Best one is the guy in the video literally at ground zero and running away with only torn pants.
J
Where is the cowboy hatted guy/grey shirt. He was at the first site post bomb- just standing there looking off like waiting for his cue. Then Front page news photo with the wheelchair guy and bloodied stumps- yet he did not have any blood on him. Also notice how all 3guys were on one side of the wheelchair so as not to block the shot.
Boston marathon runner Alastair Stevenson says that before the explosions erupted at the Boston Marathon this morning, he was told by police over the loud speaker that bomb squads and bomb sniffing dogs were part of a ‘training exercise’.
the bag does not look like it went through a blast at all. I doubt it would look that clean either. the shots from the front isn't clear enough to say he has no bag, you can see how it slopes down in the bpics from the back. the shot of the man in the store alcove does have a bag which is contradictoy to the implication. there are plenty of other people with the same size bags. How long can someone watch a race without getting bored and look somewhere else. this is after two hours later.
ronald dahl
whosoever did it ,this is unpardonable. Killing innocent people is by no means a redressal of injustice elsewhere. In my opinion people who do such things are psychopaths/cowards and need to be elimaneted
I guess you are also outraged that the US is creating terror and murdering innocent civilians by drone. Woman and children among the dead. Do you feel that the government forces who implement the drone strikes are psychopaths and cowards? I do.
The human suffering in British Occupied Ireland, by elderly political internees like Marian Price and Martin Corey, is markedly similar to the political internment, introduced forty years ago by the British, which escalated from crisis to disaster, culminating in the deaths of 10 Irish hunger strikers.
Over the past two years, the nefarious work of the Tory Government, in conjunction with their secret services with gestapo like powers, have dismantled the Irish Peace Process into No Due Process, without any legal redress to British injustice in Ireland. This is a simple, provable, glaringly obvious truth, yet, the thought-control mainstream media, manage to somehow turn reality on its head, and make a virtue out of something vile and unspeakably villainous, as fascist political internment without trial, creating the injustices and conditions for endless British war again.
Protest on the street is illegal, with protesters charged for daring to highlight the matter, with another Hunger Strike, appearing to be the only recourse, to peacefully protest this obvious British injustice. Marian Price who already was on hunger strike for 200 days, is extremely ill as a result of force feeding, is now close to 60 and Peter Corey is an old age pensioner, so death is far more likely, rather than justice once again, from the heartless barbarity of British Occupied Ireland.
British imperialism has created a human tsunami of suffering all over the world, with Ireland being its first colony. The simple facts are, that Britain has started 28,000 barbaric and genocidal wars, invading and occupying their colonies worldwide.The British have murdered more than 100 million innocent people worldwide in their colonies, and in Ireland alone, they have disappeared more than 7 million people. Unlike Germany making amends after Hitler, or making any effort to mitigate this suffering, they continue to exploit the massive misery they create, for political advantage, in their neo-colonial Commonwealth. Wherever they have been, be it India, Pakistan, the middle-east, etc., they have left a legacy of division and exploitation. Their tactic of making an example of enforced human suffering, to cow the natives, continues with Marian Price and Martin Corey, straight out of their centuries old invasions of British armies laying siege to cities, with enforced starvation, then hanging numerous locals from high scaffolds, as an example, to strike fear into the natives. The facts are, they cannot make charges in open court against either Marian or Martin, because there simply is no evidence of wrong doing. Their real agenda being, to make an example of what happens to anyone in Ireland, who dares challenge British occupation or injustice.The British have always been the invading terrorists, not those who bravely resist their invasions and occupation. The Marian Price report below testifies to the above conclusion.
