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Date Posted: Sunday, December 04, 18:12:10
Author: Danielle Ni Dhighe
Subject: Report: Beyond Bars Conference

Danielle Ni Dhighe, a member of the Irish Republican Socialist
Movement who serves on the coordinating committee of the Irish
Republican Socialist Committees of North America, attended the Beyond
Bars conference at Fairhaven College in Bellingham, Washington State,
USA on Saturday, December 3rd. She led a workshop on Irish national
liberation and prison struggles and participated in a panel discussion
later in the day. Following is her report:

"I arrived at the conference after a 100 mile (160 kilometer) car
trip. The first event of the day was a play staged by former prisoners
showing what a normal day in the life of a prisoner is like. After the
play, various workshops were held in different rooms.

"The workshop I led examined the history of the Irish struggle for
national liberation, in particular the struggle of Irish political
prisoners within British prisons. It also covered some other
international prison struggles, such as the ongoing hunger strikes by
political prisoners in Turkey and France. The workshop was
well-attended and the participants seemed engaged with the subject
matter. At the end there was a Q&A session with the participants.
Afterwards, several participants thanked me for my talk and wanted
more information about the Irish struggle and the IRSM.

"Then I attended a workshop about the case of Chris McIntosh, an
anarchist and an environmentalist whom the US government charged with
an arson attack on a McDonald's Restaurant, an action that was jointly
claimed by the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front.
Despite there being only some property damage to an empty restaurant,
the US government initially charged him with terrorist offenses with a
penalty of a minimum thirty year sentence in a federal prison. Those
charges were based on the testimony of two known police informers.
Faced with that, Chris pled guilty to lesser charges with a penalty of
eight to ten years. The IRSCNA will issue a statement about his case
in the near future.

"After lunch, which was provided by the local chapter of Food Not
Bombs, I attended a workshop about colonisation and the current issues
of Native American prisoners. The workshop was led by Chrystos, a
Native American writer and lesbian activist, and her talk was very
informative.

"I finished up the conference on a panel with four other people,
including two former political prisoners -- Mark Cook, a former Black
Panther who served twenty-four years for his alleged participation
with the George Jackson Brigade, an underground leftist paramilitary
that operated in the Seattle area in the 1970s, carrying out at least
eleven bombings of government agencies and corporations (a local
police chief said at the time, "Is Seattle in for a Northern Ireland
episode?"); and Amin Odeh, a Palestinian who lived most of his early
life in a refugee camp near Bethlehem in the Israeli occupied West
Bank and was imprisoned in an Israeli military prison during the first
Intifada.

"The panel discussion brought home the reality that the struggles of
revolutionaries in and out of prison are ultimately part of the same
struggle for human liberation and building a mass struggle is of great
importance for enacting revolutionary change both locally and
globally. The panel as a whole also defended politically motivated
violence in response to an audience question about whether prisoners
who committed violence should be considered political prisoners.

"All told, it was an excellent conference and I thank the organisers
for inviting me to participate. I hope my talk gained further support
for the Irish struggle and that more people will support political
prisoners in general."

###

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America
PO Box 8266
Austin TX 78713-8266
USA
irscna@irsm.org
<a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.irscna.org/">http://www.irscna.org/</a>
<a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.irsm.org/irsm.html">http://www.irsm.org/irsm.html</a>

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