Thursday, July 26, 2007

Young Republicans to Mobilise for Cos Derry & Antrim commemoration


Hundreds of republicans from across Counties Derry & Antrim will gather in Gulladuff this Sunday (29th July) for the annual commemoration in honour of the area's republican dead.

Urging a large attendance of young people at the event, Ógra Shinn Féin national organiser, Barry McColgan said,


" As young republicans we are the continuation of the struggle from the time of Wolfe Tone. We are keeping alive Wolfe Tone's vision for unity between Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter on this island - a vision that was taken up in the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic with its core theme of treating all the children of the nature equally oblivious of the differences that have divided us in the past.

"The annual Counties Derry & Antrim republican commemoration is emblematic of a colourful, open and confident republican community coming together to celebrate our growth and unity while remembering the sacrafice of our fallen comrades.

"On Sunday in Gulladuff we will be celebrating the tremendous unity that has been maintained after a year of fairly dramatic change within our movement.

We have a clear direction in terms of where we are going – ready to build, North and South for the All-Ireland government of the future. We’ve a lot to celebrate with a clear mandate to show to the public with the new MLAs elected, the very large number of councillors Sinn Féin have throughout the country, and our TDs."


"There’s been immense progress from the sad days when volunteers suffered so much to a time when we are a confident and ever growing movement for real change. We are confident republicans on the march. But while we celebrate we remember and remembering is very important so that we learn from the past and put that learning into our vision for the future in Ireland. We’ve moved from sometimes dark and troubled times to a very bright day with the ever growing support for the republican struggle for Irish independence, freedom and equality."

Sunday's commemoration will assemble at 6pm at the carpark opposite St. Mary's Church on Mayogall Road before making its way to the Garden of Remembrance which is sited at Ionad Poblachtach Lár Uladh. The colourful parade will include the South Derry Martyrs Flute Band.

Joanne Spain from Dublin, an emerging young leader within the Sinn Féin national leadership will deliver the key address.


Event organiser, Cllr. Peter Bateson said,


"everyone is welcome to attend our republican commemoration and I am particularly looking forward to meeting with the many republican ex-prisoners from across the area who will turn out in large numbers to remember our fallen comrades."

1 comment:

Xevi said...

Spanish Lack of Freedom

Coinciding with the opening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the world-wide Internet debut of Èric and the Army of the Phoenix (Èric i l'Exèrcit del Fènix). Subtitled in English, "Èric and the Army of the Phoenix" documents the odyssey of 14-year-old Èric Bertran, unfairly accused of terrorism. Èric has since been popularly dubbed the "Catalan Harry Potter".

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3666585673568780060

Èric and the Army of the Phoenix documents the truth and the personal consequences -and the politics at play- in the case of Èric Bertran, a boy from Lloret de Mar, a town some 75 km north of Barcelona (Catalonia). When he e-mailed a grocery chain to demand they label their products in Catalan, the language of Catalonia, 14-year-old Èric and his family were subjected to the midnight invasion of their home by thirty police officers bearing a search warrant from the Spanish government. The accusation: terrorism. A big fan of the "Harry Potter" series, Èric created a website that he called Army of the Phoenix, inspired by the famous J.K. Rowling stories, signing his e-mails with the name from his website. Even though they knew full well that the website belonged to a 14-year-old, from that point on, the Spanish authorities insisted on accusing Èric of being a member of an army of terrorists. His family has since taken legal action against the government of Spain for moral and psychological harassment of a minor, taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg and to the United Nations' International Court of Justice.

Èric Bertran and his brother Àdam tell their story in this documentary by Xevi Mató, with English subtitles by Heather Hayes. The film features statements by author Víctor Alexandre, who supervised the book about the case. Alexandre himself has also written an entertaining and controversial play about the incident, which débuted in Barcelona in 2007. Also featured in the film are contributions by Member of Parliament Joan Puig, who defended Èric before the Spanish assembly, and by Èric's attorney Emili Colmenero, who explains how the Spanish justice system connected a child to an Al Qaeda cell.

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