Statement from Release Martin Corey Campaign
The Spotlight Programme screened on
Tuesday, November 12 was, in part, concerned with the case of political
internee Martin Corey. Ciaran Tracey, Journalist for the BBC, visited Martin in
Maghaberry prison, Co Antrim and conducted an interview with him. During the
course of this interview Martin stated that he believed that he was in jail
because he refused to become an informer, he stated he had been approached
prior to his incarceration and told that he should co-operate with the security
forces or else he would find himself in jail.
And that is where Martin Corey found
himself, in Maghaberry Jail, he has been there for over three-and-half-years.
He faces no charge and no trial, he has no release date, his release had
previously been directed by the courts but then overturned by the British
secretary of state. Three British secretaries of state have allowed Martin's
internment to continue with secret evidence quoted as justification for this.
This blatant disregard for the judicial
system exposes the true nature of British rule in Ireland and how it serves to
persecute political dissenters. It is now time that Martin Corey is released once
and for all with no interference from un-elected British officials who seek to
protect those who recruit informers and put Irish citizen’s lives in danger on
a daily basis.
On Monday, November 11 and Tuesday,
November 12, the Release Marin Corey Campaign loosely organised an attempt to
highlight Martins case on social networking site Twitter. The result was
overwhelming and exceeded expectations throughout the course of those two days.
Republicans and human rights defenders continuously tweeted #releasemartincorey
and due to their hard work this trended at number two on Monday
(November 11) and number 1 on Tuesday (November 12) in Ireland. The
committee would like to thank all those who took part and congratulate you on
your success.
We are weeks away from knowing the outcome
of Martin's case but we must not now sit back think that here is no more to
done, we must keep the pressure on. In September Human rights organisation,
Justice Watch Ireland
released a report on their findings into the incarceration of Martin Corey. A
full copy of this report has now been published on www.releasemartincorey.com
The Release Martin Corey Campaign once
again reiterates its demand for the release of Martin Corey, who is in jail
solely for his political views. The British Government and their security must
not be allowed to continue down this path of political persecution
unchallenged.
The twitter storm created around the INTERNMENT of Martin Corey was refreshing in that it highlighted to us all that:
ReplyDelete1. The British Dirty War' is far from over & 'divide & conquer' is their top priority.
2. It reminded the British government, Stormont & ALL the political parties that discontent still exists on the ground despite the protestations from OFM/DFM
3. Internment is still alive & well
4. Finally & most importantly, it sent a clear message that GENUINE Republicans who care about the plight of THEIR fellow Irishmen & Irishwomen, deliberately victimised by the British State, haven't gone away!
I also watched that and found it rather facetious that the likes of Marian Price were interned for holding a piece of paper. I am against militant Republicanism but it was OTT to put her in prison for so long for such a minor incident. Jackie McDonald and others stood beside masked gunmen and never once got lifted.
ReplyDeleteI do feel that this is against human rights and he should be freed. They wont tell people what the charges are?? really.
I agree with both Fenian and Maitiu. I do not rule out for a minute that the British MI5 are looking at other ways to stifle the dissident activity.
ReplyDeleteIn the form of financial and economic punishments, possible DHSS penalties for paramilitary activity. To try to starve the revolution so to speak, possibly on both loyalist and republican communities.
Only a thought, but the way things are going nothing can and SHOULD be ruled out.
Joe McCann unarmed and gunned down like so many others. And they want an apology for Narrowwater. Wouldn’t we be fools.
ReplyDeleteAM
ReplyDeleteExactly,
Seems a few who should know better have forgtten who the oppressors actually were!
By the way folks. I was in Bargain Books and picked up two great Irish history books for £2.99 each. 'The Fenians were dreadful men, the 1867 rising' by Padraig O Concubhair and ' Rebel Heart, George Lennon, flying column commander' by Terence O'Reilly.
ReplyDeleteMartin is in a British catch 22 situation, (1) Tout for us and be free.
ReplyDelete(2) Stay locked up for as long as we want you to be locked up.
The secret evidence = "NIL" , there is none, its a big cover up by mi5 who can say and do what they want , lie there teeth out and get away with it.
The word tout is not in Martins vocabulary.
