CIVIL RIGHTS QUESTION TIME? -- Stormont Watch

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Date Posted: Sun, Mar 16 2008, 19:09:08 PDT
Author: CR Vets
Subject: CIVIL RIGHTS QUESTION TIME?

PRESS RELEASE

Civil Rights Question Time? /

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the transformation of the Civil Rights Association, established in �67 as a lobby group, into a mass movement following the dramatic events on Duke Street on October 5th 1968. In recent months a broadly-based committee was established in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, by key activists in those days, with the aim of organising a programme of commemorative events across the Six Counties, London and beyond.

Over recent weeks a Programme Implementation Group was formed in Derry. It plans to hold a press conference at the end of this month. The organisers, while reluctant to reveal their full programme before such, did reveal that sections of the mass media were showing keen interest in the 40th anniversary plans, and that David Dimbleby, the presenter of the BBC�s Question Time programme has been invited to the city. A committee spokesman said, �We have recommended Derry Guildhall or the Millennium Forum nearby as a suitable venue. There is no guarantee at this stage that our invitation will be taken up, so all we can do is wait and see.�

Those wishing to assist the local commemoration committee are cordially invited to phone 028-71-286359 after 6pm any evening, or e-mail rights.civil@googlemail.com

More��.

The Derry committee, chaired by Mr. Ivan Cooper, has attracted the support of several local people once active on diverse civil rights issues, not least Springtown Camp, boundary extension, voting rights, lack of housing, repressive laws and unemployment. The central committee, which meets monthly in Belfast, is anxious to widen and deepen its commemorative plans in the near future. It is conscious that it has not been able to make contact with everyone at home, or abroad, who actively supported the civil rights movement. They desire to mark this historic anniversary in an appropriate manner, with an educational emphasis on learning lessons for the future from this pivotal era of social change via passive resistance.

All major events will include audio-visual recordings to add to existing archives. The group is currently engaged with TV documentary makers, historians, publishers, trade-unionists and community groups who have expressed interest in the project.

The local civil rights secretary, Mr. Fionnbarra O�Dochartaigh, a co-founder of NICRA in 1967 said: �The period we intend to commemorate will be the events before and after Duke Street in 1968 with the Belfast to Derry �Burntollet March� chosen as the cut-off day in early January 2009. We believe we have a duty to provide a platform for all those many brave people who took to the streets for basic social justice. Their voices must be heard and recorded for this and future generations�, he concluded.

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