SAOIRSE32

BBC

Ihab Shoukri is charged with UDA/UFF membership

Northern Ireland’s Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde is seeking to have prominent loyalist Ihab Shoukri returned to jail.

It is understood papers have been lodged at the High Court in Belfast in an attempt to have his bail revoked.

It follows his arrest - along with 16 other men - when police raided a north Belfast bar during an alleged rehearsal for a paramilitary show of strength.

On Tuesday, a judge will be asked rule if he breached bail terms imposed while awaiting trial for UDA membership.

Mr Shoukri, 31, from Alliance Road in north Belfast, denied membership of the UFF and UDA at his last court appearance.

Eleven men were remanded in custody in connection with the police raid on the Alexander Bar in the loyalist Tiger’s Bay area at Belfast Magistrates Court on Monday.

Sinn Féin

Published: 6 March, 2006

Sinn Féin Assembly member for North Belfast Gerry Kelly today said that the DUP cannot divorce themselves from the attempted murder of a Catholic taxi driver in the area over the weekend.

Mr Kelly said:

“The DUP sit on forums with the UDA the organisation responsible for this murder bid. Yet they continue to refuse to engage with Sinn Féin about the business of putting the political institutions back in place. Their hypocrisy is breathtaking.

“The two governments have allowed the DUP to create a political vacuum.

“That political vacuum has now been filled by unionist paramilitary violence. It did not take a great understanding of our history to predict that this would happen. A catholic man almost paid with his life on Saturday night as a result.

“The DUP need to realise that there is a price being paid for their continuing failure to engage, and the two governments have to realise that there is a price being paid for their continuing pandering to the DUP.” ENDS

BN.ie

06/03/2006 - 15:34:18

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s plans for Northern Ireland Assembly members to attend 1916 Easter Rising and Battle of the Somme commemorations were dealt a blow today after they were rejected by the Ulster Unionists.

The Government confirmed plans last week to invite MLAs from Stormont to witness a military ceremony at the GPO in Dublin’s O’Connell Street marking the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.

MLAs will also be asked to attend a 90th anniversary ceremony in June for the thousands of soldiers killed in the First World War Battle of the Somme at the Islandbridge War Memorial in Dublin.

However, after a meeting of his party’s Assembly Group, Ulster Unionist parades spokesman Michael Copeland said while they welcomed the Irish Government’s plans to commemorate the Somme, they viewed the 1916 Easter Rising as an act of terrorism.

“The Easter insurgency which took place during the Great War led to the death of approximately 30 rebels, 200 British servicemen and over 200 innocent Dublin citizens,” the East Belfast MLA said.

“It took place at a time when 300,000 Irishmen of all religions were serving as volunteers in the British army, 50,000 of whom gave their lives.

“It heralded the end of the long and honourable tradition of constitutional Irish nationalism and brought to the fore the blood sacrifice ethos of armed republicanism which led directly to the partition of this island and the Irish Civil War.”

Mr Copeland said the UUP fully respected the right of people in the Republic to commemorate events in their history in whatever way they deemed appropriate.

He added: “We also recognise the very great steps being taken to honour the memory of the true heroes of 1916 (those serving in the 36th (Ulster), 16th (Irish), 10th (Irish) and other Commonwealth and Empire Forces).

“We regret that on this occasion we must decline Mr Ahern’s invitation.

“This Easter I will be calling to mind the death of my great uncle who fell at Gallipoli whilst serving with the Royal Dublin fusiliers and my wife’s grandfather who fought alongside all three Irish Divisions.”

The Government has said the main 1916 commemoration would have a military parade which would reflect the changing role of the Irish Defence Forces and their significant representation as United Nations peacekeepers abroad.

Garda involvement in UN missions would also be reflected in the parade.

Details of the Islandbridge commemoration for the Battle of the Somme will be released soon.

Unionists have been critical of plans in Northern Ireland by Derry City Council to mark the 1916 Rising.

After the council approved plans for a commemoration, DUP Assembly member Willie Hay said unionists in the city could not participate in any ceremony.