Rights Watch (UK) (Formerly British Irish Rights Watch) Mission: Promoting human rights and holding governments to account, drawing upon the lessons learned from the conflict in Northern Ireland. Expertise and Achievements: Since 1990 we have provided support and services to anyone whose human rights were violated as a result of conflict. Our interventions have reflected our range of expertise, from the right to a fair trial to the government’s positive obligation to protect life. We have a long record of working closely with NGOs and government authorities to share that expertise. And we have received wide recognition, as the first winner of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Prize in 2009 alongside other honours. Post (9): 25 03 13: The Continued Imprisonment of Marian Price Easter 2013 marks two years since the imprisonment in Northern Ireland of former IRA hunger striker, Marian Price. Her situation remains controversial. Introduction: Continued concerns regarding the trial and imprisonment of Marian Price It will be two years since Marian Price was returned to prison in Northern Ireland following a political rally on Easter Day 2011. Her position in the criminal justice process and her position in the prison system raise concerns which, on this anniversary, we address below Marian Price and the Criminal Justice System Marian Price was released from prison on licence following the grant of a Royal Prerogative of Mercy in 1980. She was released on compassionate grounds due to ill health in part exacerbated through being force fed in prison and then contracting tuberculosis and anorexia. Following a political rally in Derry/Londonderry on Easter Day 2011 held in support of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, a dissident republican political organisation, Marian Price was arrested in relation to activities in support of the Real IRA, a proscribed organisation and later in relation to the shooting of two British soldiers at the Masserene Barracks in 2009. These charges were later dropped against her. She still faces prosecution a serious terrorists offences but at this point her criminal trial cannot proceed because Marian Price is unfit to stand trial. Following Marian Price’s arrest the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland determined that the licence on which she was originally released from prison in Northern Ireland should be revoked meaning that she could be sent back to prison on the basis that she had breached the terms of the licence that had followed the grant of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. In this circumstance the imprisonment of Marian Price becomes a matter for the Northern Ireland Parole Board because, even after this prolonged period of time Marian Price remained on licence and in the same position as many other prisoners released on licence. She is not subject to the same terms of the agreement applying to prisoners released following the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Her criminal trial, which has been challenged on the basis that Marian Price has no case to answer, has been set back because of her fitness to participate due to her deteriorating health condition. A further factor maybe the evidence held by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland allegedly implicating her in terrorist activities. This secret evidence against her is subject to a special form of testing within the criminal justice system and may not be accessible to the defence lawyers representing her. In addition, when her case does come to trial, it will be heard by a judge sitting without a jury because of the provisions applicable in Northern Ireland to terrorist related offences. These latter two points are of concern when the fair trails rights of the accused are at stake. Marian Price and the Conditions of her Imprisonment When she first appeared before the criminal court Marian Price was granted bail. She was immediately returned to prison on the decision of the Secretary of the State because she was subject to a licence. She was further bailed by a criminal court following the death of her sister earlier this year. She remained subject to remand pending trial because of the existence of the licence and the powers of the Secretary of State who has responsibility for those prisoners on licence in Northern Ireland. Two aspects of this situation are problematic:. First, the terms of the licence maybe known and would usually mean return to prison to complete the original sentence if a further criminal act is committed. However, the licence applying to Marian Price was drafted following the grant of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy the terms of which are not known because that document has been lost. Papers made available from the Cabinet Office and held at the National Archives and the reports of the parliamentary journal of record, Hansard, reveal that Marian Price was released on compassionate grounds. However, the exact terms of her conditional release are not known and therefore the Parole Commissioners for Northern Ireland who now have power in relation to her application for release pending trial have to make decision in the absence of the original evidential documents. Second, the Parole Commissioners for Northern Ireland have themselves stated that they are not independent from the government in that they appointed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and can be dismissed by him. They are therefore part of the executive arm of the state and not the judicial arm of the state. Further, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland partially devolved criminal justice powers to the Northern Ireland following the Hillsborough Agreement 2010. The Northern Ireland Assembly through its power sharing executive has appointed a Minister for Justice who has discretionary powers available to him to release prisoners on compassionate grounds if he is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist. Marian Price within the Northern Ireland prison estate: Marian Price was originally detained in an all-male prison because there was no facility available in Northern Ireland to