Workers Solidarity Movement

On Tuesday the 27th of September there was a solidarity picket held outside the Children's Court in Dublin.  The picket stood outside from 10 am till 5pm today the day of the verdict of the Jobstown kids trial.  People from Tyrone, Arklow, Wicklow and Cavan travelled to show solidarity outside the Children's court and there were solidarity pickets in other counties.

Protesters crowded around on the street, in a natural symbolic reaction of solidarity against the trial of a 17 year old, who has long worked in communities volunteering. Who the state has created spurious charges against him, of “false imprisonment”. When the minister Joan Burton was in Tallaght - a community blocked her in for a short time out of her privileged life, so miniscule in comparison to the communities who suffer a life sentence of poverty as she and her cronies eased tax for vultures and slashed welfare.

Anarchists in Derry took part in a series of solidarity actions in a show of international support and solidarity with anarchists and antifascists imprisoned in Russia.

Last month the Anarchist Black Cross of Moscow issued an international call for solidarity in support of activists currently facing an extremely intensive political and repressive situation in Russia, especially anarchist and antifa comrades and those fighting for human rights and social justice issues.

What better to bring us together in these uncertain times than our shared realisation that cops across the globe are the barking lapdog bastards of the elite, whose purpose it is to force society into staying in a miserable and unfair condition. How wonderful to have something in common.

Anyone following or involved with the struggle against the water charges, or for decent housing, or anything which challenges the status quo really, will know that the cops aren't on our side - not by a long shot.

The province of Oaxaca in Mexico has seen a massive revolt led by the teachers union in recent weeks. In the course of the repression of the protests police have already killed 12 people, overnight we have heard that they have killed another, the anarchist Salvador Oleos Garcia.

He has been described as journalist, community activist, defender of the lands, singer and pioneer of the anarcho-punk movement in Huajuapan. Reports indicate that after a police tip off he was found at the road side with injuries to the limbs, head and torso, he later died in hospital.

Last Thursday 16th June a meeting was held by activists that are opposed to the use of the Special Criminal Court. Speakers included Maureen O' Sullivan, Nicky Kelly (who was wrongly convicted in the Special Criminal Court), John Lynns and Aengus O Snodaigh.The matter was discussed and debated throughout the meeting and the end result is to create a campaign for the abolishing of the Special Criminal Court and the Offences Against the State Act. Everyone at the discussion voiced their concerns at the human rights abuses carried out by the state using the court and the Act.

The 12th May saw the first demonstration protesting the effective Internment of Gaeilgeoir, graduate and political activist Dónal Ó Coisdealbha, outside the Dail.

Dónal will be held on remand in prison from 2015 until 2018 for trial,without chance of bail,or release,despite the fact that he is willing to accept the strictest of bail conditions,including electronic tagging and house arrest. There has been widespread condemnation and criticism of this serious infringement upon an Irish Citizens legal and human rights.

Some of those who have pledged their support to Dónal include TD's Clare Daly, Mick Wallace and Maureen O Sullivan.

Great news from the courts today (17 Feb)  where 11 out of the 13 Crumlin water charge protesters arrested last year have had their cases dismissed. Although 2 are still to face trial in May this is a victory not just because 11 are already off but because the judge seems to have smacked down the Garda attempts to interpret the Public Order Act in a way that would outlaw a lot of protest. This is a significant slap down for the political policing pushed as a strategy by the Labour Party & Fine Gael to try and demoralise the water charges movement.

Today the story broke that an ex-soldier has been arrested in connection with Bloody Sunday in which 13 people (and another who later died from his injuries) were murdered at a protest against internment in Derry's Bogside on 30 January 1972.

The soldiers involved in the massacre, the Parachute Regiment, were involved in another massacre less than six months prior to this. In August 1971, 11 people were murdered over a period of three days by the Parachute Regiment in Ballymurphy in the west of the city - 10 were shot and another suffered a heart attack after a confrontation with a soldier in which it is alleged that the soldier put an empty gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

During the rise of HIV and Hepatitis B in the 70s and 80s the UK Government enforced a blanket ban on men who have sex with men donating blood.

In 2011 this ban was changed slightly - the ban would only last a year after a man had sex with another man, meaning that if any queer men wanted to donate blood they would have to abstain from sex with men for a year.