BBC

The men were arrested after a police raid on a Belfast bar

Eleven men have been remanded in custody in connection with a police raid on a bar in a loyalist area of north Belfast last Thursday.

The men range in age from 19 to 48 and have addresses in north Belfast, Glengormley and Newtownabbey.

They were all charged with setting up a meeting in support of the UDA/UFF.

Seven of them were also charged with wearing clothes associated with the banned loyalist paramilitary organisation.

There was a large police presence at Belfast Magistrates Court and the magistrate told a 50-strong group of friends and supporters of the accused that he did not want proceedings disrupted.

The 11 men appeared individually.

Several of them claimed they were unable to have proper legal advice because police at a custody station in Antrim were not able to guarantee them that consultations were not being recorded.

The charges relate to a police search at the Alexandra Bar on Thursday evening.

Six other men and a woman who were also being questioned were released, pending reports to the Public Prosecution Service.

The UFF is part of the Ulster Defence Association, set up as its “military wing” before the UDA was proscribed.

Belfast Telegraph

**How much play do you think the Belfast Telegraph would be giving this story if it were the IRA who had tried to murder a loyalist taxi driver and all loyalist ex-prisoners were under death threat?

By Linda McKee
06 March 2006

Loyalist paramilitaries were behind the threatening of a taxi driver at gunpoint in north Belfast.

The Red Hand Defenders’ admission to a daily newspaper follows Sinn Fein claims that the driver only escaped unscathed because the weapon jammed.

The Red Hand Defenders is a cover name that has been used by the UDA/UFF, which claims to be on ceasefire, and LVF-linked loyalists.

The man was targeted after picking up four men at the Belldoc area of the Crumlin Road shortly after 10pm on Saturday.

He drove to Ligoniel, where one of the men produced what is believed to have been a handgun, placed it to the back of his head and threatened to shoot him.

Police said that in the ensuing struggle the driver escaped from the vehicle uninjured.

It is thought the four attackers fled down an alley at the side of McKenna’s pub. Sinn Fein North Belfast councillor Caral Ni Chuilin said the taxi driver narrowly escaped a murder bid after the gun jammed. “These men went with the intention of killing someone. There is clearly a sectarian motivation in this attempted murder,” she said. “This is a very serious development. This taxi driver was going about his daily business. He was targeted because of where he worked. “The only thing that saved this man’s life was the fact that the gun jammed.”

Belfast Telegraph

Jonathan McCmbridge
06 March 2006

Eleven men were appearing in court today charged with helping to set up a meeting supporting the UDA following dramatic police raids on a north Belfast bar - but leading terror suspect Ihab Shoukri will not be one of them.

Concern has been expressed that Shoukri, one of 17 men arrested after police swooped on the Alexandra Bar in Tiger’s Bay last Thursday, remains on the streets following the controversy. He is awaiting trial on charges of UDA membership and his once-stringent bail conditions have been relaxed since his original court appearance.

Six of the 17 men, including Shoukri, have been released pending files for the Public Prosecution Service. A woman who was arrested on Friday has also been released. The remaining 11 will appear at Belfast Magistrates Court charged with arranging, managing or assisting in a meeting to support the UDA/UFF.

Seven of them also face further charges of wearing clothing in circumstances in which they are suspected to be members of the UDA/UFF. Police raided the Alexandra Bar last week during an alleged rehearsal for a UDA show of strength.

Shoukri, who is currently charged with a terrorist offence, was in the bar when police fired irritant rounds through the windows. Last week the Belfast Telegraph raised concerns over the bail conditions for Shoukri, who is already facing charges of membership of the UDA and UFF. However, despite last week’s arrest he has now been freed again pending reports.

SDLP Justice spokesman Alban Maginness said it was “unbelievable” that Shoukri was now free to walk the streets again. “This is a well known loyalist who was in the company of UDA men at a UDA event where people were dressed in paramilitary uniform,” he said.

“To add to this he is already on bail after being charged with serious terrorist offences. “I find it extraordinary and unbelievable that he has not already been brought before the courts.”

Shoukri has previously been found by police to be in breach of bail conditions. In September 2004 a High Court judge asked why police had not arrested him when they caught him in Belfast despite a bail condition which banned him from the city.

