More Dissident-Republican Activity

[Evil Genius]

That made me laugh...............................now, how can you justify your stance in not answering my questions based on not enough reliable information on whats going on inside our prisons yet have such a lowly opinion of Finucane? do you know something the rest of the people that reside in the wee six don't know? or do you know jack shit on that score and throw derogatory names at a dead man with absolutely no proof?

I don't have to justify it.

I think I know enough about the Finucane Murder to express a definitive opinion on it, whereas I don't know enough about Maghaberry to do so, not least because I simply do not trust the word of terrorists and murderers etc, who are so fanatical that they would live in their own shite and piss to prove their point.

And even if I did know enough of the facts, Maghaberry is not a simple black-and-white issue, since it requires finding a balance between the rights of prisoners to be treated humanely, and the right of other Prisoners and Prison Officers to live and work safely and securely, free from the threat of murder and maiming.

I can't be any clearer than that, so if that's not enough for you, so be it.

[Evil Genius]

I have to assume he condones it, if he didnt I am sure he would have the intestinal fortitude to say why!

I'm sure no one needs reminding, but just in case:

Well now that Stew has just accused you of condoning the Prison Officer's murder (or the 'killing [sic] of a screw', as you so charmingly put it), does that mean you will now be putting him on your Ignore List?

After all, that seems to have been your resort when confronted by me about just how callous and cynical your attitude to terrorism really is.

And you wouldn't like anyone thinking you inconsistent, or capable of double standards, would you, Ulick?

Or do I mean "Donagh"?

P.S. We all know that you read what I post, however much it suits you try to deny it.

[stew]

That made me laugh...............................now, how can you justify your stance in not answering my questions based on not enough reliable information on whats going on inside our prisons yet have such a lowly opinion of Finucane? do you know something the rest of the people that reside in the wee six don't know? or do you know jack shit on that score and throw derogatory names at a dead man with absolutely no proof?

I don't have to justify it.

I think I know enough about the Finucane Murder to express a definitive opinion on it, whereas I don't know enough about Maghaberry to do so, not least because I simply do not trust the word of terrorists and murderers etc, who are so fanatical that they would live in their own shite and piss to prove their point.

I think you dont know any more than any of the rest of us!

See that, to me is cherry picking, how can you say you know enough about the Finucane murder to condemn him as an IRA attorney?

What do you know about Finucane that the rest of us don't know? who told you and why do you believe them? Do you have thev

And even if I did know enough of the facts, Maghaberry is not a simple black-and-white issue, since it requires finding a balance between the rights of prisoners to be treated humanely, and the right of other Prisoners and Prison Officers to live and work safely and securely, free from the threat of murder and maiming.

So the Finucane case IS a black and white issue but Meghaberry isnt? it that your stance?

I can't be any clearer than that, so if that's not enough for you, so be it.

To me there is a parallel here withthe hungers strikers back in the day, a high ranking British official told the prisoners and their representatives that they would be allowed to wear their own garb instead of the garb of the regular prisoners, due to the fact they were political prisoners, an agreement was reached, then breached by Thatcher and this, to me, is happening again due to the fact the Brits wont hold up their end of the bargain, imagine that!

You wont justify your hypocrisy here because you cannot justify it, Finucane was a Catholic who got killed and yet you hammered away at his character despite knowing feck all  more about him than the rest of us do.

Then you feign ignorance at what is going on in the prison system despite the evidence..................see they have these machines than eradicate the need for full body searches, they even allow the  men to pass through them without being degraded 8 to ten times a day and are actually harmless.

Here is the solution, have your government live up to it's agreement, tell us what you know for a fact about Finucane that the rest of us mere mortals don't know and maybe the scumbags in Lurgan will stop killing PO's and we will all stop thinking the Finucane killing was completely unjustified!

[Eamonnca1]

What is the problem in Maghaberry?  Bad reception on their Sky TV?

Blog from SDLP member Emmet Doyle

When I thought I couldn't be shocked:

Last Thursday I again found myself in the bleak surroundings of Roe House, Maghaberry Prison. Pat Ramsey and I went to visit some of the men, including Gerry McGeough. I thought that the shell-chocking effect of the place had hit me hard my first few visits, and that I couldn't be shocked any further. Boy was I mistaken.

Usually, we enter Roe at landing four, and enter the Recreation Room to meet individuals and groups. It is a much larger, cleaner and more modern space. Akin, strangely, to my old school canteen. Not this time. We were led by the SO upstairs, to Roe 3 as the Officers and external staff were cleaning the floor on Roe 4, as a result of the on-going protest, and given it was early in the morning, the stench was almost overpowering.

At the foot of the stairs were bags and bags of Acro - the organic absorbent compound used to soak up urine on the floors, which is then hoovered up. As we descended, the clean, modern facade of Roe began to fade away. What I can only describe as a total mess, was piled up outside a cleaners store just before the security gate. An iron, cables, it was like someone had flytipped in the middle of the hall. Granted, they were all on a shelf, which I could spot after about ten seconds of looking, but this is supposed to be a Category A facility where human beings were held, it was a total travesty.

