The SDLP, PBP and Alliance Party were outraged, with the megalomaniac Naomi Long and her erstwhile lieutenant Stephen Farry particularly vocal in their condemnation.
Such a reaction was, unfortunately, only to be expected. What was unexpected however, and what was deeply worrying, was the reaction of Provisional Sinn Fein.
John Finucane, Provisional SF Member of Parliament for North Belfast took to Twitter to voice his opinion that the NIO should not be meeting with what he termed “armed gangs”.
The hypocrisy in his sentiments is staggering. Members of Mr Finucane’s own family were active members of the Provisional IRA. What was (and is) the Provisional IRA if not an “armed gang”?
Let us not forget that the Provisional republican movement were (and are) involved, not only in violence, but also in smuggling, armed robbery, intimidation, extortion, drug dealing, people trafficking, blackmail, prostitution and kidnapping.
Continue reading @ It's Still Only Thursday.
It was colossal hypocrisy by Finucane it has to be said.
ReplyDeleteit is much harder to make that argument today that it would have been back in the day which predates John Finucane's involvement with SF.
DeleteWhat his brothers were involved in is wholly irrelevant. If it can be demonstrated that there are armed gangs running the street that JF is associated with, then your point would have more merit.
Steve R
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, what we have come to expect from Finucane. The "Human Rights Lawyer" who gets his panties in a bunch about nationalists getting murdered unless their names are JJ O'Connor, Robert McCartney, Kevin McGuigan or Paul Quinn then he doesn't seem to give a fuck. Those armed gangs are beyond even condemnation let alone investigation. He either thinks those murders were justified or else he just hasn't got the balls to oppose the Bearded Satan. Either way he has zero credibility.
Whether you like it or not he has plenty of credibility. Not one of the people mentioned was killed while he was a member of SF. I probably took more abuse than anyone else over the Joe O'Connor killing but I am hardly going to hold John F to account over it. If something happened on his watch there would be more grounds for the criticism thrown his way but at the minutes it sounds like sour grapes because he took the seat.
DeleteI would not be howling at Julie Anne Corr Johnston over the killing of nationalists long before she joined the PUP.
Of course he knows what Adams is - who doesn't?
I think it is personalised too much when it comes to the name "Finucane."
Peter - believe it or not I try not to hate anybody and have told my kids from an early age they can curse all they want but to refrain from using the word hate. I don't see myself defending John F but I am of the view that if we are to speak truthfully to power it is vitally important to speak truthfully about power. I just find the characterisation of him so wide off the mark. If somebody was to accuse Gerry Adams of never having joined the IRA, I would seek to explain how that is wrong. I do the same with John Finucane. I don't know they guy, hold no brief for him.
DeleteI have listened to Ruth Dudley Edwards lambast him and then tell us that Seam O'Callaghan is a honest guy. Who is going to take that tripe seriously?
Nor was I referring to you specifically being annoyed at the seat, more at his critics in general.
Human rights are for everybody. But human rights advocates might focus on certain cases, much like Raymond McCord does. I tend to become concerned not when they are found not taking up some cases rather than others but if they try to prevent other cases being taken up. I have every sympathy with those people with human rights concerns campaigning for justice for the victims of the Birmingham bomb and don't accuse them of being hypocrites for not at the same time championing the victims of Bloody Sunday. As long as they don't seek to obstruct such campaigning.
Say John F was championing Lyra McKee but trying at the same time to undermine Joanne Mathers, then I would have a very real problem. Until he does that he will maintain credibility. I think many of his critics damage their own credibility by using any pretext to attack him.
AM
ReplyDeleteI don't care that he took the seat. SF, DUP? Two heads of the same snake. I'd rather the SDLP had the seat than the DUP. Finucane is a kool aid drinking shinner robot, the type of cunt you normally hate so why do you defend him? And you never addressed my point about his "human rights" crusading which never ever fights for nationalists killed by the Provos. Plenty of credibility you say?
I apologise for saying that you hate anyone, a poor lexical choice. I should have said "seriously dislike".