A Crown barrister told the judge: “There are certain things I am not at liberty to go into at the moment.”

Irelandclick

by Ciaran Barnes

Loyalist paramilitaries have said they are now actively targeting all republican ex-prisoners.

A caller last night to the Andersonstown News’ sister paper, Daily Ireland, said that as of midnight all republican ex-prisoners are considered legitimate targets.

The man, who claimed to represent the Red Hand Defenders (RHD), used a recognised codeword, used in the past by the organisation.

The RHD name has been used by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) to claim murders.

The caller said the RHD was responsible for a murder bid on a North Belfast taxi driver on Saturday night.

The taxi driver, who works for a firm in the New Lodge area, picked up a fare close to the Mater Hospital.

Four men got into his cab and asked to be brought to Ligoniel.

As they passed McKenna’s bar on the Crumlin Road one of the men pointed a gun at the driver’s head.

The weapon jammed and after a struggle the cabbie managed to escape.
His would-be killers ran off in the direction of Ballysillan.

Saturday’s murder bid came 48 hours after a PSNI raid on the Alexandra bar in Tiger’s Bay in North Belfast.

The PSNI arrested 17 people in an operation it said was directed against he UDA.

Eleven of those arrested are to appear at Belfast Magistrates’ Court today to face paramilitary charges.

Following the arrests Sinn Féin warned that the UDA would target nationalists.

In recent years the RHC has murdered Gavin Lawlor, Danny McColgan, Gavin Brett and Brian Service. The men, who were all Catholics, were targeted randomly.

Journalist:: Ciaran Barnes

Irelandclick

In a coded telephone statement to Daily Ireland yesterday, the Red Hand Defenders claimed responsibility for the attempted murder of a Catholic taxi driver in Belfast on Saturday night and warned all republican ex-prisoners that they are now targets.

The attempt on the life of the taxi driver and the subsequent threat to ex-prisoners came in response to a PSNI raid on a North Belfast pub last Thursday evening when 17 men were arrested in connection with an alleged UDA show of strength in the bar.

The loyalist paramilitary ceasefires, first announced over eleven years ago, have always been a sham. Whenever it suited their criminal or sectarian agenda, loyalist paramilitaries brought out the guns and a long litany of murder and violence is evidence of that.

The outraged cries of indignation in the wake of the raid on that North Belfast bar were to be expected from the loyalists and their political frontmen, but that mainstream unionist politicians would parrot their anger is evidence of a sickness at the heart of unionist and loyalist politics.

The reason that the political process is stalled in the North is that the main unionist party, the DUP, won’t have anything to do with Sinn Féin because it claims the IRA is still involved in violence and criminality. Unfortunately the integrity and purity of their dogmatic refusal to engage is fatally compromised by their attitude to loyalist paramilitary groups which are still involved in the kind of violence that we’ve seen in the past few days. Unionist politicians engage openly and unapologetically with drug dealers and killers on a wide range of political and community fora.

This thundering hypocrisy exposes the lie that unionists are opposed to violence from whatever quarter it comes. By their silence and complicity, unionist politicians are effectively acting as cheerleaders for the loyalist killers.

BN.ie

06/03/2006 - 09:51:49

Publicans and taxi drivers are reportedly among a list of professions that will be barred from joining the proposed garda reserve.

Reports this morning said the two were among a wide-ranging list of professions that Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy wanted barred from the 4,000-strong reserve.

Others on the list include nightclub owners, bookmakers, solicitors, auctioneers, court staff, private detectives, security guards and active members of political parties.

The holders of any licence issued by the courts, the Revenue Commissioners or the Gardaí will also be excluded.

BBC

Trouble started after a police station was attacked

Police officers have fired two warning shots during trouble in north Belfast.

The trouble flared at about 0100 GMT on Monday when four men got out of a car and threw bottles and other missiles at Tennant Street PSNI station.

Police chased them into Montreal Street where a female officer was grabbed and hit in the face with a bottle.

About 30 people leaving a club attacked officers with bricks, bottles and other missiles. Four officers were injured. The Police Ombudsman is investigating.