Apologise for narrowwater!, yes, so sorry there was no more parts for the body bags, they became natural food.
Joe Mc Cann, unarmed and shot by Paras
Maitiu,
ReplyDeletethere is something cruel in that - like telling alcoholics there is free beer! Books, I love them but hate them.
Interesting Mattieu that you read so much on republicanism, have you any worthwhile suggestions that can help us understand your community? Great to see the twitter storm and hopefully it will make a difference to the impending decision
ReplyDeleteAM
ReplyDeleteYes, I also love books. I have a decent collection but try to stick with Kindle versions now as physical books take up so much room. I must admit, I am a sucker for the bargain books Irish section. Many of them are 90% cheaper for the exact same book that you pay full retail for at Waterstones and Easons.
As I think of Martin this morning and the betrayal his continuing incarceration represents and indeed our painful history of betrayal I include a poem by the 'free-state' president (brought to mind this morning after Olivia O'Leary's excellent piece on RTE Radio 1's Drivetime last evening.)
ReplyDeleteThe Betrayal
A poem for my father
By Michael D Higgins
This man is seriously ill,
The doctor had said a week before,
Calling for a wheelchair.
It was
After they rang me
To come down and persuade you
To go in
Condemned to remember your eyes
As they met mine in that moment
Before they wheeled you away.
It was one of my final tasks,
To persuade you to go in,
A Judas chosen not by Apostles
But by others more broken;
And I was in part,
Relieved when they wheeled you from me,
Down the corridor, confused,
Without a backwards glance
And when I had done it,
I cried, out onto the road,
Hitching a lift to Galway and away
From the trouble of your
Cantankerous old age
And rage too,
At all that had in recent years
Befallen you.
All week I waited to visit you
But when I called, you had been moved
To where those dying too slowly
Were sent,
A poorhouse no longer known by that name,
But in the liberated era of Lemass,
Given a saint's name, 'St. Joseph's.
Was he Christ's father,
Patron saint of the Worker,
The mad choice of some pietistic politician?
You never cared.
Nor did you speak too much.
You had broken an attendant's glasses,
The holy nurse told me,
When you were admitted.
Your father is a very difficult man,
As you must know. And Social Welfare is slow
And if you would pay for the glasses,
I would appreciate it.
It was 1964, just after optical benefit
Was rejected by DeValera for poorer classes
In his Republic, who could not afford,
As he did,
To travel to Zurich
For their regular tests and their
Rimless glasses.
It was decades earlier
You had brought me to see him
Pass through Newmarket-on-Fergus
As the brass and reed band struck up,
Cheeks red and distended to the point
Where a child's wonder was as to whether
They would burst as they blew
Their trombones.
The Sacred Heart Procession and De Valera,
You told me, were the only occasions
When their instruments were taken
From the rusting, galvanized shed
Where they stored them in anticipation
Of the requirements of Church and State.
Long before that, you had slept,
In ditches and dug outs,
Prayed in terror at ambushes
With others who later debated
Whether De Valera was lucky or brilliant
In getting the British to remember
That he was an American,
And that debate had not lasted long
In concentration camps in Newbridge
And the Curragh, Where mattresses were burned,
As the gombeens decided that the new State
Was a good thing,
Even for business.
(continued)
ReplyDeleteIn the dining room of St. Joeseph's
The potatoes were left in the middle of the table
In a dish, towards which
You and many other Republicans
Stretched feeble hands that shook.
Your eyes were bent as you peeled
With the long thumb-nail I had often watched
Scrape a pattern on the leather you had
Toughened for our shoes,
Your eyes when you looked at me
Were a thousand miles away,
Now totally brocken,
Unlike those times even
Of rejection, when you went at sixty
For jobs you never got,
Too frail to load vans, or manage
The demands of selling.
And I remember
When you came back to me,
Your regular companion of such occasions,
And they said, They think that I'm too old
For the job. I said I was fifty-eight
But they knew I was past sixty.
A body ready for transportation,
Fit only for a coffin, that made you
Too awkward
For death at home.
The shame of a coffin exit
Through a window sent you here,
Where my mother told me you asked
Only for her to place her cool hand
Under your neck.