house a separated female prisoner, under the terms agreed between the government and the dissident republican movement and the dissident Loyalist movement. She was later moved to a mixed prison facility but was again subject to isolation through her own choosing as she refuses to be classified as a remand prisoner or as an Ordinary Decent Criminal (ODC) in Northern Ireland prison service terms. Her mental and physical health have declined steadily, exacerbated by her malignant tuberculosis contracted during her previous period of imprisonment when she was subjected to a prolonged regime of force feeding as she undertook a hunger strike in support of her claim to be imprisoned in a facility in Northern Ireland. Last year she moved into a civilian hospital where she remains. The conditions of her detention in a civilian hospital are not satisfactory. Her health care is subject to a prison regime for which there is s no protocol in place within either the Northern Ireland Prison Service or the Northern Ireland Criminal Justice Inspectorate. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has recently commented that health care came be a form of torture in certain cases.1 Conclusion: RW(UK) call for the release of Marian Price on compassionate grounds See http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44286 and http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/ Pages/CarerBecomesATorturer.aspx 1 If there is evidence against Marian Price for a terrorist related offence it has yet to be presented by the state to its judiciary. Marian Price has once against become a symbol in Northern Ireland of its troublesome and violent past from which the many wish to move on from. She is once again becoming a possible martyr and it was always politically naïve of the British state to think that this would not be so. Her name is writ large on walls in Belfast and in the Derry/Londonderry. She symbolises the past but is very much in the present. Civil society has protested against the grounds for the imprisonment of Marian Price, the conditions of her imprisonment and the reliance by the British state on secret evidence and closed judicial proceedings. Representations have been made to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the Minister for Justice for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Criminal Justice Inspectorate in addition to the Parole Commissioners for Northern Ireland. Marian Price has been visited by NGOs from Northern Ireland including from Rights Watch (UK), the Committee on the Administration of Justice and the Pat Finucane Centre. Representations have also been made to the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture, the International Committee of the Rd Cross and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, whose doctors were critical of her care in prison which facilitated her transfer to a civilian hospital. NGOs are not permitted to observe the proceedings of the Parole Commissioners. A further legal device would be to apply for a writ of habeas corpus. If Marian Price is to be released on compassionate grounds by the Parole Commissioners for Northern Ireland it should be without delay; the Minister of Justice for Northern Ireland could exercise his discretionary powers to have her released because of the exceptional circumstances of the case. Finally, the Northern Ireland Court Service could accommodate her trial in hospital if she is fit to take part in the proceedings. In 2011 dissident republican Brendan Lillis was released by the Parole Commissioners for Northern Ireland because he was found to be too unfit to stand trial. 2 We continue to press for the release of Marian Price and she be afforded the right to a fair trial and not treated as a political pawn in a state of execptionalism. Christopher Stanley is Legal Officer with Rights Watch(UK)
British Irish Rights Watch
British Irish RIGHTS WATCH (BIRW) is an independent non-governmental organisation that has been monitoring the human rights dimension of the conflict, and the peace process, in Northern Ireland since 1990. Our vision is of a Northern Ireland in which respect for human rights is integral to all its institutions and experienced by all who live there. Our mission is to secure respect for human rights in Northern Ireland and to disseminate the human rights lessons learned from the Northern Ireland conflict in order to promote peace, reconciliation and the prevention of conflict. BIRW’s services are available, free of charge, to anyone whose human rights have been violated because of the conflict, regardless of religious, political or community affiliations. BIRW take no position on the eventual constitutional outcome of the conflict.
John Pilger is I believe, one of the few remaining ethical mainstream journalists, who reports accurately and truthfully. The elite currently own the Mainstream Stream Media, the Government and the Banking system. The proletarian 99% of "1984"continue to require but bread and circus. It seems like, it is probably all they will ever want while watching TV. The ruling elite or establishment worldwide know this, they have always known this. Perhaps if we ourselves alone, remained with our inherited greed, in a shortsighted unintelligent way and we owned the mainstream media, things would remain same. For John Pilger and those of us who recognize an alternative intelligent form of greed and are aware of the Spirituality of Abundace, rather than our current religions of Austerity, things would be quite different, in reclaiming our natural freedoms and birthright. However the fact is we do not!. If our voices are ever heard on the mainstream media, they will be edited in such a way, as to be used against us. Should any individual among us become a real threat, we will be eliminated, liquidated, call it what you may. It is happening in British Occupied Ireland with journalists, human rights lawyers and political activists. This is the truth in the world we live in. I wish I was wrong but I can wish on one hand and shit in the other but guess which will be full ? John Pilger is a truth teller, we can all be truth tellers with some sort of audience, just for a little