ReplyDeleteTo me human rights are, by definition, universal. If an innocent person is murdered and a lawyer refuses to help because they are beholden to the murderer, then don't call yourself a human rights lawyer. As I said before, he either approves of those murders or hasn't the balls to call them out. He wants to see justice for his dad and a public inquiry, fair enough, but he won't even condemn the murder of Edgar Graham. Why? Again, does he approve of that murder or does he not want to upset his bosses and uncles? If the murder of his da was wrong then so was the murder of Graham. In our community and a significant part of his own the man has no credibility.
I only said I try not to hate anyone not that I succeed!
DeleteHuman rights are universal or they have no meaning. Or they are used in a context that creates real racism rather than PC defined racism i.e. that some people are so less human that they do not merit the same rights as everybody else. But the very real universality of human rights leave it impossible for human rights advocates campaign for all victims of human rights abuses. The key issues is that they should never campaign against them.
Has he been asked to condemn the killing of Edgar Graham? If so I am unaware of it. I would be very surprised if he did refuse to condemn it. I doubt he would approve of the IRA killings. Many new SF people don't and those like Christine O'Mahoney say they joined SF because they believe in a United Ireland not the IRA or its past actions and believed the IRA was a thing of the past.
I am not sure human rights lawyer is a useful term. But insofar as we choose to use it, it is usually in the contect of lobbying on behalf of those killed by the state. It is limited in that regard. Yet that is beside the point.
He lobbies for his dead father which is fine. I don't look to see if he lobbies for say Edgar Graham or Mary Travers, If he attempted to stop Ann Travers lobbying for her sister or the family of My Graham lobbying or claim that their lives were less worthy of such lobbying then that would pose a serious problem. Can you show where he has done that?
If there was a state angle in the role of Edgard Graham (which by that stage we cannot rule out) human rights lawyers who call out state abuses might be all over it. And in that part of your community where he has no credibility it would seem there is strong opposition to the state being called out on its abuses. Then we might find the desire for justice for Edgar Graham run out of steam.
In what significant part of the nationalist community does he lack credibility? He took the seat in a way that Gerry Kelly was never likely to.
I'm not asking for him to campaign for all victims, just that he shouldn't call himself a human rights lawyer when he will not condemn IRA murders. Do IRA victims not have human rights? He is a republican rights lawyer. Although I doubt he would campaign for the likes of you unless there was something in it for Gerry and and the boys!
ReplyDeleteHe has been questioned multiple times on radio and TV about the murder of Edgar Graham and he has always refused to condemn it. He employs all his slippery lawyerly language to avoid answering the questions.
"In what significant part of the nationalist community does he lack credibility?" You should've read the comments on twitter after his last slippery interview on Edgar Graham to see the answer to that question. Me thinks your support for this Kool aid drinking lackey are tempered by your affection for his father. He's a shinner party apparatchik yes man, nothing more.
If he refuses to recognise all victims of human rights abuses then he deserves called out. Send me a link to where he refuses to criticise IRA killings and also to the interview you mentioned which you called slippery.
DeleteI wouldn't read too much into Twitter in terms either of credibility or lack of it.
I liked his father. He was my lawyer. But I guess I would behave the same way were he not called Finucane and was subject to the same attack.
But the name Finucane seems to enrage, probably because it more than any other word goes to the double standard at the heart of British security policy in Ireland. Many people do not want that brought to the fore.
I no more support him than I do Billy Hutchinson - I just happen to think both should be treated fairly and described accurately.
A quick google search produced these.
ReplyDeleteFrom 2020: https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/troubles/sinn-fein-mp-john-finucane-pressed-ira-murder-uup-barrister-edgar-graham-3048124
From 2017: https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/sf-candidate-asked-about-ira-murder-lawyer-1114620
There was another interview in 2019 but I can't find any credible reports, only the TUV's lol. If you want to listen to the interviews you'll have to search yourself. We all know why he won't condemn Graham's murder.
Unfortunately I can't access them to find out what he did say. I'll try myself online.
Deletethe rest seems to be all TUV stuff which is as worthy of reading as SF.
DeleteIf you do find anything send it thru
First one is
ReplyDelete"He was challenged over the issue on Good Morning Ulster yesterday, as his family waits to hear if they will get a public inquiry into the murder of his father, the lawyer Pat Finucane.
A presenter told Mr Finucane that people like Anne Graham, the sister of barrister Edgar Graham, say that she just wants Sinn Fein to condemn her brother’s murder. “Are you prepared to condemn his killing?” he asked.
