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2 October 1997 Edition

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Back issue: Britain in the dock again

Once again Ireland has received international attention for the abuses of human and civil rights inflicted on its citizens by British state forces in the Six Counties.

The 1987 Report of Amnesty International condemned human rights abuses in relation to the Diplock courts, strip-searches, British shoot-to-kill operations, show-trials and the cases of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. Amnesty's report also mentions the ill-treatment of suspects in Castlereagh and Gough Barracks which it investigated.

The repeated occurrence of these complaints in Amnesty reports year after year is an international indictment of and embarrassment to the British administration in the Six Counties.

It should be remembered that, as an organisation, Amnesty almost invariably errs on the side of caution in its criticism of human rights violations. The litany of abuses in the Six Counties is therefore all the more condemnatory of the system by which the British government maintains its control.

The abuses cited cover the whole framework of repression from RUC ill-treatment of people in interrogation centres to the plight of prisoners serving life sentences as victims of frame-ups.

An Phoblacht Thursday 1 October, 1987




An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland