PD Men Get 5 Months Apiege

Eighteen identical sentences, each of three months imprisonment suspended for three years, plus a £25 fine, were imposed by R.M. Shearer at Magharefelt on Wednesday.

Victims of this latest piece of collusion between state and landgrabber were the 18 P.D. members who had staged a demonstration at the offices of the Toome Eel Fisheries on May 30th. last. The fact that the cases have only now come before the court reflects the hardening in the government's attitude towards left-wing activists, a change which coincided with Taylor's appointment to the Cabinet, virtually as Minister of Home Affairs.

The I8 members were accused of entering unlawfully to take possess-~ ion of the Toome Eel Fisheries offices at Toomebridge. Leading witness for the prosecution was one of the Robber Barons himself, Barbour, manager of the fishery at Toome.

The P.D. defence was that the Toome Eel Fishery Company had no right to the Lough Neagh Eels and had entered upon the Lough with _ intent unlawfully to take possession LONDON BANKS of- the eels which by right belonged to the fishermen.

Such matters were overruled as "irrelevant" by R.M. Shearer, a former Unionist candidate for Mid-Ulster, who also dismissed the defence that, technically, there had been no unlawful possession since the 18 people left when asked to.

Instead, predictably, the courts backed the imperialist robberbarons and very severe sentences were handed out. It is most unusual to suspend sentences for three years and the intention of the R.M. was undoubtedly to try to intimidate P.D. from carrying on its campaign on the slogan ''The Lough for the People". In the case of Niall Vallely the R.M. has adjourned until Monday to consider whether to impose a direct prison sentence.

These severe sentences come less than a fortnight after the Ardglass cement strike cases because of which three people are now in prison, and ‘wo others have suspended sentences.

issues It is noticable that these severe sentences imposed on P.D. members have arisen out of completely non-sectarian issues. The cement strike was an important issue involving North-South working class solidarity; the Toome Eel Fishery struggle is a direct fight against a most blatant example of crude imperialism.

Sectarianism plays little part in these issues - they are issues which help to unite the exploited. They are therefore a threat to the Unionists' tactic of utilising sectarianism.

They are also issues which directly attack the pockets and the property of imperialist capitalists and their lackeys.

That is why the penalties have been severe.

That is why we will go on fighting!

FREE CITIZEN .30th OCTOBER 1970