31 May 2001 Edition

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McBride International Day of Action

On Thursday, 24 May, activists around the world supported the family of Belfast teenager Peter McBride family in a Day of Action. In London, activists managed to get into the Ministry of Defence HQ in Whitehall, unfurl a banner and distribute leaflets. After half an hour the group was removed from the building by the Metropolitan Police, whose response was non-confrontational. As this was a flying picket, the group quickly moved on to demonstrate outside a nearby Army recruitment office, forcing its closure for the duration of the protest. The group then held brief pickets outside the security gates at Downing Street and at the main entrance to the House of Commons. In Bradford, supporters distributed leaflets and in Birmingham a two-hour vigil was held in the city centre.

Australian Aid for Ireland held very successful protest at the British Consulate in Sydney. The delegation met with the Deputy Consul-General Fergus Cochrane-Dyet and delivered a strong protest message while reminding him that this was the third demonstration to the Consulate about the McBride case in less than a year and that AAI would continue to come back for as long as it was necessary.

A lunchtime public protest meeting was held outside the Consulate office and hundreds of leaflets were distributed outlining the issue and calling on members of the Australian public to send a protest e mail to the British Ministry of Defence. AAI, with the support of a number of Australian MPs and trade union leaders, has written to the British High Commission in Canberra seeking a meeting about the continued retention of the convicted killers of Peter McBride in the British Army. The group was due to meet with the Acting High Commissioner in Canberra on Monday, 28 May.

In the USA, activists distributed the e mail address and phone numbers of the British Information Office on the internet and called for messages of protest to be forwarded.

In Germany, the Frankfurter Rundschau, a national daily newspaper, last week carried an article on the campaign to have the Scots Guards convicted of the murder of Peter McBride removed from Germany where they are presently based. The petition, launched there by supporters of the McBride family, has received international support from Ireland, England, Scotland, USA, Dubai, Australia, Sweden, Italy, Israel, Hong Kong and Austria. The signatures will be handed over to the German Foreign Ministry and the British consulate in Germany at the end of June. You can sign the petition... see details at www.serve.com/pfc.

John Spellar MP, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces who sat on the second Army Board which decided to retain the Scots Guards, can be e mailed at [email protected].

The final day of the hearing of the judicial review by the McBride family challenging the MoD decision is on 25 June at the High Court in Belfast. A decision was made not to hold protests in the North due to the unexpected delay in legal proceedings.

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