while more. We have choices but the sum total of historical experience demonstrates, we really have but one choice. Violence, eventually always produces a reactionary unending violence, as 800 years of British Occupation in Ireland and the reactionary struggle for liberation has clearly demonstrated, with heart breaking consequence. The only alternative tool that I believe can free us is the truth or as the infuriating good book says, "The truth will set you free." Gandhi got a lot of inspiration from the Irish struggle but his doctrine of non-violence prevailed, as it appears Aung San Suu Kyi is in Myanmar. I personally listen and talk regularly to the Big Spirit, no not the Christian religion of my childhood, but I have recalling recently, that the only time the son of the Carpenter, really lost his cool and became violent, was with the money changers in the temple! Right now my principal political concern is Marian Price and the reintroduction of internment without trial in Ireland, where traditional Irish republicans, like Martin Corey are being politically interned without trial. This truly is significant in Ireland's current political climate of creeping fascism under British occupation and in general. Marian Price an Irish resistance icon, is the demonized Tory version of the enemy of their scum state, political laboratory, probing for a reactionary violence, instead of its less reliable false flag operations, to manage the crisis of capitalism and inevitable Ponzi collapse. Those passives of fear and indifference, who enabled the rise of Hitler, are again facilitating the creeping corporate fascism in Ireland and beyond, standing shoulder to shoulder, alongside the reactionary violence of the jackboot fascists in all their forms. We either become agents of truth and organize or we lead our children, into creating a global Nazi police state regime of eugenics. The Spirituality of Abundance basically states there is more than enough in this world for everyone's desires, managed intelligently, while the old religions of Austerity, lead to fascist eugenics, which believe that the world is currently over populated. There are currently very powerful people of the elite, who have plans to eliminate several billion. One does not have to be particularly bright, to see the choices each of us have, and the immediate actions of responsibility that we each need to take, before we loose the internet as a tool of the truth. Whether it be a false flag operation in Boston or wherever, we are running out of time in Ireland, for the truth tellers and truth seekers such as John Pilger with the truths that will set us free!
Boston bomb squad was running "controlled explosion" on the same day
What's not yet being reported by the mainstream media is that a "controlled explosion" was under way on the same day as the marathon explosion.
As the Boston Globe tweeted today, "Officials: There will be a controlled explosion opposite the library within one minute as part of bomb squad activities."
UM Coach: Bomb Sniffing Dogs, Spotters on Roofs Before Explosions
University of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach, who was near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when a series of explosions went off, said he thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and finish lines.
"They kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it's just a training exercise," Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15.
Stevenson said he saw law enforcement spotters on the roofs at the start of the race. He's been in plenty of marathons in Chicago, D.C., Chicago, London and other major metropolitan areas but has never seen that level of security before.
"Evidently, I don't believe they were just having a training exercise," Stevenson said. "I think they must have had some sort of threat or suspicion called in." Stevenson had just finished the marathon before the explosions. Stevenson said his wife had been sitting in one of the seating sections where an explosion went off, but thankfully she left her seat and was walking to meet up with him.
"We are just so thankful right now," Stevenson said.
8:50 p.m. Boston: — LIVE PRESS CONFERENCE, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis speaking: Three confirmed dead. He says there is NO suspect at Brigham and Women's hospital, contrary to reports.
Boston Marathon Explosions: 'Three Killed'
April 15, 2013 "Information Clearing House" -Three people have reportedly been killed after two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
About three hours after the winners crossed the line, there was a loud explosion on the north side of Boylston Street, just before the photo bridge that marks the finish.
Another explosion could be heard a few seconds later, reportedly on the other side of the street.
TV helicopter footage showed blood on the pavement in the popular shopping and tourist area known as the Back Bay.
Fox News reports that ball bearings have been found on the street, which may suggest the blasts were deliberate.
The injured were treated at the scene
The explosions happened as the marathon was still taking place with some competitors pictured finishing the race and others being diverted away from the site.
Runners who had not finished made their way down Commonwealth Avenue and into a family meeting area, according to an emergency plan.
Runners and race volunteers were crying as they fled the chaos.
Smoke rose from the explosions, through flags lining the route of the world's oldest and most prestigious marathon.
The Marathon sports store was reportedly near where one of the blasts took place.
The blasts happened at the event of the marathon
There were two boom sounds heard from inside the Fairmount Copley Plaza Hotel.
Race officials have locked down the hotel.
A photo has emerged which appeared to show the moment one of the blasts took place.
Police made their way through competitors as they ran towards the scene.
Bloody spectators were being carried to the medical tent that had been set up to care for tired runners.
"There are a lot of people down," said one man, whose marathon number identified him as Frank Deruyter, who was not injured.
