Doctors Back Irwin: Get British Troops Out Now!
Socialist Press1979 1979-03-28Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 4 →
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15 YEARS NOEL SEATUR Sinn Fein march in Derry last October takes up defence of 'H' Block prisoners The allegations of Royal Ulster Constabulary torture of suspected republican prisoners in the notorious Castlereagh and Gough interrogation centres received further support last week.
Members of the Forensic Medical Officers Association of Northern Ireland voted in support of the stand taken by former Castlereagh police doctor, Dr. "Robert Irwin, who has stated that he has evidence of at least 150-160 cases of brutality.
And leading police surgeon Dr. Denis Elliot, from the Gough interrogation centre, has publicly requested to be transferred, since he no longer feels able to comply with a 1975 Tokyo convention obliging doctors to expose cases of torture.' Set back These continuing ripples among Protestant doctors hitherto silent on police and army brutality are another setback to the efforts of Labour's 'Minister for Torture', Roy Mason to evade the clear evidence of police brutality contained in the whitewashing Bennett Report.
And if next week's vote of confidence goes against the government, the blood-stained Labour cabinet will be forced into an early election with their reactionary role in Ireland a topic at the forefront of discussion.
No illusions However there should be no lillusion that a Thatcher government offers any ray of hope for the Irish liberation struggleleast of all for the 300 republican prisoners who continue with their heroic struggle in 'H' Block of the Long Kesh concentration camp, demanding the restoration of prisoner of war status.
A mere 180 delegates sent for credentials for the Chile Solidarity Trade Union conference at the NUR Hall, Euston Road on Saturday 24 March-a clear sign of the way union leaders have ignored the struggle in Chile.
The morning was spent limply with Chilean TUC speaker Humberto Elgüeta, Reg Williams of CPSA and a speaker from NALGO talking about the adoption of refugees.
After lunch in the discussion on the boycott of Chilean goods the conference began to take up questions that reveal what trade unionists can do in solidarity with Chile.
Orlando Lotelier's widow spoke and asked for "concrete action" rather than words.
The conference was largely behind the demand for total blacking despite a Liverpool docks steward wanting to limit Though political status was at-first granted by the Tories and only scandalously withdrawn as part of Butcher Mason's "iron fist" attempt to crush the war of liberation, now sanction any such concession.
No future While republican and socialist militants correctly criticise the sketchy resistance within the Labour and trade union movement to British imperialist oppression in Ireland, there is no tuture whatever in a perspective of "pressuring" a viciously anti-working class Thatcher government.
Rather the attention of the British working class needs to be focussed on the necessity to remove the reactionary Callaghan-Healey-Mason leadership of the Labour Party which speaks and acts solely in the interests of British imperialism.
Same traitors
ine tact that this Laboul eadershio supervises the military occupation of the six counties and the savage repression of all opponents of British rule is the same leadership that uses the Special Patrol Group to smash picket lines, the army to break. strikes, and collaborates hand-in-glove with capitalism, must be stressed at each point.
While we continue to support and defend the legitimate struggles of irish workers in the six counties against imperialism we must spare no effort in mobilising the British working class to the same ends-and force the immediate withdrawal of British troops, along with the granting of PoW status to political prisoners preparatory to an amnesty. MCOOL 25 YEARS 10 YERRS JOHN BURKE:
LIFE NOW!
CAIRNS CREUSON NTZREZ YEARS OCAMUS SOAL 12 YEARS
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Tory spokesman Whitelaw has made it plain that he would not