Police fired two shots during the violence to try and disperse the crowd. One man was arrested.

Afterwards a van was set on fire at nearby Cambria Street.

BBC

The loyalist Red Hand Defenders has said it threatened a taxi driver at gunpoint in north Belfast.

It happened after the driver had picked up four men on the Crumlin Road at about 2230 GMT on Saturday.

It is believed the weapon jammed when one of the men placed a gun to the back of his head and tried to fire it.

A man who said he was from the Red Hand Defenders, a cover name for the UDA and LVF, said it carried out the attack in a call to a newspaper on Sunday night.

The incident happened after the driver had picked up four men in the Crumlin Road area and drove them to Ligoniel.

A struggle broke out after the gun was placed at the driver’s head and he managed to run from the car.

The men then fled from the scene. It is thought they ran down an alleyway at the side of the nearby McKenna’s pub.

North Belfast MP, the DUP’s Nigel Dodds, said the attack was “vile” and “utterly abhorrent”.

“The claim by the Red Hand Defenders that they carried out the attack on a taxi driver at the weekend is an extremely worrying and sinister development,” Mr Dodds said.

Sinn Fein councillor Caral Ni Chuilin said the man was lucky to have escaped unharmed.

SDLP assembly member for North Belfast Alban Maginness said it was a terrible ordeal for the man.

Police have appealed for anyone with information about the incident to contact them.

32CSM Message Board

By Michael McMonagle
Friday 3rd March 2006

A FORMER blanketman has urged young republicans not to be involved in any activity that would allow the British government to criminalise republicans as they tried to do in the early 1980s.

Former prisoner Archie Fleming made the comment during a public meeting held in the Tower Hotel on Wednesday night to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the hunger strike.

At the event, which was attended by hundreds of local republicans, a film about life inside the HBlocks of Long Kesh was screened and afterwards, three former blanketmen answered questions form the audience about their own prison experiences.

The event, which was organised by the 1981 Committee, was aimed at young people and is the latest in series of commemoration events. The film, “H3,” which was written by former hunger striker, Laurence McKeown, deals with the period immediately before the 1981 hunger strike, right up to the death of Bobby Sands.

Speaking after the film, during a frank and emotional question and answer session, Archie Fleming claimed that the British government were still trying to criminalise republicans and urged young people to resist their attempts. “The majority of young people who went into prison were young people. I had just turned 17 when I went into jail and many other people were the same age. I remember Thomas McElwee coming in and he was just an average young person. I also remember Kevin Lynch from Dungiven coming in and I thought he was your average big country man.

“The government tried to tell everyone we were criminals but in other circumstances we would never have been involved with the police or been in jail. We knew we were political prisoners. The young men in the H Blocks and in Crumlin Road were not going to let themselves be treated like criminals.

“Young people today can learn a lot from what happened then. The government is still trying to criminalise republicans and it is up to young people to resist that, just as the young people on the blanket and on hunger strike did. They can do that by not being involved in anything that allows the Brits to call them criminals. We want to get to a stage where are young people are just known as young republicans and not being labelled criminals. If I can offer any advice to young people it would be not to play into the hands of those who want to criminalise us,” he said.

Mr. Fleming, who was in prison during the hunger strikes, said that the men who died during the protest were ordinary young men who responded to their circumstances with extraordinary courage. “The years spent on the blanket had hardened the prisoners. The men who volunteered for the hunger strike were ordinary prisoners. All of them had suffered. All were captured republicans who stepped up and showed leadership when it was required of them. We hold all of our fallen comrades in respect but the hunger strikes have a special place because they were already captured and had suffered and were young who stood up and showed exceptional characteristics of courage and determination,” he said.

A spokesperson for the 1981 Committee said that they were “delighted” at the number of young people who attended the event. ” We were especially pleased at the number of young people who came along and asked questions. We hope to see similar crowds at other commemoration events,” the spokesperson said.

Larkspirit

Friday 6th

There was no priest in last night or tonight. They stopped me from seeing my solicitor tonight, as another part of the isolation process, which, as time goes by, they will ruthlessly implement. I expect they may move me sooner than expected to an empty wing. I will be sorry to leave the boys, but I know the road is a hard one and everything must be conquered.