An aerial view of emergency services at the scene
But marathon workers were carrying one woman, who did not appear to be a runner, to the medical area whose leg was hurt.
A Boston police officer was taken from the course with a bleeding leg injury.
Runner Laura McLean of Toronto said she heard two explosions outside the medical tent.
"There are people who are really, really bloody," Ms McLean said. "They were pulling them into the medical tent."
Cherie Falgoust was waiting for her husband, who was running the race.
"I was expecting my husband any minute," she said. "I don't know what this building is ... it just blew. Just a big bomb, a loud boom, and then glass everywhere. Something hit my head. I don't know what it was. I just ducked."
2 Bombs At Boston Marathon
By Erin McClamApril 15, 2013 "Information Clearing House" -" NBC News" - Two explosions went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday as runners were finishing the race, injuring multiple people, witnesses told NBC News.
Video from the finish line showed screams and an enormous cloud of white smoke, and about 20 seconds between the blasts. The Associated Press reported that bloody spectators were being carried to a medical tent that had been set up to care for tired runners.
Jackie Bruno, a reporter for New England Cable News, said on Twitter that she saw people’s legs blown off.
“Runners were coming in and saw unspeakable horror,” she said.
NBC affiliate WHDH said that storefront windows nearby were blown out.
Will Ritter, the spokesman for a Massachusetts Senate candidate, told NBC News that he heard what sounded like two explosions and saw smoke rising near the Boston Public Library. He said that he saw three fire engines and police running to the site.
“We heard two really large explosions in rapid succession, about a second apart from each other,” Ritter said. “Everybody kind of ducked and hit the ground.”
Janet Wu, a reporter for WHDH, told NBC News that she heard two loud explosions. A witness told WHDH that it sounded like cannon fire.
Massachusetts General Hospital said that it had four patients and was expecting more.
The AP reported that runners and race organizers were crying as they fled the scene.
The race is a signature event in Boston. Race organizers said that almost 27,000 runners competed, representing 96 countries. Tens of thousands of spectators turn out each year to watch.
The Boston police bomb squad was en route. Boston police confirmed there was an incident but did not immediately give details. Police, fire and medical technicians were responding. New England Cable News reported that the emergency response came within seconds.
Federal authorities told NBC News that they had no immediate information. In New York, a spokesman told Reuters that police were deploying counterterrorism vehicles around landmarks, including prominent hotels.
Dolours Price beofre her recent death, claimed that Gerry Adams her "Officer Commanding" in the IRA ordered her 18 year old sister Marian Price to go to London and carry out a military operation, that according to the British, is responsible for the current internment of Marian Price 40 years later. Adams, who has never admitted to being an IRA member, denies the allegation. If what the British say is true, then clearly Gerry Adams has major responsibilities in the matter, that he is ignoring, in the same way as he ignored his responsibilities around the rape of his niece Aine Adams. By refusing to take responsibility in both matters he has contributed to considerable agony in the lives of both these young women at the time. As a critical part of a Peace Process without Due Process in Ireland and apparently a very devout Christian, these are critical immeidate matters of leadership to restore basic credibility to his legacy. Make no mistake about it, Gerry Adams and provisional Sinn Fein, do have the political leverage, to end all political internment without trial in Ireland.
Critics of Gerry Adams and provisional Sinn Fein claim they have played a political game with Marian Price, and the Irish people, that if she wasn't so high profile "they wouldn't give a flying f*ck about her". They say provisional Sinn Fein know she has a great deal of sympathy and respect, particularly in her native west Belfast. They maintain that provisional Sinn Fein have called for republicans who don' follow their strategy to be locked up, labelled principled, traditional Irish republicans criminals, traitors and conflict junkies. Critics say that Gerry Adams and provisional Sinn Fein used their political clout to relase Sean Kelly, the McCartney suspect and countless other political ex-prisoners and most certainly have the political leverage to have Marian Price released. Others have cut Adams alot of slack giving him the benefit of the doubt but he is clearly and rapidly running out of time and with him, all credibility around an Irish Peace Process without Due Process. There is however one current event, clouding the political leverage Gerry Adams, as President of Ireland's largest political party actually has and that is the current trial of his brother for his daughter's rape. Aine Adams, daughter of Gerry Adam's brother, has waived her right to anonymity, saying she had gone to the British paramilitary police RUC/psni (Royal Ulster Constabulary/psni) in 1986 at the height of the Troubles but found British police officers preoccupied with her uncle, the Gerry Adams the provisional Sinn Fein president.
