It was the night the music died: July 31, 1975. Exactly 30 years ago today. By 1975, the North might have imagined it had endured all possible horrors.
British Secretary of State Paul Murphy makes announcement on Hamill, Nelson and Wright Inquiries
PFC | 16 November 2004
Below is an Northern Ireland Office press release issued earlier today. The PFC has not yet formed a view on the adequacy of the terms of reference or the acceptability of the members as proposed. This will, to an extent, be determined by the views of the families.
International Human Rights Delegation to Probe Collusion Allegations
PFC | 28 May 2004
An international delegation arrived in the North this weekend to probe allegations of collusion highlighted earlier this week in a BBC Spotlight Programme.
Of the Europeans who scrambled for control of Africa at the end of the 19th century, Belgium's King Leopold II left arguably the largest and most horrid legacy of all
It’s September 1975. Opposition leader Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative spokesman on the North, Airey Neave, meet with Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, and Northern Secretary, Merlyn Rees. Two weeks earlier, two loyalist ambushes at fake security force checkpoints had resulted in five murders.
In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that the British government had violated Article 3 of the European Commission on Human Rights in their treatment of 14 men in 1971. These "Hooded Men" had been selected for 5 techniques of "Deep Interrogation" - white noise, wall standing/ stress positions, sleep deprivation, bread and water diet, and hooding...
Brief for the British Attorney General (AG) in preparation for the 'Irish state case' (the Hooded Men) from September 1972 from DS10 (the Defence Secretariat at the MoD in London). Of interest is the disinformation provided to the AG, the most senior law officer in Britain, by the Ministry of Defence. At para 4 it is claimed that Ballykelly only...
CJ4-3963 Telegram to British Ambassador, Washington from Lord Carrington, S of S for Defence, 4 November 1980
Carrington, in this telegram, is instructing the British Ambassador to the USA on the line to take relating to murders of prominent Republicans in 1980 - Miriam Daly, John Turnly, Ronald Bunting and Noel Little. 'The UDA as an organisation has never admitted to the use of terrorist violence to achieve its aims.' This is very carefully and ambiguously worded.