With the internment of the Chairperson of the Irish Anti-Internment League, Dee Fennell, and the privatization of Irish Water, neither our rivers or speech, are any longer free. In fact a monkey in the US, has more Civil Rights, than an Irish person in Occupied Ireland, almost 45 years after the start of the Civil Rights Campaign there. Certainly with regard to Habeus Corpus and Free Speech, this is the case, as both articles below, demonstrate. I have been banned today myself, despite not being affiliated, to any political group, by Facebook, because British Agents are both censoring and carrying out a campiagn of harrassment, with numerous complaints to Facebook and group managers there. Irish Blog is being slowed by intranets, to the point, some people give up on access. However, there are still the faithful, for which I am grateful. I ask you, to please share the posts and pictures, particulery related to Political Internment and Censorship in Ireland. beir bua, brionOcleirigh
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2015
Statement by the President of Republican Sinn Féin Des Dalton
The arrest, detention charges and remand for Dee Fennell speech in Lurgan Easter Sunday is an attack on the fundamental right to have and express a political opinion as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights UN and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.This is a stark warning that both the British and the 26 counties states are determined to silence anyone who dares to question the status quo or express their opposition to British rule and partition. Last August the Minister of Justice of the 26 counties announced draconian new laws designed to silence and imprison Republicans for expressing a political opinion. Now the Stormont regime is moving along the same path. These measures can also be extended to cover all forms of political dissent, whether political, social or economic. People need to be warned against this and say it.Bodies of civil and political rights must protest against this gratuitous attack on the human rights of Irish citizens. When the centenary of the 1916 Rising fast approaching, it is obvious that the British puppet regime in Stormont is trying to silence the Irish Republicanism and take underground. Such coercive methods have failed in the past as this effort will also fail. Fin / Crioch
Apes are people too? NY judge grants human rights to chimpanzees
Chimpanzee and human DNA differ by only about 1 percent – but should chimps be given human rights? A US judge said "yes" on Monday, ruling that apes held at a New York university are covered by the same laws that let humans challenge their detention.
New York Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe said a pair of chimpanzees held at Stony Brook University are covered by a writ of habeas corpus – a legal principle that lets people challenge the credibility of their detention. The duo, named Hercules and Leo, reside at the university for research purposes.
The lawsuit against the university was originally filed by the Nonhuman Rights Project in December 2013, in an attempt to free Hercules, Leo, and two other chimpanzees living on private property.
The courts threw out the suit, but the group has been appealing ever since, receiving a victory on Monday after convincing Jaffe that the apes are sufficiently intelligent enough to be covered under habeas corpus.
The verdict has allowed for a Stony Brook University representative to be ordered to appear in court to provide a legally acceptable reason for detaining Hercules and Leo. That hearing has been scheduled for May 6.
During the hearing, the university will respond to a petition by the animal rights group which argues that Hercules and Leo should be set free and moved to a sanctuary.
“The NhRP (Nonhuman Rights Project) has asked that Hercules and Leo be freed and released into the care of Save the Chimps, a sanctuary in Ft. Pierce, Florida. There they will spend the rest of their lives primarily on one of 13 artificial islands on a large lake in Ft. Pierce, along with 250 other chimpanzees in an environment as close to that of their natural home in Africa as can be found in North America,” the Nonhuman Rights Project wrote on its website.
However, it remains unclear whether the chimps will actually be freed.
Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University, cautioned against reading too much into the ruling.
“The judge may merely want more information to make a decision on the legal personhood claim, and may have ordered a hearing simply as a vehicle for hearing out both parties in more depth,” he wrote in an email to Science. “It would be quite surprising if the judge intended to make a momentous substantive finding that chimpanzees are legal persons if the judge has not yet heard the other side’s arguments.”
Regardless of whether the apes are granted personhood after the hearing, the group says it plans on using the ruling as precedent in future cases.
“This is a big step forward to getting what we are ultimately seeking: the right to bodily liberty for chimpanzees and other cognitively complex animals,”Natalie Prosin, executive director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
“We got our foot in the door. And no matter what happens, that door can never be completely shut again.”
A similar ruling was made in Argentina last year, with orangutans being granted the status of “non-human persons” with legal rights.
However, the verdict contradicts a separate New York ruling made just four months ago, when a court stated that a chimpanzee is not legally a person and therefore not entitled to human rights.
Reuters