"Nearly 15 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement Marian Price McGlinchey is the victim of administrative internment. Marian was bailed by the courts but sent to prison at the whim of the British Secretary of State who alleged Marian had breached the terms of the licence she was released from prison on in 1980. This licence was overridden by the Royal Prerogative of Mercy (pardon) Marian received shortly after her release.(Pauline Mellon)
"When this point was raised the authorities claimed the pardon document was either lost or shredded in 2010. Surprisingly, the British government claim to know the content of the missing pardon yet have failed to produce evidence to substantiate their claim. So how can the authorities make a decision based upon the contents of a document they have not seen? Oddly enough a number of copies of the 13th century Magna Carta still exist yet we are expected to believe that a royal pardon issued in 1980 is missing from government archives with no other copy to be found. This is the only pardon in the history of the British Monarchy to go missing."
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
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12 comments:
Save your sympathy for her victims.
Is that more or less victims than Obama's?
She paid for her crime with a prison sentence. Will Obama pay for his crimes? She did her time and was released. Now she's back inside and seriously ill; no charges, no trial, no opportunity to defend herself.
I am attempting, in my infinitesimally small way, to highlight a human rights abuse perpetrated by the government of my country against a middle-aged woman. If you think that that in anyway condones what she did in the past, then there's a short circuit in your reasoning process.
"Is that more or less victims than Obama's?"
Nice deflection. Let's get the anti - U.S. angle in there right away. If the post was about Obama and his victims, perhaps I would respond to that!
Price and her sister and those who think like them are fanatics. I have zero sympathy for fanatics of any race, creed, or political persuasion. They are the "all my way or nothing" people. The same mentality behind the men who could murder Michael Collins in 1922 and the thugs who executed a mother of ten children in 1972.
I think there are other individuals who are victims of human rights abuses who are far more worthy of attention than Marion Price.
You call it deflection, vza, I call it context.
In my opinion Collins was also a fanatic who murdered for the same cause as the Price Sisters took up. Collins may have been a charismatic figure, bur he was a killer. He was also, in my opinion, a political naif, in some part responsible for the continuing bloodshed in Ireland and Britain.
Nor do I subscribe to the idea that human rights can be portioned out, with more and better rights to the blameless. Rights are universal, or they become privileges doled out by rulers to those who prefer not to exercise them.
Of course, Collins killed for the same cause the Price sisters took up ... he was a revolutionary. The difference between them is that Collins recognized when a political settlement might advance his cause better than killing. Gerry Adams and McGuinness were probably killers, too, but they, for whatever reasons, agreed to help end most of the killing through negotiations. Northern Ireland is in a lot better shape now than it was before the agreement. The Price sisters and their fellows in the "Real" IRA are against any kind of compromise ... which just means more killing.
Sorry, I simply cannot muster up any sympathy for them.
I'm sure they'll manage without your sympathy, vza, but Marian Price is imprisoned without trial. That doesn't call for sympathy it calls for voices of protest. I don't know how you feel about Guantanamo but I know it's wrong, a crime against humanity. I know your government picks and chooses which régimes to castigate and undermine for their human rights records. You know - Burma, bad yesterday, good today. The CIA published a list of countries with good human rights records a couple of years ago, and Saudi Arabia was on the list. Your government picks and chooses, the unelected government of my country picks and chooses. Don't you think that they are mealy-mouthed hypocrites? I do.
Coca Cola (pause to spit) finances murder squads in Colombia. The governments of your country and mine arm terrorists in Syria because its régime doesn't meet their approval (unlike Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Uzbekistan). The people who make up the governments of the US and the UK are human rights abusers, mass murderers.
Never mind, you save your righteous indignation for a sick woman, victim of a vindictive administration.
"Never mind, you save your righteous indignation for a sick woman, victim of a vindictive administration."
My righteous indignation has not been saved for this woman only and I guess I can walk and chew gum at the same time. My government and its representatives hear from me all the time with regard to its insane and hypocritical foreign policies.
I salute your actions, vza, but I maintain that Marian Price is the victim of a nasty, lying, vindictive, and morally bankrupt administration, and those who campaign for her release are fighting in a just cause.
I'd prefer to leave it at that, but you may have other ideas.
You and those championing her cause are obviously better humanitarians than I. I would never have given her parole in the first place. Had she ever expressed any doubt or regret for her actions, I would feel differently.
OK, that's a wrap (I hope!).
vza, you have company. Enjoy the conversation.
So, Shithead, did they let you out of the secure unit, or have you escaped?
Happy to publish the scintillating wit of the Ku Klux Klan's own Oscar Wilde.
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