Last month at the UN General Assembly, rock legend Bono lamented that for ten years he has begged the G8 for US$25 billion to relieve hunger and disease in Africa, with limited success. Suddenly, the United States has $700 billion to spend on Wall Street.
Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the US bailout package […]
All but one of the 'Raytheon 9' war resisters were acquitted by a Belfast jury yesterday of all charges.
In August 2006 Colm Bryce, Gary Donnelly, Kieran Gallagher, Michael Gallagher, Sean Heaton, Jimmy Kelly, Eamonn McCann, Paddy McDaid and Eamonn O'Donnell broke into the Derry offices of US arms manufacturer Raytheon (pictured right) and […]
The trail of the 'Raytheon 9' enters its likely final week. These nine men occupied the Derry offices of an arms manufacturer for 8 hours back in August 2006 with the purpose of preventing war crimes. Claims Eamonn McCann, due to take the stand this week:
"Israel had dropped so many bombs over southern Lebanon, south […]
Ordinary people are doing extraordinary things to oppose the war in Iraq; courageous, costly things. And more than just expressing opposition, some are acting to prevent war crimes being committed.
This month, four ‘Christians Against All Terrorism’ were pursued through the courts by the Australian Government for breaking into the secret US military facility Pine Gap, […]
There’s a venerable principle of criminal law that seems to be turning on its head in Western democracies, and a number of human rights along with it.
The principal begins with an acceptance of the fact that no system of criminal justice will ever be inerrant. There will always be wrongful convictions and wrongful acquittals. But […]
The 5 Catholic Worker pacifists who in February 2003 disarmed a US Navy warplane at Shannon airport in the ‘neutral’ Republic of Ireland have just endured their third trial for 10 counts of criminal damage and were today acquitted on all counts.
Their principal defence was that they had ‘lawful excuse’ to damage the plane, namely […]
I've written previously of my admiration for Australia's man-in-London, human rights giant Geoffrey Robertson QC. There's another Australian member of the bar I adore: that cultured man of compassion, the erudite and articulate Mr Julian Burnside, who, in and beyond his impressive legal practice in Melbourne, works tirelessly to promote human rights. Despite a large […]
Norman Aisbett wrote a terrific profile of Australian-Irish pacifist Ciaron O’Reilly in the ‘Weekend Extra’ section of The West Australian newspaper on 20 May 2006 (which unfortunately is not available online, but I quote it below). He describes how in 2003 O’Reilly and four fellow activists broke into a hangar at Shannon Airport near Limerick […]