir, ‘Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo’ was released in August 2021. Tommy McKearney, a native of Moy, Co. Tyrone, is a former Hunger Striker, who undertook 53 days of Hunger Strike in 1980. He is the author of ‘The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament’.

Venue: Central Library

7pm-9pm: Radical ‘Question Time’

Panel includes Eamonn McCann (Bloody Sunday campaigner), Joe Brolly (Sportsman, Barrister, Pundit & Campaigner), Nazia Latif (Director of Right Practice, formerly of the NI Human Rights Commission), Shane O’Curry (Director of Irish Network Against Racism), Mel Bradley (Artist, Playwright, Poet & current chair of Foyle Pride) and Grainne Griffin (Founder of Abortion Rights Campaign in Ireland). Chair: Anna McAree (Journalist)

Venue: St. Columb’s Hall Orchard Cinema

9pm: Free Derry - Free Palestine Music Gig

Line-up includes The Bonnevilles, Hypnic Jerk, Tessio, Tomcat, Square Bear and Molly Duffy. All proceeds will go to Medical Aid for Palestinians. £10 entry tickets via Eventbrite with a limited amount available on the door.

Venue: Sandino’s Café Bar

Saturday, 27th January

12pm-1.30pm: Defying the Lies: Tactics for Truth and Justice

As the means by which the state and public authorities lie about their actions proliferate, campaigners for truth and justice must develop new ways to challenge and defy them. Event will be chaired and facilitated by barrister and campaigner Mary Durkan.

2.30pm-4.30pm: Forensic Architecture-Tools for Truth and Justice

A showcase of new ways to investigate human rights violations including violence committed by states, police forces, militaries, and corporations. Chaired by Trevor Birney, who with his colleague Barry McCaffrey, was arrested by the PSNI following their documentary ‘No Stone Unturned’ into the massacre in Loughinisland in 1994.

12-5pm: Derry Radical Bookfair

Derry will host the 8th annual Derry Radical Bookfair in Rossville Street. The Bookfair has become an annual event in the heart of the Bogside. Hundreds of people take part from the city and across the country, as well as many international supporters who wouldn’t miss it.

The Bookfair will host a broad range of stalls from a local or national interest, on feminism or queer politics, to republicanism, Marxism and of course anarchism.

12-5pm: Ceardlann Phlaiceard i nGaelige/Placard Making workshop in Irish.

Beidh an grúpa feimineach Gaelach Leathbhádóirí ag eagrú ceardlann i rith an lae ag an Aonach Leabhar Radacach i nDoire. Buailigí isteach agus bainigí triail as! Gaeilge más féidir, Béarla más gá. Feminist Gaeilge group Leathbhádóirí will be running this placard-making workshop throughout the day at the Derry Radical Bookfair.

Saturday, 27th January - Sunday, 28th January

Free Derry Wall – Art Installation by ‘Spicebag’

Internationally acclaimed artist ‘Spicebag’ will this year transform Free Derry Wall. ‘Spicebag’ is Adam Doyle, from Bray, who uses political satire and social commentary to interrogate issues within Irish society.

Sunday, 28th January

2.30pm: Annual March & Rally - Main speaker, Huda Ammori, co-founder of the direct-action network, Palestine Action.

Huda is a Palestinian/Iraqi and has conducted extensive research and campaigns targeting British complicity with Israeli apartheid.

2.30pm: The Art of Protest

The Free Derry Collective will provide art & visuals along the route of the march.

Urgent Appeal