Amnesty International will screen their Secret Policeman’s Ball this Saturday night (4th October) in the Errigle Inn, Belfast, broadcast live by satellite from London’s Royal Albert Hall.

It features an all-star line-up of comedy and music talent standing up for human rights – and the Belfast audience will experience it all at the same time as Ball-goers in London. The Belfast Event is to be hosted by Tim McGarry and will be followed by a disco of Northern Soul, Funk and Reggae by Hydroponic.

If you’re available on Saturday night there should be great craic at the Errigle - tickets cost £10 from the Amnesty site.

However, if you happen to miss the event, it will be screened on Channel 4 on Sunday night at 9pm!

The Civil Rights Commemoration Committee is hosting an international conference on Saturday 4th - Sunday 5th October 2008 in the Guildhall in Derry to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Duke Street march.

The conference will reflect on the importance of civil rights, highlight civil rights issues in Ireland and the world today and will consider the impact of the media on civil rights.

President Mary McAleese will give the keynote addresses at the conference.

Speakers include John Hume, Ivan Cooper, Nell McCafferty, Patricia McKeown, ICTU, Monica McWilliams HRC, Maurice Manning IHRC, Mark Durkan MP MLA, Martin McGuinness MP MLA, Gregory Campbell MP MLA and many others.

The full agenda can be downloaded here.

If you wish to attend contact Tim Attwood at civilrights1968@yahoo.co.uk or Tel: 07802 279939

More photos from SDLP @ Jordanstown here

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The SDLP branch at the University of Ulster’s Jordanstown campus have tripled their membership in this year’s recruitment drive.

SDLP Youth Chairman Peter Armstrong said, “The SDLP have recruited three times more members than last year at Jordanstown. We are delighted with the interest our stall has received. Young people are concerned about student top-up fees, housing and accommodation issues and student safety, and SDLP @ Jordanstown will be campaigning on the issues that affect students most during the next university year.

“Our team have been distributing new SDLP Youth booklets, chatting with students, answering questions and recruiting new members. We have also had local councillors speaking with students and listening to their concerns.”

Our members can attend meetings at Jordanstown or in Belfast if it’s more convenient. If you are interested in getting involved, at whatever level suits you, please contact us.

Fantastic news!

Palestinian student Haneen Wishah has been granted a visa by the Israeli government, allowing her to travel from Palestine to Egypt, and she is now in Ireland preparing to start her course at the University of Ulster in Coleraine.

SDLP Youth urged everyone to sign a Trócaire petition to the Israeli ambassador earlier this month so we are delighted to hear that Haneen can now begin her Masters in Business Innovation scholarship.

Here’s what Haneen had to say:

Dear friend,

I want to address you like that because to me you are indeed a friend. You are somebody who helped to bring about something that I thought was impossible - as of almost one week ago I am out of Gaza!

I want to express my heartfelt thanks for all the efforts you made on my behalf - emails, phonecalls, faxes, meetings, letters, media interviews; everything that was done contributed to the decision by the Israeli military to let me out of Gaza to pursue my studies in the University of Ulster.

I am so grateful.

My Dad, who works for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, has always said to me that we are made stronger because of the support of people all around the world.  Now I appreciate how true this really is.  You helped me to keep hope even in the darkest of times.

So I am grateful personally.  But I am also grateful as a Palestinian. All the actions which you took helped to highlight my plight but also the plight of 1.5 million other Palestinians trapped in Gaza.  So, thanks to you, and to Trócaire for arranging this wonderful campaign on my behalf.

Because I am one of the lucky ones.  Even though it took over one year and the efforts of countless numbers of people - I got out.  There are still hundreds of students stuck in Gaza, unable to fulfill their dreams and their potential.  That is not to mention the cancer patients who can’t get access to radiography machines or the farmers who can not export their figs or their strawberries.

Gaza is still under siege.  The work to free it, and the people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, must continue.

Some of you may have heard that Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet, died recently.  One of my favourite poems of his was called ‘Under Siege’.  I always find this verse inspirational:

“Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time
Close to the gardens of broken shadows,
We do what prisoners do,
And what the jobless do:
We cultivate hope.”

This is our job as Palestinians, as people living under 41 years of occupation, 60 years of nakba and refugee status - to ‘cultivate hope’.  I want to thank you again for helping us to do this.