"I felt it wasn't about me," she said.
"The police were more interested in Gerry Adams. They were trying to get information about where he was and who he was with. Back then you did not really trust or talk to the British police. We had to leave it. We felt it was safer for me and mummy. I had to go up to the barracks and say I wanted to retract my evidence. I did not say I was telling lies, I just said I wanted to retract it."
Liam Adams, 57 is on trial accused of 10 counts of sex abuse including rape, gross indecency with a child, indecent assault between 1977 and 1983. He has denies all of the charges.
A jury of six men and six women at Belfast Crown Court were shown a recorded interview in which Ms Adams, alleged her father exploited every opportunity to sneak into her bedroom and abuse her from when she was aged between four and nine-years-old.
"It was as often as he could manage. If he could sneak in. That just seemed to be the way it was. Every opportunity there was he would have done it. Even if he didn't I would have expected him to do it," she said.
The abuse was carried on regularly at four different addresses across Belfast, she claimed.
Ms Adams, said she can vividly recall a number of specific incidents that happened between the ages of four and five-years-old.
"I remember him coming in, I think I had wet myself, touching me and getting me to touch him, him saying that I could not tell anyone and that we were going to run away to Kerry together," she said.
It was like I was being suffocated by him. I couldn't breathe. I was roasting, I could smell the drink off him. I felt that he has had the power over me."I remember feeling bad. I knew he should not have been doing it. I would have felt guilty as well. I knew I was part of something wrong," she further said that she had felt unable to stop the abuse because she did not want to upset family members and she had come to accept it as part of her life.
After the death of her grandmother, Ms Adams felt compelled to speak out because she realized her father had another two-year-old daughter, whom he was living with in Donegal.
"I just snapped one day and wrote my mummy a letter and told her everything that happened because I did not want it to happen to his wee daughter.It is not about hate or revenge or pity. It is just to hear him saying 'no you weren't lying, I did it'," She said she wanted to protect this 2 year old baby and that at the age of 13 Ms Adams, her mother and uncle Gerry had also confronted her fatherLiam at a house in Buncrana.
"He denied it to my face. I told him to his face that he did it. At that time that's all we could have done," she said. The British are trying to censor the trial and matters relating to the political internment of Marian Price claiming that because this case is sub-judice, it is in-opertune to opinionate because it could prejudice its outcome. There is considerable scrutiny in Ireland of the trial, along with considerable speculation about the extent of Gerry Adams and provisional Sinn Fein being politcally compromised by the matter.
Many disagree, pointing out that it is largely irrelevant whose brother an accused actually is, however such caution was not exercised by the British before the trial of the Guilford Four or Birmingham Six. It certainly has not been exercised in the case of Marian Price who has been interned without trial for almost two years and been demonized by the British press.
While Gerry Adams and provisional Sinn Fein have expressed faint protest at Marian's internment with public statements. The normally mild SDLP, have been much more active on the issue and indeed brought down the Stormont adminsitration the last time internment without trial was inroduced in British Occupied Ireland. Provisional Sinn Fein on the other hand who claim to be a republican party, seem to have no such principles of republican democracy.
MI5 and the British SS in general are known to use blackmail to control both loyalist and provisional politicians, the judiciary, the PSNI, the media and social services. Some claim the British secret services, control almost all elected politicians in British Occupied Ireland, with blackmail on matters related to child rape, satanic rings of orangemen, with sacrificial baby murdering ceremonies across all of Ireland. One thing is certain the Adams family trial is but the tip of the iceberg.
Subject: Marian Price interview: Date: Weds. Dec. 08, 2004
But she'd face jail and hunger-strike all over again rather than take part:"I would be ashamed to be on any delegation to Downing Street given what’s on the table. The only reason for going there should be to negotiate the freedom of our country.
"If I went to agree to British rule, restoring Stormont, or signing up to a partitionist police force, I'd hope at least to have the decency to hang my head in shame."
"But I'm very angry when I see so much has been sacrificed for so little. All these lives have been lost - IRA volunteers, civilians, policemen, British soldiers - and for what? If this is what they’re settling for, we all could have joined the SDLP back then."
