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Seamus Kearney 🎤 'Revenge may stain a righteous sword,
It may be just to slay,
But, traitor, traitor, from that word,
All true men shrink away'.


 
The tide began to turn against Scappaticci when an article appeared in The Sunday Times on 8th August 1999 from a former British soldier, Ian Hurst, a member of the Force Research Unit ( FRU), who pointed the finger at a top spy within the Provisional IRA, code named Stakeknife. There was a media frenzy almost immediately and the rumour mill kicked into action, the posse then dispatched to identify the agent known as Stakeknife.

Ian Hurst stated that he had first heard of Stakeknife in 1982 when he was manning the phones in Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn, one evening. A phone call came through from an RUC sergeant who had arrested a man for drink-driving and the man in turn had given the RUC sergeant a number for the barracks and a contact person to speak to. Hurst later learned that the man was Freddie Scapatticci aka Stakeknife - after a conversation in the Army canteen - and was a highly valuable asset to the FRU.
 
Ian Hurst also accused the FRU of the arson attack on offices storing secret contact forms ( MISRs) mainly from Brian Nelson, a Loyalist double agent, at RUC Headquarters in Carrickfergus in 1990, in order to thwart the Stevens Inquiry into collusion.

The identity of Stakeknife had still not been ascertained in October 2001 when a protracted IRA investigation was launched into the execution of Volunteer Michael Kearney in July 1979. Freddie Scapatticci's name was handed over to the two senior IRA investigating officers, but there didn't seem anything machiavellian around him at the time, as very few people were aware of the earlier rumours concerning him.

However, all that changed on 10th May 2003 when a journalist, Greg Harkin, rapped Freddie Scappaticci's front door in Riverdale, West Belfast, and accused him of being the British agent Stakeknife. Event hough he tried to deceive the journalist by telling him he had the wrong Scappatticci, Greg Harkin wasn't convinced and responded by telling him he was certain he had the right man.

Freddie Scappaticci was scared but didn't panic, he was certainly cool under pressure and self disciplined to a high degree. Instead of running he decided to stay and dig in, after all he had outwitted the IRA for years and he reckoned he had run rings around them, so intended to carry on business as usual. 

He circled the wagons and waited.

Seamus Kearney is a former Blanketman and author of  
No Greater Love - The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney.

Stakeknife 🕵 The Rise And Fall 🕵 Act XV

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Forty Nine

 

A Morning Thought @ 3124

Maryam Namazie ✍With a response to Azar Majedi and Homa Arjomand.

A politics of emancipation must confront both imperialism and the religious-Right. The attempt to subordinate one to the other is a form of political erasure. This essay takes up Azar Majedi and Homa Arjomand’s response to my earlier piece and defends the third pole against those who have abandoned it.

Gaza: The Principled Position

Opposing the Israeli state's genocide in Gaza is a moral and political necessity. But progressive politics does not end with denunciation of one pole of power. It interrogates all dominant forces, including those within societies facing imperialism and occupation.

Islamism is not merely a religious ideology. It is a form of political rule, organising society through religious authority, suppressing working class organisation, enforcing patriarchal control, and crushing secular and emancipatory movements. Its hostility to labour, to women, and to dissent is structural.

A principled position names both the Israeli state's genocide and Hamas's terrorism simultaneously, not as a concession but as a refusal to subordinate one form of domination to another. This is what makes it possible to oppose both without collapsing into civilisational binaries. That Western governments also condemn Hamas does not make our condemnation a Western project, any more than Western governments' condemnation of the Iranian regime makes opposition to the Islamic regime by civil society a Western project.

This was the shared position of Majedi and Arjomand as signatories to the Third Camp Manifesto in 2006. To treat one reactionary camp as primary in a way that renders the other secondary is to abandon that method, and to abandon those who live under both simultaneously.

Imperialism Is Not the Only Reality

There is no serious socialist politics that denies imperialism. US militarism has devastated the Middle East and the world. None of this is in dispute. But Majedi and Arjomand’s argument leaps from the empirical claim that Western military power is larger, to the analytical claim that Western domination is therefore primary, to the practical conclusion that other forms of domination are secondary and deferrable. These are three separate claims.