Mr Finucane replied: “We are straying into the different hats that I wear, but the hurt that anybody else has went through – I mean I have went through this – I am not going to play games with that.
have tried to target me with selective condemnation and I don’t think that is particularly helpful in the context of legacy.”
The presenter responded that for some people, condemnation would make a difference and that even though he too had been through the pain of his father’s murder “you still struggle to say it was wrong ... and doesn’t that say something in itself?”.
Mr Finucane replied: “No, I don’t have any difficulty, I mean any death was wrong. Any death in the context in which it happened here was wrong. I think that people realise that there was a conflict here. There are very different narratives as to what happened in that conflict.” He added: “I don’t elevate the pain which my family has went through above any other family.”
He called for a process that would give all families complete information about the death of their loved ones.
"
Second one is
ReplyDelete"John Finucane has been selected as Sinn Fein’s general election candidate to contest the North Belfast Westminster seat.
He is the son of lawyer Pat Finucane, 40, who was murdered in front of his family by loyalist paramilitaries at his home in the city in 1989. There was found to have been collusion in the murder.
Mr Finucane and his family and supporters have long campaigned for a public inquiry into the murder.
When Sinn Fein did not respond to a News Letter request for a wide-ranging interview with the North Belfast candidate, on May 26 we posed a single question asking if Mr Finucane was prepared to condemn unequivocally the murder of Edgar Graham.
At time of going to press we have not received a response, despite further requests.
Edgar Graham was a 29-year-old barrister, Queen’s University law lecturer and Ulster Unionist assembly member. He was shot in the head by IRA gunmen close to Queen’s University in December 1983.
When a current Queen’s lecturer in the law department stood as a Sinn Fein assembly candidate in March, he faced criticism for refusing to specifically condemn the murder of Edgar Graham – instead, he spoke of his “profound sorrow” at all Troubles-related deaths.
At Mr Graham’s inquest, the coroner described him as a “brilliant scholar”.
Quoting the coroner, the book Lost Lives records: “No doubt his skill and advocacy were a great thorn in the flesh of some people who did not agree with his views and who tragically did not feel fit to meet him in a democratic forum. Instead, they chose to terminate his life in this cowardly fashion.”
In an Irish Times interview on May 25, Mr Finucane said: “For the avoidance of any doubt I oppose violence. I don’t think there is anybody who could probably be in a better position to say that.”
He added: “What I am focused on with regards to legacy is the same message as I have delivered when I have been campaigning for truth and justice around the murder of my father. And that is every victim ... is entitled to truth and justice.”
On May 17, Mr Finucane told the Belfast Telegraph he condemned “all acts of violence” when asked specifically if he would condemn the IRA Shankill bomb that killed 10 people in 1993.
We will be happy to run Mr Finucane’s thoughts at a future date.
• Question to John Finucane:
Your have campaigned for years for an inquiry into the heinous murder of your father who was a lawyer.
We at the News Letter have been trying to draw attention to many other murders during the Troubles, including that of another lawyer, Edgar Graham, who was killed for his political views, and whose murder is almost never talked about.
At the last election (see link below) we asked a Sinn Fein candidate who works in the same university department that Edgar Graham did, to condemn that murder. Do you [Mr Finucane] condemn unequivocally the murder of Edgar Graham? We are not asking about all killings, we are asking about this specific killing.’
Thanks for these Steve.
DeleteI think in his position there is an irreconcilable tension between maintaining the image of a human rights lawyer and the clear reluctance to speak evenly about all human rights abuses when asked. and - even if by omission - create peaks and troughs. He cannot speak persuasively as a human rights lawyer if he persists in speaking as a party rep. The two horses will inevitably pull their rider apart. And when the human rights lawyer eventually does get to the point where they speak evenly, there are many who will remain unforgiving, feeling it is for the political optics rather than out of genuine concern for abuses.
I believe him when he says he opposes all violence and expresses himself as he does because of the party he belongs to. But as a human rights lawyer he is required to go the extra mile.
I remember back in the jail talking about the Edgar Graham killing. The only person to speak out against it was Jim Gibney.
And regardless of what I think of his father, no child should have to witness what he did at a young age so I'm not going to get annoyed about what he does or didn't say regarding a murder.
ReplyDelete