Vigils in memory of victims of Westminster’s ‘dirty war’

“The vigils are to give people an opportunity to mark with dignity and respect the Hunger Strikers and those killed through British state collusion and shoot-to-kill.

Speaking to An Phoblacht, Sinn Féin West Belfast MP Paul Maskey said:

“The party has organised white-line and black flag commemorations this evening to give people the chance to remember the Hunger Strikers and those killed through shoot-to-kill and collusion.

“The vigils are to give people an opportunity to mark with dignity and respect the Hunger Strikers and those killed through British state collusion and shoot-to-kill.

“People can with dignity and respect commemorate their loved ones, friends and neighbours whose vision will live long after those who assisted in inflicting pain on our community and country are gone.”

Members of the Sheena Campbell Sinn Féin Cumann from Queen’s university held a vigil outside the university to express their anger over a decision by university authorities to flag its flag at half-mast as a mark of respect for Thatcher.

The students, supported by members of the Mairead Farrell Youth Committee, were incensed over the decision to lower the college’s flag when it refused the same honour to republicans Mairead Farrell and Sheena Campbell who were students at QUB when they were killed.

IRA Volunteer Mairead Farrell was shot dead in Gibraltar in 1988.

Sheena Campbell, a senior member of Sinn Féin, was a law student at Queen’s who was gunned down by loyalists in 1992.

Sinn Féin Lisburn Councillor David Bell addressed the students and criticised QUB authorities.

He said that the vision of people like Sheena and Mairead would mean more to people in the future than that of Margaret Thatcher.

In Dublin, at the GPO, more than a hundred people lined up from The Spire to the Jim Larkin statue in a vigil reminding countless people – including many young people not born in the 1970s and 1980s – about the Hunger Strikers and other victims of British state forces

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