I have felt the loss of energy twice today, and I am feeling slightly weak.

They (the Screws) are unembarrassed by the enormous amount of food they are putting into the cell and I know they have every bean and chip counted or weighed. The damned fools don’t realise that the doctor does tests for traces of any food eaten. Regardless, I have no intention of sampling their tempting morsels.

I am sleeping well at night so far, as I avoid sleeping during the day. I am even having pleasant dreams and so far no headaches. Is that a tribute to my psychological frame of mind or will I pay for that tomorrow or later! I wonder how long I will be able to keep these scribbles going?

My friend Jennifer got twenty years. I am greatly distressed. (Twenty-one-year-old Jennifer McCann, from Belfast’s Twinbrook estate, was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment for shooting at an RUC man).

I have no doubts or regrets about what I am doing for I know what I have faced for eight years, and in particular for the last four and-a-half years, others will face, young lads and girls still at school, or young Gerard or Kevin (Bobby’s son and nephew, respectively) and thousands of others.

They will not criminalise us, rob us of our true identity, steal our individualism, depoliticise us, churn us out as systemised, institutionalised, decent law-abiding robots. Never will they label our liberation struggle as criminal.

I am (even after all the torture) amazed at British logic. Never in eight centuries have they succeeded in breaking the spirit of one man who refused to be broken. They have not dispirited, conquered, nor demoralised my people, nor will they ever.

I may be a sinner, but I stand — and if it so be, will die — happy knowing that I do not have to answer for what these people have done to our ancient nation.

Thomas Clarke is in my thoughts, and MacSwiney, Stagg, Gaughan, Thomas Ashe, McCaughey. Dear God, we have so many that another one to those knaves means nothing, or so they say, for some day they’ll pay.

When I am thinking of Clarke, I thought of the time I spent in ‘B’ wing in Crumlin Road jail in September and October ‘77. I realised just what was facing me then. I’ve no need to record it all, some of my comrades experienced it too, so they know I have been thinking that some people (maybe many people) blame me for this hunger-strike, but I have tried everything possible to avert it short of surrender.

I pity those who say that, because they do not know the British and I feel more the pity for them because they don’t even know their poor selves. But didn’t we have people like that who sought to accuse Tone, Emmet, Pearse, Connolly, Mellowes: that unfortunate attitude is perennial also…

I can hear the curlew passing overhead. Such a lonely cell, such a lonely struggle. But, my friend, this road is well trod and he, whoever he was, who first passed this way, deserves the salute of the nation. I am but a mere follower and I must say Oíche Mhaith.

Mural detail from >>CAIN

BN.ie

05/03/2006 - 20:44:10

The British government has postponed talks that were to have taken place between Irish and British ministers and the north’s political parties from this week.

They were to have met at Stormont on Wednesday – the date set some weeks ago by Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain as a deadline for a first stage agreement on possible rule changes for a future Assembly.

The talks are off because Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair are meeting in London on Wednesday and Peter Hain and Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern are expected to be attending.

In Belfast, there was a suspicion calling off the talks had more to do with a lack of progress than anything else. Last month Mr Blair pulled out of an expected visit to Belfast to meet he parties – again because there was little or no sign of a breakthrough in the political impasse.

Ulster Unionist Party leader Reg Empey said he was not surprised the Belfast talks had been cancelled.

“It was no surprise to learn that the first deadline of the present talks will come and go on Wednesday without it being a deadline at all,” said Mr Empey. “Wednesday’s meetings between the parties, Peter Hain and Dermot Ahern are to be cancelled. While an embarrassment for the government it was better to call ’time out’ on what was becoming a process that did not have the support of most of the parties.”

His party had warned the British government not to start its search for a new breakthrough from the 2004 deal with Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionists which had failed and from which Sinn Féin was “rowing away from as fast as possible”.

A more strategic approach was needed, he said, expressing the hope that the Ahern-Blair meeting would provide it.

A Downing Street spokesman said the north’s parties would not be invited to take part in the Wednesday meeting and there was little likelihood of either a joint British-Irish news conference or statement afterwards.