At the top of the stairs and through the first door, we had to wait until the gate was opened by Officers clad in CSI-white overalls, walkie-talkies and batons. Once on the landing, we were led to the "classroom". I use inverted commas, primarily because there is no way on earth the room we were led to could be said to be a classroom. Other than the electronic whiteboard on the wall and the whiteboard on the floor at the back of the room with Irish on it, the only other thing that was in the room was dirt.

The desks must have been brought in from Long Kesh, they were so old. The computers at the back of the room, though they looked relatively modern, were covered in cobwebs and debris. On the wall was a canvass picture - of a red telephone box and Big Ben - ironic, I thought.

We met Gerry first, as always in good spirits and friendly, despite the obvious hardship he has endured. We all spoke for about 40 minutes, then we met a few other men, all who raised issues about the primary issue coming out of Maghaberry at present - healthcare.

That is a conversation for another day. After the meetings had ended, we emerged from the cave which was deemed a classroom, and were once again on the landing, smell and spray [which has brought me out in a rash again this week] right in our faces. It was lunchtime, and the Officers set about going to give the men their plastic covered food.

Pat set off down the right side of Roe, seeking out two opened cells at the bottom of the wing - one cleaned, one dirty. I set out down the left side, seeking out the new machine that was being used below to clean the cells, which had been causing annoyance to both staff and prisoners as it was used in conjunction with a diesel generator, and the fumes in such an encolsed area were not pleasant.

I couldn't get downstairs, but I asked one of the officers to go down and see if he could get me the name of the machine, its make, serial number, any markings on it. He re-appeared a few minutes later, but with no information. I wasn't leaving without it.

Pat came back up the landing from one of the dirty cells, shaking his head. I had caught a glimpse of the cell on way down to see if I could get downstairs, and would be lying if I said I wasn't physically afraid of going to look into it.

When we were 'spun out' of the landing [the process whereby one officer has to radio another officer in another part of the building to release the turnstyles to let us out] we went back downstairs, though locked back from the landing on Roe 4. I asked to see the SO, to get the information I had sought about this machine, while making notes about the cleaning products and absorbent material being used for the protest cleanup. Again, no joy.

Surprisingly, and I have to give credit where it is due - one of the external workers, about my age, came right up to the gate and asked what I was looking for - I repeated, the name, serial number, model of the new cleaner - and he came back a few minutes later with the information on a post-it.

As we left, escorted by an Officer to the exit of the compound, that feeling of not wanting to leave but impatient to get out of the harrowing building again visited me, and Pat also, as it always did. As we walked up the driveway towards the main gate, the follow-up plans flowed, as they always did, what was next to address the issues raised, which family members did we need to phone.

Let no-one tell you that the men there, and indeed all prisoners regardless of colour, creed or nationality have no-one standing up for them in the Assembly - because we left the Quakers after a near two-hour visit to Roe and after getting our first food of the day (and toilet break given we are not permitted to use facilities in the prison) and drove straight to Parliament Buildings to address what we could from there.

I know that eight or nine Deputies are to visit Roe within the coming weeks - something made possible by the changing of prison rules that we had worked on for months to allow TDs equal access to Northern prisons as MLAs and MPs have. That will be important for all in Roe - to know that honourable men and women North and South have not forgotten.

I'll finish by saying the intense itching in the car to Stormont and the rash and boils underneath my beard following the visit as a result of the spray, have now ceased, but I don't know how they do it.

Never forget

So the prisoners are wrecking the place and then complaining about the fact that it's wrecked?

[Oraisteach]

EG, there is something wonderfully appropriate about your unwillingness to believe people so "fanatical that they would live in their own shite and piss to prove their point," because in that beautiful synopsis you have engaged in astute self-revelation and encapsulated why it is that I can't really respect anything that you say.  In short, the structure of your reasonableness is built solidly on the bogland of your hypocrisy, a two-facedness captured in your untenable stance on the Finucane case.

You like to present yourself as evenhanded in your views--fair, democratic, liberal even—but the fact that you not only fail to express outrage at state-sanctioned murder but, in fact, applaud its outcome, only exposes the unreliability of your other views.  More contemptible, though, is that you almost always take pains to demonstrate your impeccable credentials for fairness (e.g. as in tag-on lines such as " * - Which I am quite happy  to  condemn,  btw. [relating to Finucane's murder], only right after you have uncondemned it).  Apparently, too,  you have remarkable detective powers that permit you to say that 'Re Finucane, I have very good reason for believing that he was the Provos' "in-house lawyer"', powers that allow you to bypass almost universally accepted rules of conduct in civilized societies.  In the Shangri La that you envision, it seems, lawyers should be available only to those whom you deem innocent. Ah, fcuk it all--kill the rest.

No, I don't think you're a "flip-flopper."  You are, as you say, consistent—consistently phony, endlessly pontificating in the "shite and piss" of your own duplicity.

[Ulick]

So the prisoners are wrecking the place and then complaining about the fact that it's wrecked?

Eamonnca1 is it too much effort a read back a few pages before coming out with the facetious comments or do you prefer to put yourself in the adolescent corner with Rossfan?