A political movement can prioritise the campaign against the state with the greatest capacity to wage genocide without conceding that other forms of domination are analytically less real or structurally derivative. The woman imprisoned in Iran for burning her hijab does not become a secondary victim because the US military is larger. The labour organiser tortured in Evin does not become a secondary casualty because Washington has more bombs. Domination must be analysed where it operates, not ranked against a global ledger of military force. The scale of power does not determine the legitimacy of resistance to it.

Islamism was fostered in specific historical conditions such as the US Cold War strategy to create an Islamic belt around the Soviet Union and the West’s role in the expropriation of the Iranian revolution by Islamism. These origins are relevant. But causation is not exoneration. Whatever the origins, Islamism has its own institutions, its own coercive apparatus, and its own governing programme. It is an independent political force with its own logic of rule. The Islamic regime of Iran, brought to power in conditions shaped by US imperialism, is not reducible to Washington’s power. Hamas, enabled by Israel as a counterweight to the secular PLO, is not reducible to Israeli strategy. To explain them as secondary displaces the social relations through which domination is exercised.

Majedi and Arjomand ask: “Do you really believe that Islamic terrorism has the same weight and power of state terrorism in the international geopolitics?” But that is not the question. The question is whether the victims and survivors of both forms of domination deserve a politics that confronts both.

The Politics of Enforced Binaries Is Eurocentric

Their politics is clear: political positions must align with one of two opposing camps; critique becomes illegitimate if it risks benefiting the other. Dissent is judged not on its truth but on its geopolitical alignment. This is the politics of enforced binaries. It is also Eurocentric. By centring Western power as the organising axis, it renders all other forms of domination derivative. People living under the rule of the religious-Right cease to be political subjects. Their struggles are acknowledged only insofar as they fit the dominant anti-imperialist narrative. When they do not, they are minimised or erased. Exploitation, domination, and resistance, however, must be analysed where they occur, in their material conditions, and in the actions of those who struggle against them.

The late Marxist leader Mansoor Hekmat named the ideological cover for this as "petit-bourgeois anti-imperialism," used to justify Islamic terrorism by reference to Western government crimes. He insisted there was:

not the slightest real and justified relationship between the sufferings of the deprived people of Palestine and the terrorism of Islamic or non-Islamic organisations attributed to these people.

A left that refuses to analyse Islamism as a form of reaction ends up with less ground to confront reaction anywhere. The far-Right and Islamism are not opposites. They belong to the religious-Right; they feed off each other.

The practical consequence of Majedi and Arjomand’s method leads to absurdities: anti-war protests flying the flags of Hamas and the Islamic regime of Iran; sections of the Western Left marching for women's rights while defending a regime that has made women's subordination a cornerstone of its rule. This is the logical outcome of a framework that grants full political agency to those resisting Western imperialism, while denying it to those resisting other forms of power.

The Hamas Question: What Kind of Society?

Majedi and Arjomand invoke the African National Congress (ANC) during apartheid South Africa as precedent and argue that condemning Hamas in the current context aligns with imperial narratives. But what kind of society does Hamas seek to build?

Hamas is not simply a “resistance” force. It is a governing apparatus, institutional, coercive, and theocratic, that has displaced the Palestinian Left, suppresses secular organisation, and reorganises Palestinian social life around religious fundamentalism.

Israel enabled Hamas’s rise as a deliberate strategy to divide and weaken the secular PLO but Hamas is responsible for its own crimes. Hamas governs, disciplines, and coerces. Its victims are primarily Palestinians. Patriarchal controls such as dress codes, restrictions on public movement, and the subordination of women’s testimony and inheritance rights within a Sharia framework are central mechanisms of social discipline. A liberation movement that subordinates women is not a liberation movement.

On October 7th, Hamas killed at least 828 civilians, including 36 children. The UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe rape and gang rape occurred during those attacks. Hostages were taken. A progressive position cannot ignore sexual violence or the killing of civilians regardless of political context. The right to resist occupation has never included the right to rape, massacre civilians, or take hostages. Questions about Israeli intelligence failures on that day do not alter what Hamas did, who the victims were, or what a principled politics must say about it.

Moreover, the ANC comparison does not hold. The ANC’s Freedom Charter was committed to a non-racial, secular society with universal rights, linking national liberation to social emancipation. Hamas’s founding charter articulates a theocratic political project. These are not analogous.