Price (50) came from a staunch republican family in west Belfast. She believes IRA membership is too often explained away as an emotional response to events: "I made an ideological choice to join. It wasn't a reaction to Bloody Sunday, internment or anything else."
Her childhood ambition was to be a nurse. She left school with a string of 'O' and 'A' levels and secured one of only five places on a course at the Royal Victoria Hospital. She denies there was a huge contradiction between IRA membership and nursing.
"One day, a wounded British soldier was brought into casualty. He was wearing a dirty vest. He looked frightened. I felt very sorry for him. That night, I told my comrades and one joked that I should have finished him off.
"I asked why on earth I'd do that. He was no longer a soldier, he'd been taken out of the battlefield. He was a patient now, I'd have no difficulty looking after him."
The bombing mission was the Provisional IRA's first to England. The idea and planning came from the sisters. Price travelled on the Dublin-Liverpool ferry with one of the four car bombs which was then driven to London.
Did she never consider the morality of planting bombs in densely populated areas?: "The warnings given were twice as long as in Belfast. That was a conscious decision because we knew the English lacked experience of evacuation. We didn't want civilian casualties, from a moral or pragmatic viewpoint."
Yet there were casualties. Two bombs were defused but those at the Old Bailey and Whitehall exploded, injuring 200 people, mainly with flying glass. Price expresses regret but says the injuries "weren’t intentional".
"I've never had a sleepless night over anything I've done as an IRA volunteer. Bombs are weapons of war. Western states have used them far more brutally than we ever did.
"George Bush and Tony Blair send other people's sons out to die without ever venturing onto the battlefield themselves. They drop far bigger bombs from B52s on women and children and they don't give any warnings at all." Price is an atheist: "When I look around the world, I think if there’s a God, he's a bad God."
After her arrest at Heathrow, she was interrogated for five days. "I was stripped in the police station and given a grey blanket to wear. I was embarrassed because there were a lot of policemen about and I was sexually innocent.
"They used no physical violence but I wasn't let sleep once. The lights were kept on in my cell and the police were there at all times. If I started to doze off, they clapped their hands."
She remained remarkably unfazed: "I remember a detective saying to me, ‘I bet your mother will be proud of you' and I thought 'yes, she will be very proud of me'. My father was on a bombing mission to England in the forties, so it was a family tradition."
The sisters were charged and moved to Brixton prison. They were strip-searched daily and locked 23-hours a day in cells where again the lights were permanently on.
As a 19-year-old facing potential life imprisonment in England, wasn’t she depressed?:"It never entered my head. I'd known what I believed in and the risks involved.
"My mother, her sisters, and my granny had been in Cumann na mBan. My Aunt Bridie was badly injured lifting an IRA arms dump in the 30s. It exploded and she lost her hands and sight. She was 26.
"When we were growing up, it was never a case of 'poor Bridie'. We were just proud of her sacrifice. She came home from hospital to a wee house with an outside toilet, no social worker, no disability allowance, and no counselling. She just got on with it."
Price claims that during their 1973 trial, the bombers learned they had been compromised by a high-placed informer in Belfast who knew all the details but didn't take part in the operation.
"It emerged in court that customs at Liverpool realised one of the cars had false number plates. They phoned Scotland Yard but were told to wave it through.
"The authorities allowed the bombs to happen. They had details of the operation in advance that could only have come from a senior figure in Belfast. We learned that photos of Dolours and I had been circulated at airports and ports across Britain nine hours before the bombs exploded,” says Price.
She claims that during the trial they agreed it would be less damaging for the IRA if they appeared "young, stupid and incompetent", rather than publicly exposing an informer. She claims to know the identity of the alleged informer whom, she says, remains in a leadership position.
The Price sisters, Gerry Kelly and Hugh Feeney went on hunger-strike in Brixton prison in November 1973 as part of a campaign to be repatriated to serve their sentences in Northern Ireland.
"Four male prison officers tie you into the chair so tightly with sheets you can't struggle," says Price. "You clench your teeth to try to keep your mouth closed but they push a metal spring device around your jaw to prise it open.
"They force a wooden clamp with a hole in the middle into your mouth. Then, they insert a big rubber tube down that. They hold your head back. You can't move.
"They throw whatever they like into the food mixer - orange juice, soup, or cartons of cream if they want to beef up the calories. They take jugs of this gruel from the food mixer and pour it into a funnel attached to the tube.
