The internment of enemy aliens during wartime, may possibly be justified to some extent but it is clearly unconstitutional to forcibly remove and Irish citizens in their own land, with British secret service dictats. That is exactly what the British are currently doing, in a so called peace process, in British Occupied Ireland currently. In fact they have been doing this with every generation of Irish, since the formation of their sectarian scum statelet in Ireland.
The British government is using the 11 September attacks and the ‘war on terror,’ as an excuse for draconian repressive measures, which politically interns Irish citizens. There is no requirement on the part of the British, to disclose evidence with their odious activity. Since internment breaches the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the British government claims there is a ‘national emergency,’ despite a peace process, as an excuse for opting out of that part of the ECHR. Using this, the British government, continues to intern Irish citizens, simply on bigoted or sectarian perceptions of paranoia and suspicion.
Gareth Pierce, a lawyer who successfully campaigned for the release of the Guilford 4 after 10 years of campaigning has commented, that the bureaucrat "is giving himself/herself the powers of a dictator". Detentions without trial and house arrest, have often been used by brutal dictatorships, who learned their techniques from their former British colonialistmasters.This internment in British Occupied Ireland is a thin end of a wedge. At some stage, anti-irish measures, will also be extended to Britain itself, to includes political activists, trade unionists, etc.
There has been considerable opposition to internment, from within the British legal profession, with Ian MacDonald QC, who was-appointed to a panel of lawyers, to represent suspects in secret courts, resigning, saying; "My role has been altered to provide a false legitimacy to indefinite detention, without knowledge of the accusations being made and without any kind of criminal charge or trial. Such a law is an odious blot on our legal landscape and for reasons of conscience I feel that I must resign".
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, commenting on the publicly apology of a British Minister, to those wrongly convicted of Guildford pub bombings, stated; "On the day when the prime minister apologises for past miscarriages of justice, his government is paving the way for many future injustices. The proposals are the latest in a long line of assaults on the right to a fair trial". These are often used to harass trades unionists and ordinary Irish people. Civil liberties have been eroded to such an extent in the British police state with internment without trial, non-jury ‘Diplock’ courts, and interrogation methods of the British, that civil rights no longer really exist.
Changes in the law, in relation to the British Occupation in Ireland, are then absorbed into general British law, with the right to silence, emasculated to extend into all domestic law in the UK. All of these measures being used against Marian Price and the Irish today, represent a threat to trade unionists, socialists and anyone who may protest against government and big business. What is used against the Irish today, is used by the British government, against others tomorrow. As the Tory government attacks living standards, jobs, services, workers, it is also bringing in laws tested on the Irish, that will be used to repress resistance to those Tory attacks on ordinary people's living standards.
The argument that internment is odious or human rights do not apply, because of a ‘state of emergency’ since 11 September 2001, is a very handy one for a Tory government, who wants to suppress all political opposition, particularly workers’ struggles. We need to stick together with principles before personalities, to argue against the British government’s use of the fear and the terrorist narrative, to push through these secret courts and totalitarian measures. Socialists, trade unionists, in tandem, with the Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English people of no property, along with civil rights campaigners, need to continue to fight all these repressive laws together, while resisting agents of division.
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