Yours sincerely,

Haneen Wishah

PS. And, who knows, perhaps as I start my studies in Coleraine we may bump into each other on the streets there to talk about how to free the other 1.5 million Gazans living under siege.:)

More photos from SDLP @ Magee here

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SDLP Youth today received a record number of new members to the SDLP branch at University of Ulster’s Magee campus.

SDLP Youth Chairman Peter Armstrong said, “We have recruited a record number of people to our branch at Magee than in any previous year. Our stall has been buzzing all day long and we are extremely satisfied. We have had a team of youth members at our stall distributing new SDLP Youth booklets, chatting with students, answering questions and recruiting new members.

“Over the coming months the SDLP Magee branch will be campaigning on student safety in Derry, student welfare issues, and housing/tenancy rights. They will be meeting with local councillors and Foyle MP Mark Durkan to discuss these issues, and also attending SDLP conferences and events, such as our annual Dublin Trip in January and our week-long Mystery European Tour.”

SDLP Youth have congratulated the Tyrone Senior team on winning All Ireland victory on Sunday and have also paid tribute to the Minor Team.

Chairman Peter Armstrong said, “Congratulations to the Tyrone Seniors on their historic win against Kerry. It’s magnificant to see Sam Maguire return north to Tyrone for the 3rd time in 6 years. It’s an absolutely fantastic achievement and the tremendous performance demonstrates the level of professionalism and talent coming from the Tyrone side.”

“I also want to wish to pay tribute to the performance of the Minor Team and wish them the best of luck in their re-play scheduled next weekend (27th September). “

OLD BOMBS GOOD, NEW BOMBS BAD

John O’Dowd is a big guy – in fact he is known around Stormont as the Jolly Green Giant – but somehow he seems to shrink when Dolores Kelly gets to her feet in the Assembly. Sinn Fein were less than comfortable on Monday debating a UU motion on dissident violence (which we sought to amend to include loyalist violence) because there are always too many dodgy parallels with the past on the lines of ‘old bombs good, new bombs bad’. Dolores didn’t miss and hit the wall:

“I repeat to the so-called dissident republicans what John Hume once said to the Provisionals: ‘You are not Irish republicans, you are extremists who have dishonoured and are dishonouring the deepest ideals of the Irish people. Can we remind you yet again that those whose inheritance you so falsely claim, laid down their arms in 1916 lest they cause any undue suffering to their Irish people’.”

O’Dowd cringed again when Dolores pointed out:

“The dissidents think that they have spotted an opportunity this summer, with Sinn Féin blocking the working of the Executive and the DUP blocking the devolution of policing and justice. Selfish party brinkmanship and standoffs suit the dissidents down to the ground because they create the sort of vacuum in which dissidents activate the kiddie rioting techniques that they learned as Provos. Early devolution of policing and justice would put a stop to the dissidents’ gallop. When they have to face a policing and a criminal justice system that is fully under local democratic control, they will be completely exposed.”

In case anyone on the other benches had missed the point, Declan O’Loan soon had them squirming again:

“Earlier today, I heard Conor Murphy condemn the 100 lb bomb at Jonesborough, using exactly the same words that the SDLP used in relation to the IRA. I mention that because more needs to be heard from Sinn Féin to demonstrate that it has fully repudiated the ideology of violence.”

O’Dowd, who is also affectionately called Motor Mouth, is prepared to ‘give way’ to unionist interventions when he is speaking, but never to the SDLP. Funny that.

THE SUMMER OF OUR DISCONTENT

The Executive last met on 18th June and as we went to press it looked unlikely that the meeting finally scheduled for 18th September would go ahead. In July and August we sought a recall but got no backing. But on Tuesday we got an opportunity to put our recall motion:

That this Assembly notes with concern that the Executive has not met since June and notes the backlog of papers requiring due consideration by the Executive on important issues such as post-primary education, the Maze and PPS14; calls on the First Minister and deputy First Minister to ensure that the Executive meets to address important papers being brought forward by Ministers, to consider the regional impact of the economic downturn and measures which might mitigate its impact on households, businesses, employment and the regional economy including expediting the start dates for major public works agreed in the Investment Strategy, rejecting water charges and prioritising interventions against rising fuel poverty; calls on the First Minister and deputy First Minister to table a paper on the devolution of policing and justice matters for consideration by the Executive; and reaffirms the recommendations of the Assembly and Executive Review Committee’s Report on the Inquiry into the devolution of policing and justice matters which highlighted issues which needed to be considered, examined or discussed by the Assembly and/or discussed by the political parties before the devolution of policing and justice.