"The force-feeding takes 15 minutes but it feels like forever. You're in control of nothing. You're terrified the food will go down the wrong way and you won't be able to let them know because you can't speak or move. You're frightened you'll choke to death."
Price was force-fed 400 times over six months. "I knew nothing about force-feeding beforehand," says Price. "I thought it was like when you hold a baby's nose and put a spoon in its mouth. Ignorance was bliss."
After the sisters went on hunger-strike, the British Home Office dispatched eminent psychiatrist Peter Scott to examine them. "He said he’d been sent to certify us so we could be force-fed. He left saying we knew exactly what we were doing and the problem was we were too sane,” Price says.
They built a good rapport with Dr Ian Blythe, the prison doctor: "He called us 'my girls'. As the hunger-strike went on, he arm-wrestled with us, pretending it was a game but really testing us to see how much we were weakening."
Dolours was first to be force fed, three weeks into the hunger-strike. "I met her in the exercise yard afterwards. She was in a terrible state. She said it she couldn't go through that again. I told her she didn't have to, she could come off the hunger-strike immediately, but I'd stay on.
"She said we'd come off together or not at all. She was much braver than me because she was so much more afraid of force-feeding yet she didn't give in." Two days later, Marian was force-fed.
While Dolours endured the procedure once a day, Marian suffered it twice daily because she vomited so often afterwards. "I always threw up when they pulled the tube out of my stomach. It was vile. I would be exhausted afterwards but you couldn't even lie in bed in your cell in privacy because the screws came in with you.
"Sometimes when they arrived to force feed me, I would struggle; other times I didn't have the energy to fight. The low point was having no control over your weight. But not for one minute did I think of giving up. They were never, ever going to break me."
One day, a doctor put the tube into Price's lung, not her stomach, and water flooded in. "I felt like I was drowning. I passed out. They carried me back to my cell. The doctors were standing over me when I came round. If had been food, not water in the tube, it would have killed me. The medical and prison staff told the authorities they wouldn't force feed me again."
A fortnight after that incident in May 1974, the hunger-strike ended and a deal was reached. The sisters were moved to Armagh prison the following March.
The British Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, was loathed by republicans for his treatment of the hunger-strikers. Price says she doesn't hate him: "He was caught up in the politics of the situation. He followed orders. I once asked the psychiatrist Peter Scott who knew him to invite him to Brixton to visit us. He said he wouldn't come because if he met us, he’d want to send us home."
Price was freed after five years in Armagh jail, suffering from anorexia and tuberculosis. Ten-and-a-half stone when she was arrested, she left prison half that weight.
From 1994, Price had "serious concerns" about the leadership's political direction but "loyalty to the movement" kept her quiet. Eventually, she spoke at one 'republican family' meeting in west Belfast, expressing doubts. A senior IRA member visited her home: "He told me what I was saying wasn't appreciated and he'd shot people for less."
She claims the republican movement underwent a transformation: "People began to make financial gain from the movement. Those who had never worked a day in their lives, now had better homes, cars, and holidays than their neighbours.
"It used to be what you could do for the movement, now it's what the movement can do for you. In the past, to be a republican brought financial hardship. But that was okay because to be a republican was to be something special. You knew you were right."
Price says that while the peace process has secured "a measure of equality" for Catholics, a British withdrawal and the ending of partition is further away than ever.
Five years ago, she joined the 32 County Sovereignty Movement which security sources say is the Real IRA's political wing, a claim the group denies. She says her military days are over but she won't condemn others "for doing what I did myself".
She claims 'armed struggle' is morally justified "while the British occupy part of this country". The Real IRA has proved itself incapable of waging a sustained campaign against the state and lacks popular support. Physical force republicanism has never been weaker in recent decades.
Price refuses to recognise 'armed struggle' is now pointless: "Sometimes it’s necessary to do something just to let it be known there are people out there who don't accept the status quo.
"Being a minority of a minority is nothing new for republicans. You don’t join for an easy life or to be popular. As a child, I remember 50 people at an Easter parade on the Falls Road."
Despite everything, she has no regrets: "Disappointments maybe. I’m disappointed in Gerry Kelly. I expected more of him but I'd never detract from the physical bravery he showed. Gerry Adams and I were once friends. We certainly aren't now. He may have difficulty admitting his IRA past but I'm very, very proud of mine."
