Penalty points controversy

Concerning the penalty points that were restored by senior gardai to a range of people who included judges and prominent sports personalities, Pat Kenny's programme this morning was unusually one-sided, resulting in the e-mail below which was not read out.

Garda John Wilson, one of the two whistleblowers, has resigned from the force because his position, he said, was untenable.  After I had sent the e-mail, he later phoned the show himself to make some points that had not been highlighted by Pat.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter is to reveal an internal Garda report on the issue today in the Dáil with the names of those who had penalty points restored redacted. 

Pat

You didn't do a fair interview on the penalty points issue. 

You didn't personally make the point that it is just wrong for the Gardai to investigate themselves

You didn't express any concern that a whistleblower Garda has been hounded out of his job

It was one against three. 

You allowed - even encouraged - Fionan Sheahan and the retired superintendent to deflect the conversation away from the alleged wrongdoing to the argumentum ad hominem fallacy about two TDs who have raised the issue.

In all, a shoddy and shameful interview

Justin Morahan

Israel continues injustices against occupied Palestinians

The respected Israeli Uri Avnery writes every week about events in his country.


He fought in the so-called "war of independence" on the side of Israel and was a highly respected member of the Israeli Knesset.

It is not comforting to read his constant witness to the ongoing injustices perpetrated on the Palestinian population by the Israeli occupiers.

Lately he wrote about the recent visit of President Obama and his contrasting attitudes when he visited Israel and the West Bank.  Every word right in Israel, but in the Palestinian occupied West Bank, a different story...


"He told his Israeli audience to “put yourselves in the shoes of the Palestinians”. But did he do so himself? 

Can he imagine what it means to wait every night for the brutal banging on the door? 

To be woken by the noise of bulldozers approaching, wondering whether they are coming to destroy your home? 

To see a settlement growing on your land and waiting for the settlers to come and carry out a pogrom in your village? 

 Being unable to move on your roads? 

To see your father humiliated at the road blocks? 

To throw stones at armed soldiers and brave tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and sometimes live ammunition?
 
Can he even imagine having a brother, a cousin, a loved one in prison for many, many years because of his patriotic actions or beliefs, after facing the arbitrariness of a military “court”, or even without a “trial” at all?
 
This week, a prisoner called Maisara Abu-Hamdiyeh died in prison, and the West Bank exploded in rage. Israeli journalists ridiculed the protest, stating that the man died from a fatal disease, so Israel could not be blamed.
 
Did any of them imagine for a moment what it means for a human being to suffer from cancer, with the disease slowly spreading through his body, deprived of adequate treatment, cut off from family and friends, seeing death approaching? 

What if it had been their father?"

Letter on Guantanamo posted online to White House website.

To President Obama of the US and Barack Obama, human being

( I posted this letter without headings today)


Your promise to close down Guantanamo remains unfulfilled.

Instead, prisoners who are completely innocent are being held imprisoned indefinitely without trial.

Worse still they are being tortured, force fed and their human rights destroyed in a United States hell hole where United States law does not apply.

There is no regard for ethics, morality or international law.

The recent comments you have made, Barack, Mr President, indicate that your own concern is more about the bad name Guantanamo is giving to the US than any concern you have for the basic human rights of the tortured victim inmates you have flown from innocent freedom into Guantanamo torture.

You are right to believe that your name is besmirched because of Guantanamo but surely you as a human being should have deeper concerns about the individual welfare of these innocent victims of US torture and injustice.

Close Guantanamo, free the kidnapped victims, admit your crimes, stop interfering in other countries' affairs in a biased way. 

Be a man, a human we can be proud of, someone your children will be proud of, someone who uses your immense moral power without fear to do good rather than evil.

Please don't plead inability.

Remember YES YOU CAN.

With best personal wishes

Justin Morahan