The 1979 Iranian revolution provides a clear historical example. Islamism came to power in conditions engineered in significant part by Cold War strategy, fostering Islamism as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and Left. Then, too, sections of the Left subordinated their criticism of Islamism to their opposition to the Shah, treating the clerical movement as a lesser enemy to Western imperialism. A politics unable to confront multiple forms of domination simultaneously has no ground from which to resist.

The “Clash of Civilisations” Inversion

Majedi and Arjomand use the discussion on Gaza to attack the ex-Muslim movement. They claim it was “created to serve as a weapon against Islam… a piece of the puzzle of the ‘Clash of Civilisations.’” Their argument reproduces the Clash of Civilisations thesis, which denies internal complexity by essentialising people and society into civilisational blocs. Dissent from religion is explained not as a social phenomenon but as an extension of Western power. In this framework, criticism cannot originate within society itself but must be attributed to external forces. This is the standard accusation of theocratic regimes, that apostates, secularists, and feminists are agents of foreign powers. The Islamic regime of Iran has used it for decades to imprison, torture, and execute opponents.

Ex-Muslims, however, are the product of material conditions in which belief is enforced through state, law, family, community, and violence. They emerge wherever the freedom to believe or not believe is denied. Their existence is not explained by imperialism but by the contradictions within societies governed by religious fundamentalism.[i]

The reduction of dissent to an instrument of Western power means no criticism is valid if it can be appropriated by a dominant power. That would render all emancipatory politics impossible.

Collective Blame and the Denial of Agency

The same logic that reduces dissent to imperial instrument also reduces dissenters to a homogeneous bloc serving a single geopolitical function.

Civil rights movements emerge from material conditions, not from imperial design. The gay rights movement was not created by Western state power. It was created by people persecuted for who they are. The women's liberation movement was not a geopolitical instrument. It was built by women who refused subordination. The ex-Muslim movement was established for the right to apostasy and blasphemy because those rights are denied. It brings together people across a wide political spectrum, united by opposition to apostasy and blasphemy laws, not by shared ideology. Its members hold widely different political views, as do Muslims. To say ex-Muslims serve imperialism is the same as saying Muslims serve Islamism. It erases individual agency, social movements, and class politics. It imposes a fixed collective identity carrying collective blame, guilt and punishment.

Provocation, Civil Disobedience, and Who Decides

If political legitimacy is determined by which camp you are aligned with, then forms of resistance that do not conform to it are recast as illegitimate.

Majedi and Arjomand characterise CEMB’s fast-defying protests as “provocative and hostile”[ii] and ask what they achieve. The question itself is revealing; effectiveness is recognised only when resistance aligns with their framework. In Morocco, Ibtissame Betty Lachgar and MALI organised a public picnic during Ramadan. Lachgar is currently serving two and a half years in prison for wearing an Allah is Lesbian t-shirt. In Iran, women burn their hijabs, people sing and dance at funerals, acts of collective presence in public space that the state has criminalised, making coercion visible and contesting it.

Civil disobedience has always worked this way, from Montgomery to Tehran, by asserting the right to act against unjust authority, exposing the mechanisms of control, and shifting what is considered permissible. Its effectiveness lies precisely in making visible what power seeks to normalise.

Topless protest is another example. There is a difference between the commodification of women's bodies, which serves domination, and their autonomous use as instruments of resistance, which challenges it. Conflating the two reproduces the terms through which women's bodies are policed, now in the name of political propriety rather than religion, but with the same effect.

Like Majedi and Arjomand, the powerful have always described resistance as provocation. Refusing compulsory veiling is framed as offence. Eating during Ramadan is framed as subversion. Dissent from apostasy laws is framed as incitement. In each case what is treated as the problem is not the coercion but the refusal of it.

None of this is new. In 2012, Majedi dismissed the Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar, made in solidarity with Aliaa Magda Elmahdy as “idiocy” and “buffoonery,” and criticised acts of bodily defiance as aiding reaction. The same argument is repeated here.

Insinuation, Antisemitism, and the Collapse of Evidence

Once dissent is treated as illegitimate, it can be easily discredited. In a video interview, Majedi claimed, without evidence, that feminists and secularists who declined her conference did so because their organisations were funded by Soros and "effectively corrupt." In an article, she says that Soros "was a Jewish Nazi collaborator in Hungary, during the war." Independent fact-checking has shown this to be false.

