Burntollet

In Socialist Republic: Vol. 2 no. 1, 1980 · scan pages 8–9 · about 385 words

Civil rights movement Internment, repression and the courts The Southern state and its parties

No public scan is online for this item; the text below was read from a privately held copy.

Machine-read text, not corrected. Cut from the scan by machine, by the size of the headline type. Where columns were set close together, lines of a neighbouring article can run in, and a headline can be missed so that two articles share a page. For anything you quote, read the scan.

Scan page 8

This removal to hospital ( the presiding judge then, Hamilton, was the same judge that sentenced OCsgur in the Special Criminal Court ). As well as the torture and brutality, the -prosecution admitted that constitutional rights of the defendants (eg right to a solicitor) had been broken (though unintentionally!) by the gardai.

Special Criminal Court Farce To complete the farce the prosecution claimed that the injuries incurred by the defendants were either self-inflicted or inflicted by their fellow defendants, a point which they didn't try to prove, The court accepted the prosecution ‘case! although Osgur Breathnach was in hospital during the time the prosecution claimed the injuries were self-inflicted, Brutality Legitimised The conviction of the IRSP 3 was a vindication of the Gardai and the theavy gang’.

One of the main casualties of ' the Burntollet march was the care+ fully fostered myth of a 'new' RUC. A weekend of harassment and attacks on the marchers wrecked years of cosmetic surgery by the British.

Nothing has changed as far as the RUC are concerned and two weeks after Burntollet scme members of the thuggish Special Patrol Group underlined this with a revenge attack on three young people who had been on the march.

_ The attack occured as the 3 victims Michael Conlon, Eamon MacMehon and Bernadette McAnulty, were passing an RUC vehicle checkpoint when they were recognised. They were immediately surrounded ‘cy hostile RUC men and moments punched to the ground.

All three received head injuries and Bernadette was so seriously initured that she is still on erutches at the time of writing -that's three weeks after the attack.

. This gallant band of SPG men was led by a well-known figure -Sergeant Rudowicz, an ex-Foreign Llegionnaire and part-time preacher. His sidekicks for this adventure were 'Joker' Adams and Constable Moffat. In classic RUC style, they then held their victims for eight hours and charged them with various offences. Bernadette, a slight 5ft G6ins. was charged with assaulting two SPG men!!

The cases will come up at the Belfast Petty Sessions on Monday, 26th February. Support for a defence campaign is urgent to prevent further revenge attacks.. Those willing to help should contact the Student Campaign Ageinst Repression through ¥F.Duffy, Students' Union, Queen's University, Belfast 7.

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R.UC. REVENGE ATTACK