The Assembly Business Committee had set aside 90 minutes for the debate. As proposer Mark Durkan got 10 minutes; Patsy McGlone had 10 minutes to do the closing speech which is usually called ‘the wind; and all other speakers have five minutes each. While our members try to intervene against speakers from other parties to make their point (and cut the other side’s time!), we also intervene against our own speakers to help make a point.

First the good news – we got overwhelming, across-the-board support for our motion. The bad news is that the people responsible for blocking the Executive all summer didn’t turn up. Mark Durkan set out the problem:

“This has been a summer of serious crisis, challenge and worry for many people. Uncertainty is gripping people at all levels: children in primary 6 and their parents about the procedures to be faced when trying to find secondary schools; and people working in public services… There is uncertainty for people in the community and the voluntary sector … there is uncertainty for the private sector, as firms try to cope with the implications of the downturn in world markets and the loss of customer spending power in the home market. On top of all that, political uncertainty has been foisted on the region. There was the uncertainty of the Executive being unable to meet, and the uncertainty of a senior leader of one of the parties in the Executive talking about withdrawing Ministers and threatening the collapse of the institutions. Another party prominent in the Administration threatened serious consequences, were that to happen. During that time, the Executive did not meet to deal with the issues that worry people.

Dominic Bradley intervened to highlight the education problem:

“Does the Member agree that the stasis currently at the heart of Government has led not only to uncertainty in education, but to consternation in the whole education community, particularly among parents and teachers? Parents are asking questions about the future arrangements for transfer which teachers cannot answer, as they have been given no clear direction by the Minister or her Department. Does the Member agree that it is now far beyond the time for clarity for the sake of our children, their parents and teachers?”

Yes, Mark definitely did agree. And he pointed the historic irony of Gerry Adams’s position:

“…if the Executive do not meet this week, it will lead to a further locking of business as regards the North/South Ministerial Council. Sinn Féin’s tactics will — bizarrely — leave it in Trimble country, whereby its tactics against another party in the Executive, in effect, end up by grounding the business of the North/South Ministerial Council. That would be some achievement and victory for its tactics.”

The UU’s Danny Kennedy clearly reads our press releases carefully.

“Ordinary people, families and businesses are facing a difficult economic outlook, and what are the DUP and Sinn Féin doing? Like Nero, they are fiddling while Rome burns.”

Nice line – we first used it in July. But we’ll let that one go, as we purloined the next headline from an interview with Sir Reg Empey.

EXECUTIVE GERRYMANDER

Mark Durkan intervened during a speech by Raymond McCartney of Sinn Fein to ask:

“The Member has just said that Sinn Féin will not allow anyone’s mandate to be ignored. However, it is clear that Sinn Féin has agreed with the DUP that a Minister for justice will not —at this or any other time — be appointed through d’Hondt, which is the mandate-based system of inclusion at the heart of the agreement, but by cross-community support. At present, that is a veto on the SDLP; it will be a veto on Sinn Féin in the future.”

We will not bore you with the reply, which was no answer. Sinn Fein has a real difficulty with this ‘no nationalist need apply’ deal. Alban Maginness was to return to the theme in a later intervention against Patsy McGlone:

“Does the Member agree that Sinn Féin, through its agreement with the DUP during the summer, is attempting to gerrymander the system of appointing Ministers in order to exclude the SDLP from a justice Department?”

Oh yes, the member did agree.

GONE FISHING

Alasdair McDonnell got stuck in again on the issue of the missing Executive meetings:

“The summer was one of lost opportunities. We had three months to get ready for the difficult times ahead, but that time was wasted by those who put their selfish needs first. They cannot plead ignorance, because apart from the floods in August, the other problems that befell us were predictable when recess began in early July. Indeed, the problems were obvious when the Executive met in June. However, for three months, the ship of the state has drifted towards the rocks while the bridge was deserted. No one was in charge, and it would appear that on the doors of Stormont castle a sign read “Gone fishing”; some had gone to Donegal, others to Florida.”

The real fun and games came towards the end of the debate. Sinn Fein has enjoyed more than a week of sniping at us based on very deliberate lies about our attitude to power-sharing, but Dolores Kelly, no doubt frustrated by John O’Dowd’s  blanket refusal to accept interventions, gave it to them straight.