In a separate interview, Majedi references Jews "eating babies' blood" in connection with a synagogue tunnel incident. The Associated Press documented that the incident involved an unauthorised tunnel built by a religious faction over an internal dispute, with no evidence of any crime. Blood libel is one of the oldest antisemitic fabrications in recorded history.[iii]

This is where the logic of enforced binaries leads. When alignment becomes the criterion of truth, evidentiary standards collapse, and what would otherwise be immediately challenged passes in the name of anti-imperialism.

The Third Pole: From Principle to Necessity

What emerges across these arguments is a consistent political method: the subordination of one form of domination to another, the delegitimisation of dissent, and the erosion of evidentiary standards. The question that follows is what kind of politics can oppose this.

Hekmat articulated the third pole as a material necessity: a force rooted in workers, women, secularists, and dissidents, standing against both poles of reaction simultaneously. It is not a position of balance but one grounded in the struggles of those subjected to multiple forms of domination.

This was the shared position of Majedi and Arjomand as signatories to the Third Camp Manifesto in 2006. That manifesto was an insistence that the working class and the oppressed have no camp among reactionary powers, that their interests are served neither by US-led imperialism nor by Islamism, and that building an independent force against both is a precondition of any meaningful emancipatory politics.

To treat one reactionary camp as primary in a way that renders the other secondary is to abandon that method, and to abandon those who live under both simultaneously.[iv]

Conditions have changed since the manifesto was published but the necessity for a third pole has not. If anything, it has become more urgent with perpetual wars in the Middle East between reactionary forces.

Conclusion: No Liberation Through Erasure

A politics that subordinates one form of domination to another does not clarify the world. It obscures it. It does not strengthen opposition to oppression. It leaves those who confront multiple forms of domination without a politics that represents them. There is no emancipation in ranking oppressions or deferring struggles.

This is the practical consequence of the method they defend. By treating imperialism as the organising axis of all analysis, it renders other forms of domination secondary or derivative. By treating dissent as alignment, it delegitimises those who refuse that framework. By replacing analysis with insinuation, it lowers the standard of political argument itself.

The alternative is not a false choice between competing powers, but independence from them. A third pole confronting both imperialism and the religious-Right simultaneously.

This requires opposing genocide in Gaza and the bombing of Iran without qualification. It requires naming US militarism and Israeli occupation as structural forms of domination. It requires refusing to treat Islamism as anything other than a reactionary political project that suppresses workers, subordinates women, and eliminates dissent. It requires defending the right to leave religion without coercion or punishment. It requires a politics that does not ask any section of the oppressed to wait.

The third pole does not disappear because it is denied. It exists wherever people confront multiple forms of domination simultaneously. This is the condition of any politics of emancipation.

References

[i] Secular conference manifestos from CEMB and One Law for All condemn all religious-Right movements, including Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, and Islamic. The charge of double standards on Judaism is contradicted by a consistent public record.

[ii] CEMB’s fast-defying actions take place in front of the embassies of Iran, Pakistan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia. They target states that imprison, flog, and kill people for eating during Ramadan. The solidarity action is with those persecuted during this month.

[iii] Links to statements are available here.

[iv] Majedi and Arjomand say: “8 months into a genocide… Ex-Muslim had not even whispered a word against this genocide…” For context: I refused to sign their March 2024 statement on “Genocide in Gaza, Where Does the Women's Rights Movement Stand” precisely because it condemned genocide without one word against Hamas. I supported Feminist Dissent’s April 2024 statement, which named both. The October 2024 statement by a number of ex-Muslims named both as well. The timing of a response is not analysis. It does not show that Islamism is politically secondary, that criticism of Hamas is illegitimate, or that the third pole should be abandoned. It establishes only a demand for silence on one form of domination in the name of another. On the December 2023 conference co-organised by CEMB and Laiques sans Frontiere, the conference was specifically about laïcité and the separation of religion and state.

Maryam Namazie is a  is a British-Iranian secularist,
communist and human rights activist, commentator, and broadcaster.

Against Political Erasure 🪶The Third Pole And The Limits Of Anti-Imperialism

Merrion Press 🔖 has just published a new book by Dave Hannigan.



WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT ROY
THE KEANEIFICATION OF MODERN IRELAND

Dave Hannigan

NO IRISH SPORTSPERSON IS MORE TALKED ABOUT THAN ROY KEANE.

None has had more of substance to say for himself. Across nearly four tumultuous decades, from callow teen prospect to grey bearded influencer, Roy Keane has transcended sport, redefined the parameters of fame and captivated the nation. Our hopes, dreams and sometimes our despair have been wrapped up in him, his exploits and outbursts. Oscillating between national treasure and national argument, he put the manic in talismanic, bestriding Lansdowne Road one minute, getting booed there the next.

If the sporting heroes of every era offer a window into a society, We Need to Talk About Roy is a fascinating portrait of who and what we were in the age of Keane, showcasing our vices and virtues, our fortunes and foibles. The best of us, the worst of us. Drink. Religion. United. Begrudgery. The Celtic Tiger. Tabloidization. Saipan. Touching on all the major themes and teams, this remarkable book is a refreshing and entertaining look at how the life and times of our greatest footballer is the story of modern Ireland itself. His progress and pitfalls, revolutions and evolution uniquely intertwined with those of the country that made him.

He is of Ireland. Ireland is of him.

Paperback • €18.99|£17.99 • 240pages • 226mm x 153mm • 9781785375798
Buy your copy
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dave Hannigan is a professor of history at Suffolk County Community College in New York, a weekly columnist with The Irish Times, and author of several non-fiction books, including The Big Fight: When Ali Conquered Ireland, and Muhammad Ali: Fifteen Rounds in the Wilderness. A native of Cork, Dave currently lives in East Setauket, Long Island, with his sons Abe, Charlie and Finn.

Out Now 📚 Dave Hannigan

Gary Robertson ⚽Separated by a mere 33 miles and the Kincardine Bridge, Falkirk & Dunfermline share a rivalry to match almost any other in Scottish football. 

So when the pair were matched for Saturday's Scottish FA Cup semi final the anticipation between the two sets of fans was electric.
 
Falkirk plying their trade in the Premier League whilst Dunfermline currently fourth in the Championship these games don’t come along too often and despite being a league apart there was nothing between them on the park.
 
At first glance a 0-0 may sound dull to the casual observer. But we are not casual observers - we are football fans and we know that a score line only tells a little of the story. There was plenty of excitement, missed chances, some excellent saves, some very poor finishing but this was a nil-nil of quality. Again, our fictional casual observer may claim that’s an oxymoron, and yes it is in some ways but for a game that lacked goals it made up for in incident.
 
Onfield action, a red card and a penalty shootout after 120+ mins. The two best chances possibly in the whole match falling at the feet of 17 year old Lucas Fyfe. Whether it was nerves or inexperience or a combination of both he managed to fluff his lines and put neither away. He’s only a kid though and will improve through time. He’s got pace to burn and as his finishing improves he’ll be yet another player, in my opinion at least, who will go right to the top as long as he remains focused, works hard and keeps injury free.
 
The villain of this match was Falkirk's Henry Cartwright who turned to the dark arts in the last minute of extra time and was rightly shown a second yellow for his Tom Daley impression.
 
So to penalties, and it was the time for heroes to be found. Ex-Celtic keeper Bain facing off against ex- Celtic boss Neil Lennon's current side but the real hero of the shootout was Dunfermline's Aston Oxborough. The on loan Motherwell keeper made two very good saves to help send his side through to the cup final. I’d imagine it was late into the night before that smile finally left his face. Cameras too swung to catch an emotional Neil Lennon who was visibly overjoyed at the end, having taken on and taken out three Premiership teams they’ve one more to overcome and that one more being the victors of Sundays Celtic v St Mirren semi final.
 
I wasn't overly confident going into Sundays match as I’ve said the performances have been poor and scraping one goal wins hardly inspires confidence so imagine my shock at half time when Celtic found themselves two nil ahead. Goals from Maeda in the first minute, a combination of pressing that’s been missing in the lads' game recently and a goalkeeping blunder saw the ball bounce off the Japanese and trundle into the net, and then a rocket finish from the much maligned Anthony Ralston in the final minute of the half, it looked for all the world to see like Celtic were back and they’d go on and run riot in the second half. 

But this is a team that’s flattered to deceive before and eight minutes into the second half the buddies' danger man Mikael Mandron pounced to pull one back that seemed to knock the stuffing out of Celtic who did their best impression of the big bad Wolf but failed to do more than huff and puff as time passed and the Saints grew into the game there was something of an inevitability about Mandron's second. Full time, a triumph for never giving up and a lesson that two goals are never enough. 

A further 30 mins and penalties ahead. A situation Celtic shouldn’t have found themselves in yet somehow having managed to shoot themselves in both feet something was going to be needed to separate the two.
 
Now before I give my thoughts on extra time I’d like to be brutally honest here. I know this was a cup game, no points at stake and no bearing on the title race But to let a two goal lead disappear isn’t the stuff champions are made of. This has been one of Celtic's bigger problems this year, defensive frailty. And, sure, the new manager should have a full compliment of fit players to choose from come the start of the season, with Carter Vickers and Trusty in the middle of defence, that rigidity should return. However, an injury to one or both and suddenly we look vulnerable again. While our rivals are strengthening Celtic seem to be quite happy with a sticking plaster approach, and whilst it may provide temporary relief and respite ultimately it won’t heal the deep wounds in this team. Signings have to be made and the man at the top needs to let go of the purse strings.
 
Extra time and a performance that’s been missing all season was witnessed in the first six minutes. Celtic rejuvenated looking like a team who hadn’t just ran around for the best part of one hundred minutes bagged four goals to sink the sorry Saints. Two from super sub Ihenacho and one each from McCowan and Nygren sent the Celts through and great scenes of both jubilation and relief reverberated through the halls of Robertson Towers as I’m sure it did throughout the homes of Celtic fans across the globe.
 
Into the final to face Lennon's Dunfermline who have proven to be able to mix it with the best it’s anything but a forgone conclusion. I’m sure Celtic will be the bookmakers' heavy favourites but I’d not be betting on Lennon not delighting in getting one over his old club, his old boss and the fans who once adored him.
 
The final is to be played on Saturday 23rd May at a yet to be determined time but should be available on both BBC Scotland and Premier Sports.

Let’s hope it’s a lovely sunny day so Steve R can get out in his garden and not have to endure the Bhoys lifting (hopefully) another trophy 🤣

PS: I can’t go without mentioning Saints stand in keeper Tamosevicius who for his first time ever in goal for the club in any first team match was at fault for none of the goals and didn’t look out of place. Another lad of just seventeen I wish him well for his future.

Til next time …

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

A Tale Of Two Seventeen Year Olds

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Forty Eight

 

A Morning Thought @ 3123

People And Nature ☭ Igor Paskar, who is serving eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for protesting against Russia’s war on Ukraine, is being victimised by prison authorities in Tomsk province, in Siberia.

19-March-2026

Paskar is one of at least 2000 people people jailed for actions against the war, or even for writing a few words about it on social media.

Solidarity Zone, which gives practical support to Igor and other political prisoners, reported this week:

Igor Paskar in court in 2023. Photo: Mediazona

Igor has been transferred to the federal penitentiary service’s prison colony no. 2 in Asino, Tomsk province.

Since arriving at the colony in December 2025, Igor has been confined in a punishment cell several times and declared a “malicious offender”.

He was first punished while still in quarantine, immediately after arrival – for failing to do the required physical exercises. That resulted in seven days in a punishment cell.

On the seventh day, a further punishment was announced: another seven days, for lying down on a bench while in quarantine.

After he had done that sentence, he was given another five days in the punishment cell – this time, for lying down on a bench in the punishment cell.

These three breaches of the rules were enough for Igor to be declared a “malicious offender” and transferred for six months to a solitary confinement unit (in Russian PKT or pomeshchenie kamernogo tipa, literally “cell-type building”) for six months – the maximum possible period.

PKTs are a separate part of a prison colony, with a much stricter regime. They were previously named BUR (barak usilennogo rezhima, or barracks with a stricter confinement regime), and in many prison colonies that old name is still used, informally.

In the PKT, prisoners are permitted only one brief visit every six months; the sum that prisoners may spend at the colony shop is limited; and telephone calls are permitted only very rarely. And you can be returned from the PKT to a punishment cell.

Igor is also concerned that some of the letters he has written may not reach the adressees.