And I was there when they asked
Would they give you a Republican Funeral,
In that month when you died,
Between the end of the First Programme for
Economic Expansion
And the Second.
I look at your photo now,
Taken in the beginning of bad days,
With your surviving mates
In Limerick.
Your face haunts me as do these memories;
And all these things have been scraped
In my heart,
And I can never hope to forget
What was, after all,
A betrayal.
Maitiu,
ReplyDeleteI do Kindle myself but still increase the size of the hard library. Kindle is great.
While on the topic of books I think one needs to be put together about the internment situation that the British brought back in. What has happened to Martin is a powerful indictment of a state abusing process to persecute people who refuse to become instruments of that state.
Even of Martin was to be released in the morning the Brits have achieved what they set out to do create a culture of fear.
ReplyDeleteThe culture of fear has come at the end of a long slow process which is aided and abetted by Sinn Fein.
They have helped put measures in place that have isolated Republicans.
Now it's a case of , they have purchased one half and are quickly locking up or terrorising the other.
Nuala,
ReplyDeleteit shows us how far SF slipped off the republican radar when it endorsed a process that would allow the British to prosecute republicans for their role in the conflict.
Mackers,
ReplyDeleteWhen I think back to when Clonard was rebuilt around 1998, it was built to ensure now form of Republican activity would ever take place again or at least not on a scale it once did.
The area is now one way in and out.
The alleyways have gone even the back doors have gone. Walk through the area now and it's an area of permantely closed doors.
The thinking and planning was around a loss of community. Walking up from the town last week I found out the Lower Falls is now the same.
Clonard was marked for rebuild before the Belfast Agreement . Which begs the question how long was the stitch up really going on?
I always found the term Detained at her majesties pleasure or detained at the secretary of state’s pleasure divisive.
ReplyDeleteIt adds insult to injury with its sadist sounding pleasantry.
There is nothing pleasant about detention and interment and in this case it reeks of pure State evil.
I say evil as even when he is released he will still be harassed by those whom initially tried to recruit him.
I always wonder why cases like this do not seem to gain the attention of the general public.
If these detentions continue unopposed by the people and law-makers alike we shall find ourselves living in a police state.
It’s bad enough that we already live in a quasi police State.
Fionnuala
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with you on; the Brits set out to create a culture of fear. I don't think they've achieved it (otherwise we wouldn't have blogs like this). I am not on Twitter or Facebook, and have no intention of ever being on them (it's just me), I am very computer savvy, but I don't like them. I'm so glad that other people who do, supported Martin Corey, in their quest to get him released from the North's Guantanamo Bay. I also watched Channel 4 news last night (about the ripping up of the pact between the Brits and Yanks about not spying on each other, or their citizens, that had been signed in 1946), apparently it was thrown in the bin around 2007. One guy was on C4 news, explaining that, if one person was spied on (through email), then his/her contacts were also spied on and, say, through Facebook his/her contacts would be spied on, and so on and so on. That meant that just one person could generate the spying on at least 5 MILLION people, and remember that's just ONE person! Absolutely ridiculous! If we are in a totalitarian state, at least have the fucking decency to tell us! I seen a few comments about dissent, in any other place in the world (near enough), that would/could mean dissenting from a law about the price of cabbage or legalising "pot", but in this place (ratcheted up by a unionist party called "Sinn Fein"), it means armed groups trying to overthrow their wee state! Dissent does not mean what SF tell their sheep, nor ordinary Joe Bloggs like you and I, it means questioning the status quo.
Tain Bo,
ReplyDeleteIt's strange the way people react to injustice on their own door step. I have heard people talk quite exclusively about injustice all over the world ( Mairead Corrigan Maguire for one )
and yet they can ignore what is staring them in the face.
Belfastgit,
I think the fear factor has gotten through to people big time.
People who I have known all my life to have been sympathetic in relation to prisoners and injustice, now look the other way.
Thankfully, as you rightfully point out there will always be pockets of resistance.
It could be that people believe there is a settlement here, or they are too old, too tired or just too scared to rock the proverbial boat. Whichever,it's sad to see people now close their eyes, ears and doors to injustice.