“For the record, the SDLP, as a party of non-violence and social justice that was born out of the civil rights movement — and whose leaders John Hume, Seamus Mallon and Mark Durkan were the architects of power sharing, inclusivity, partnership and equality and ensured that those principles were enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement — will not take lectures today, or any other day, from Sinn Féin on any of those matters.”

And for good measure she pointed out some good reasons why Sinn Fein could take lessons from the SDLP.

“The reason for today’s political instability is Sinn Féin’s poor negotiation at St Andrews, where it gave the triple-lock veto [over justice and policing] to the DUP, something about which Mark Durkan had warned it. Did Sinn Féin listen? No. Sinn Féin did not listen, and it is not listening to the people about the real problems that they face. Yet Sinn Féin listens to the DUP, and tells members of that party that it will be all right on the day, but it is not.”

She was only getting into her stride. The two parties controlling the Executive are treating the Assembly to which they are supposed to be accountable with utter contempt:

“In the middle of this great crisis, the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment took time off to pursue a career in local government for a job from which she resigned only a few months ago, and the Minister for Regional Development will put a tin hat on poverty with a water tax unless the Brits bail him out again for another little while. The Finance Minister OK’d flood relief grants in a midnight phone call, and the Environment Minister believes that global warming is caused by bovine flatulence. The Executive are not on top of all the problems that we face. How could they be, when they have not functioned for three months? The First Minister’s office does not provide real leadership. There are two Ministers and two junior Ministers, but where are they now? They have treated the House with contempt, and, each week, they treat the Committee for the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister with contempt.”

GERRY MUGABE

In the closing speech, the seconder of the motion is meant to sum up all the contributions but in Patsy McGlone’s hands it was more wind-up than wind.

“Before the Assembly went into recess, the SDLP called on the Executive to examine energy policy and to urge the British Government to impose a windfall tax and use the proceeds of that to mitigate fuel poverty. Given the urgency and the fundamental nature of the challenges that we faced, Members had the right to assume that business would be done during the summer and that no petty procedural wrangles should stand in the way.

Sadly, that did not happen. For reasons that were highlighted in the Chamber yesterday, there were no meetings. When it became clear that the Executive would not meet in July, the SDLP called for the Assembly to reconvene. Although some parties think that it should be the other way round — indeed, some think that it is the other way round — the Executive are answerable to the Assembly. Members should note the absence in the Chamber of Ministers from the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister to respond to the debate.”

Patsy got the second biggest laugh of the day with his response to Alban Maginness’s intervention on gerrymandering of the Justice Minister post. Earlier in the debate, when the Justice Ministry came up, Sinn Fein’s Raymond McCartney had said the Good Friday Agreement was 10 years aold and it was time to move on. Patsy said:

“Mr McCartney let the DUP cat out of the bag today. [Laughter.] Courtesy of provisional Sinn Féin, no nationalist need apply — nice one.”

But the climax came at the very end as Patsy asked members to consider the implications of Sinn Fein closing down Executive business for three months:

“It is way beyond a joke. I cannot think of an example of another Cabinet or executive body in the democratic world that could simply shut up shop for one quarter of a year at the whim of a single party leader. Having said that, perhaps something similar happened this summer in Zimbabwe, where an ageing, autocratic, long-winded guerrilla leader — who has genuine difficulty in making the transition from paramilitary command to democratic politics — prefers to hang out with his war veterans, rather than debate with political opponents.

Some Members: Gerry Adams.

Mr McGlone: But of course Gerry Mugabe — sorry; Robert Mugabe — is a very different case.

Sinn Fein mouthpiece John O’Dowd has been popping up all over the media in the last week (is no one else in the party capable of keeping a straight face while talking absolute rubbish?) spouting the latest party diktat that there is no point in having an Executive meeting until sufficient ‘progress’ has been made.  Has no one thought to tell him that even an Executive meeting taking place at this stage would be progress in itself?  The place to meet is not in backrooms with DUP and Sinn Fein hardmen flexing their political muscles.  It is in the Executive with the 4 main parties working together to solve many of the problems facing the people of the North.

The question must be asked why Sinn Fein are allowed to hold the rest of the Executive to ransom, holding out until the last minute before deciding whether to grace the other ministers with their presence around the table on Thursday.  Artificially stoking crisis after crisis, running to Downing Street and having the British Prime Minister visit Stormont to persuade the parties to get back to work is not the work of a mature political party.  Sinn Fein revel in crisis and it is the only thing that they are skilled it.  Unfortunately for the rest of us they are not so proficient when actually in government.