In June 2022, Igor Paskar set fire to a Z-banner (a militarist symbol) in the centre of Krasnodar. Two days later he carried out an action at the local office of the Federal Security Service: he threw a molotov cocktail at the building’s stone porch, and painted his face with the colours of the Ukrainian flag.

The Southern District Military Court ruled that these actions were “vandalism” and “an act of terrorism”, and sentenced Igor to eight-and-a-half years. The Memorial, Support Political Prisoners human rights defence project considers Igor Paskar to be a political prisoners, on the basis of internationally accepted criteria.

🔴 Solidarity Zone asks people to write to Igor: “at a time when the prison administration is putting such pressure on a political prisoner, this is especially important”.

In campaigners’ experience, letters not written in Russian are extremely unlikely to be passed on to prisoners. It is possible to write short letters, or a drawing, or a drawing accompanied by a single phrase, e.g. «Большой привет из Великобритания» (“a warm hello from the UK”). Solidarity Zone recommends using the Prisonmail.online on-line service.

Letters should be addressed to: Paskar Igor Konstantinovich (d.o.b. 1976), Russia 636840 Tomsk region, Asino, ulitsa Michurina 7, FKU IK-2.

Igor Paskar’s speech in court is included in the book Voices Against Putin’s War, and featured in “Try Me For Treason”, a reading of English translations of anti-war protesters’ speeches.

🔴 Vladimir Osipov, another Russian political prisoner, died in a pre-trial detention centre in Ukhta in the Komi republic this week, the Prison Lawyer human rights project reported. In November last year Osipov, 56, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years’ imprisonment by the Liuboretsky court for social media posts about the war in Ukraine, including one that called it a “the shameful president’s shameful war”.

Osipov suffered from hypertension and kidney stones, had been attended by ambulance staff during the trial, and was excused from trial sessions due to ill-health. At the detention centre he was given medication but refused transfer to hospital.

🔴 Anti-war activist Darya Kozyreva was released from prison on Wednesday after serving a two year, eight month sentence, Mediazona reported. Journalists gathered at the penal colony in Kineshma were not allowed near the entrance due to “drills being conducted”. She met with them later in the day.

Kozyreva, 20, was sentenced last year for laying flowers and a poem at the statue of Ukraine’s national poet, Taras Shevchenko. (The sentence included time spent in pre-trial detention.) Her speech in court and other statements are published in Voices Against Putin’s War.

☭ People & Nature is now on mastodon, as well as twitter, whatsapp and telegram. Please follow! Or email peoplenature@protonmail.com, and we’ll add you to our circulation list (2-4 messages per month)

Russia 🪶Prison Authorities Punish Anti-War Protester Igor Paskar

Democracy Now ★ Recommended by Gary Robertson. 

In the Gaza Strip, health officials say Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 9-year-old girl in front of her third grade class on Thursday, traumatizing students and teachers who were left in “psychological shock.” 

Ritaj Rihan was reportedly struck by a bullet without warning as she was sitting at her desk in a tent serving as a classroom in Beit Lahia. 

Video and photos show her bloodied body being rushed through the streets toward a hospital on foot, since there was no medical transport available in the area. 

She was one of four Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks across Gaza on Thursday.

Continue @ Democracy Now.

9-Year-Old Palestinian Girl Shot Dead In Front of Classmates In Gaza’s Beit Lahia

Tracey Ryan 🕊 On April 11th 2026 an inspiring act of direct action was carried out at Shannon Airport to resist the unwanted presence of the US Military in Ireland in the face of their illegal war & support of Israel's genocide.

Independent Peace Activist Daithí Ó Corráin disarmed a U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules transport plane at Shannon Airport.

Daithí is facing three charges: trespassing at a taxiway at Shannon Airport, causing criminal damage to the perimeter fence and causing criminal damage to a U.S. military plane. He has so far been refused bail and is being held at Limerick prison pending a further bail hearing in the High Court in Dublin.

We, Daithí's friends and comrades, are raising funds to support him through his court case. We would like to bring as many friends & comrades to support him in the High Court next week and so our first expense is to book a bus. We would really appreciate your support & will keep you updated here on ways to support Daithí.

Daithí Ó Corráin Support
Chuffed
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Dr John Coulter ✍ Farming remains one of Ulster’s key industries, but there is the real danger the tractor road blocking strategy could badly misfire and public opinion turns against the wider agricultural community.