[Tony Baloney]

Ulick are these conditions in place for Republican prisoners only?

[Wildweasel74]

Normal people go to work, worry about paying bills, putting children through school, doing work around their house, and in what little spare time a person has follow their hobbies , be it sports, socialising etc. If these low life's actually lived in the real world, like most of us do, they wouldn't have time to act the so called freedom fighter. Why some human beings value life so little is hard to gauge.conditions at a jail, should not be used as a reason or excuse to carry out such a vile act. Most people hope these type of days and acts are behind us, about time someone informed the nethanderals still living in the past.

[charlieTully]

Normal people go to work, worry about paying bills, putting children through school, doing work around their house, and in what little spare time a person has follow their hobbies , be it sports, socialising etc. If these low life's actually lived in the real world, like most of us do, they wouldn't have time to act the so called freedom fighter. Why some human beings value life so little is hard to gauge.conditions at a jail, should not be used as a reason or excuse to carry out such a vile act. Most people hope these type of days and acts are behind us, about time someone informed the  still living in the past.

if you were getting a fist shoved up your hole five times a day you might think differently.

[Eamonnca1]

So the prisoners are wrecking the place and then complaining about the fact that it's wrecked?

Eamonnca1 is it too much effort a read back a few pages before coming out with the facetious comments or do you prefer to put yourself in the adolescent corner with Rossfan?

Gimme a page number and I'll go back and have a look. I'm genuinely curious as to what this is all about.

[Rossfan]

So the prisoners are wrecking the place and then complaining about the fact that it's wrecked?

Eamonnca1 is it too much effort a read back a few pages before coming out with the facetious comments or do you prefer to put yourself in the adolescent corner with Rossfan?

Seems if you don't agree with or adore the opinions of Ulick you're not an adult.
My comment was that Ulick and another buck were in difficulty as they are not outrightly condemning this murder or the persons who carried it out while their leader Martim McGuinness was doing so.
It seems any adverse comment about SF or about Ulick and th'other yoke is just not allowed and the person who makes it has to be villified and abused from a heighth.
And then they wonder why most people in the 26 Cos. won't flock to vote for SF 

[stew]

So the prisoners are wrecking the place and then complaining about the fact that it's wrecked?

Eamonnca1 is it too much effort a read back a few pages before coming out with the facetious comments or do you prefer to put yourself in the adolescent corner with Rossfan?

You answered your own question Ulick.

[Ulick]

My comment was that Ulick and another buck were in difficulty as they are not outrightly condemning this murder or the persons who carried it out while their leader Martim McGuinness was doing so.
It seems any adverse comment about SF or about Ulick and th'other yoke is just not allowed and the person who makes it has to be villified and abused from a heighth.
And then they wonder why most people in the 26 Cos. won't flock to vote for SF 

Condemn it? What do you think this is Prime Time or something, you're Miriam and I'm Marty? No one cares any more about my opinion than they do about yours and both of ours together equal the sum of feck all squared - so don't come all the condemn bollocks with me. I offered an opinion and background information based on some local knowledge, you came in with the adolescent nonsense without contributing to what up until then had been a sensible discussion.

The recent posts on the thread started out with people trying to put some sense to what seemed a senseless act of murder, but inevitably when you look behind the tabloid spin there is always motivation to any murder. You were the person who tried to spin this out to some anti-SF agenda and insinuated that I or others supported the act when I made no comment either-way. The simple fact is I did not know Mr Black, so I'm not going to get on any righteous high horse about the killing. It was wrong, of course it was. As a society up here we have passed all that nonsense. However, I feel no more emotionally attached to the Black killing as I would to someone taking out Johnny Adair or Thatcher dying of Alzheimer's i.e. I empathise with the pain of the families and I wish them no harm but given the nasty history between us all I'm really not going to be all that upset about it.

Does that make me a hypocritical SF lackey? Maybe so, but at least I can be honest about, accept the tragedy of it all and let things sit as opposed to being a w**ker and using the death of a man in an attempt to score cheap, dirty, insignificant points against a perceived SFer on an anonymous discussion forum.
 
Oíche mhaith a chara.

[Tony Baloney]

Ulick was enquiring earlier if the conditions these boys are kept in are only the preserve of dissidents, all Republican prisoners or all prisoners including Loyalists? I'm all for ensuring prison isn't a holiday camp but the sheer number of these strip searches seems to be about dehumanising and f**king with the mind of the prisoner rather than genuine attempts to find contraband.

[give her dixie]

The conditions that those held have to go through are sub human. No man or woman, no matter what they have done, or not done in the case of many, deserves to be treated in such a way in todays world. There has been a machine in place for full body scanning, however, prison warders prefer to put on rubber gloves and shove their hands up peoples rear end on an hourly basis.

The ongoing internment of Martin Corey, Marian Price and Gerry McGeough has been disgraceful, and wrong on so many levels. Marian has been held for over 500 days now and her health is very low, Martin Corey not charged, and Gerry a victim of selective justice.

The plight of the prisoners has been an elephant in the room for a few years now that no one talked about until now. Lets hope something will be done to resolve this issue very soon.