Crisis and bluster at the expense of working government is not a surprise to those of us who said that these would be the inevitable consequences of voting for the two extreme parties in the North.  It seems almost naive that we could expect anything different.  Hopefully this crisis reveals to the electorate that Sinn Fein and the DUP are incapable of co-operating in the work of creating stable and effective governance in this part of the world.  While the globe is hit by a global economic crisis they are literally having meetings about meetings and are doing nothing to help those who vitally need government to intervene in their lives.  While some governments decide to do nothing out of an ideological attachment to neoliberalism and a small state, this government has decided to do nothing out of sheer incompetence. Voters should send a message to Sinn Fein and the DUP today in the Fermanagh byelection but also at the next election which could be sooner than planned if things do not resolve themselves soon, that things are just not good enough.

This morning the Alliance Party leader David Ford has changed his mind about the Policing & Justice Ministry.

He has allowed himself to be complicit in what is an undemocratic carve up by the DUP and SF, with the aim of denying over 105,000 nationalists their voice in the NI Executive.

In August, David Ford said “The Alliance Party will not be taking the Policing and Justice Ministry.” However, after discussions with the DUP and SF he has changed his mind. David Ford should bear in mind that back room deals damage the democratic process and think about previous agreements between the DUP-SF that never came to any fruition - such as an Irish Language Act.

David Ford is essentially delaying any implementation of the Policing & Justice ministry by posturing outside Stormont Castle waiting for DUP/SF to throw sweeties. My advice is that if Alliance want a seat on the Executive, they should start working towards the extra 17,000+ first preference votes required.

Who should get the Policing & Justice ministry?

The DUP and SF both agreed that they wouldn’t take it, but it wasn’t theirs to take, and it isn’t theirs to give. The NI Assembly operates under the D’Hondt Mechanism. Every time an Executive has been formed, D’Hondt has been used to assign Ministries to each party.

The graph below shows the allocation of the 11 ministries (10 current ministries + Policing and Justice). It quite clearly shows that the 11th Ministry belongs to the SDLP. Even if you kept adding ministries, the SDLP, DUP and SF would all get assigned new ministries before it was the turn of the Alliance.

(click here to see full graph)

Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness seem determined to undermine the democratic Assembly structures. In attempting to deny the SDLP their position, they are denying a seat on the Executive to the 105,000 nationalist voters who put the SDLP as their first preference. Instead, they want the Alliance party to take on the post, even though they do not qualify for any seat on the Executive as not enough people vote for them.

The SDLP are going to fight for what is rightfully theirs - what has been mandated to them. Tommy Gallagher yesterday said, “Whatever new department comes into being it has to be allocated under the D’Hondt rule. If Sinn Fein colludes with the DUP in abandoning a fundamental requirement of the Agreement and departing from the principles of fairness and equality then the nationalist community will pay a very high price in relation to future arrangements for government in Northern Ireland.“

Lisburn City Councils Environmental Services Committee approved the use of children by the Council in ‘entrapment’ scenarios to entrap shop keepers selling tobacco to minors.(Committee meeting 3 September).

SDLP Lisburn Councillor Matthew McDermott strongly opposed this move by the Council, as he believes it to be a form of exploiting children. Cllr McDermott criticised the council saying that they have not put in the safety measures required to protect children who take part in these entrapments. He was a single voice on the Committee.

Commenting Cllr McDermott said “I am deeply disappointed by the actions of the committee, this is a serious issue and a dangerous path for any local authority to go down. It raises a number of child protection issues.

“No local authority should have this power; it is essentially the power to use children. The Council have not demonstrated how they plan to ensure the safety of the child once they leave the care of the officers.

“I asked that a number of protections be put in place but they were rejected. When we are dealing with children we need to ensure that there is no possibility that anything can go wrong. This hasn’t been assured. The Child Protection officer produced a report which gives me no comfort.

“This means that it may be possible for the council to use a 14 year old child and for councillors to know nothing about it. What’s to stop that child from being recognised on the street by the shop owner in future? That child could then be put in serious danger if the shop owner is not reasonable.

Concluding, Cllr McDermott said, “its very disappointing and worrying to think that young children could be put in this position, by a body which is supposed to serve them. The SDLP opposes local councils having this power for a number of reasons including the fact that there is no dedicated oversight, which is vital when it comes to people’s safety.”

END
Notes to editor:
* The power to use children for test purchasing will take effect after the September meeting of Full Council.