Given the cash crisis which many farmers face, mainstream and social media has been crammed with photos and footage of massive traffic tailbacks at various commuter junctions across Northern Ireland.

In some quarters, it has become known as the so-called ‘Sunningdale Strategy’, named after the use of farm vehicles to block roads during the 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council strike which collapsed the Sunningdale power-sharing Executive.

However, the British Government learned its lessons from that traffic debacle and has contingency plans in place for future events. In 1977, the then leader of the DUP, the late Rev Ian Paisley, attempted another 1974-style loyalist strike, but it collapsed mainly because the security forces were well prepared for any disruptive tactics.

But the real danger for the current farming community is that the general public will abandon support for those farmers. The organisers of the tractor protests should remember the consequences of the March 1986 Day of Action in Northern Ireland against the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Again, farm machinery was used to block many roads and junctions across the Province that day. But as the day wore on, frustration boiled over and in some areas, there were ugly scenes of confrontation between the security forces and loyalists.

While the signing of November 1985 Dublin diktat mobilised a substantial section of the pro-Union community against the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Ulster Says No rally at Belfast City Hall saw some 250,000 people on the street, middle class Unionist support for the campaign began to quickly evaporate once the road blocking of 1986 turned to violence and confrontation.

Farmers who take part in these current road blocking protests or the use of slow-moving convoys say they are at their wits end financially and have no other option but to resort to the tactics which have been deployed successfully in the Irish Republic, prompting the Dail to bring in a series of measures to assist the Southern agricultural community.

However, Northern Ireland is already in a cost of living crisis and coupled with the Iran war, prices are starting to rocket. Northern Ireland politicians have been voicing their demands that Westminster must intervene to assist Ulster’s beleaguered farming community. But is Downing Street really going to listen and act simply because routes to Belfast International and Belfast City airports have been blocked?

Could Westminster adopt the same attitude as it was perceived to adopt during the era of the Troubles? As long as its happening in Northern Ireland and not happening in mainland Britain, then it becomes an Ulster problem and we in Westminster need only pay lip service to the situation.

Who is being hurt the most by the current tractor blockades and slow-moving convoys? As in 1986, all is takes is for tempers to flare, harsh words to be exchanged, and the farming lobbyists will lose the support of the general public if the tractor protests descend into violence.

What makes the farming community think they will succeed with these types of protests when the British Government has already plans in place to deal with groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestinian Action?

Put bluntly, policing authorities are now well versed at handling and controlling so-called campaigns of civil disobedience. And the authorities can also throw the full weight of the courts against potential protesters.

In the Eighties, when Unionists were advised to withhold payment of certain bills as part of the Ulster Says No campaign, many folk ended up in court.

Taken today, could a number of the farming protest group end up in court as a result of the tractor road blocking campaign? Could that affect their chances of successfully gaining individual future funding?

In practical terms, how much fuel will be used up taking part in these tractor protests given that the rocketing costs of fuel prices is at the heart of the matter? Does this mean the tractor protests will eventually become self-defeating?

If the tractor road blocking does not work, would some in the farming community take even more extreme measures by withholding products from the shops and supermarkets sparking a food shortage crisis on top of a cost of living crisis? Then again, the argument can be made - that is only hurting our own people!

The trick of the trade will be to get Westminster to vote on a package of measures which will radically help the Northern Ireland farming community. That means lobbying specifically the MPs in mainland Britain who will vote on such a package.

Perhaps if the broad UK farming community feels that a civil disobedience campaign using tractors is the best tactic, then they should park their tractors and slurry spreaders outside the homes and constituency offices of those MPs?

A Labour MP, even one very loyal to PM Sir Keir Starmer, will not take much notice of traffic delays and massive tailbacks on the Sydenham bypass in Belfast. But if a dozen massive tractors are parked outside the entrance to their home or constituency office, they’ll be on the phone almost immediately telling the PM - ‘we need urgent legislation!’

The point in terms of strategy which the current farming lobby needs to learn - hurting our own people risks losing public support; you need to take your protest right to the very doors of the folk who can influence the Government. That’s genuine pro-active civil disobedience using your heads.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Sunningdale Strategy Could Backfire Badly On Farmers

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