Boycott German goods

A Chairde,

We make this appeal to purchasers of German goods.

Please intervene on behalf of Róisín McAliskey, who is being held at the request of the German government who are seeking her extradition.

The McAliskey family are known as people of honour and those people who have offered to go bail know they will not be let down.

There is no reason why Róisín should not be released to have her baby in a civilised manner.

While Róisín awaits in uncertainty for her fate and the fate of her baby to be decided, the German economy expands before our eyes. The most obvious items are the opulent Mercedes cars, Audis, Volkswagen. Beers and wines also help to line the pockets of unknowing or uncaring business people while inhuman legalism keeps a delicate pregnant young woman behind bars.

The media have been used to vilify Róisín McAliskey so some of her friends are now asking the written media to carry this request to customers of German goods.

Our request is that letters be written or phone calls made to the suppliers of your German possessions to ask those suppliers to pass along the message of our anger - anger at the unnecessary suffering being inflicted on a young mother-to-be.

We thank your readers in anticipation.

Noelle Ryan,
For Friends of Róisín McAliskey,
Springhill Community House,
Springhill Close,
Belfast BT12

A sense of history

A Chairde,

The Official Unionist leader, David Trimble, has condemned the search for truth over Bloody Sunday as the indulgence and perpetuation of a sense of Nationalist grievance by Republicans and their ilk. After all, he asserts, this all happened 25 years ago. David Trimble gives the impression that Unionism is above such concerns as the unravelling of official responsibility for the killing of unarmed fellow citizens by British Paratroopers in Derry in 1972.

It must be a different David Trimble then, who waltzes, hops, skips and jumps his way around the highways and byways of the North every year to commemorate events which happened three hundred and seven years ago on the Boyne, while wearing an orange sash and a bowler hat.

Niall Meehan,
Cabra,
Dublin 7.