PROTESTA DEL FAIR IN OCCASIONE DI UNA CENA DANZANTE IN COMMEMORAZIONE DI MEMBRI DELL’IRA
Protesta organizzata dal FAIR all’esterno della Londonderry’s Guildhall, dove si è tenuta una serata danzante in memoria di membri dell’IRA
Dodici manifestanti guidati da Willie Frazer, alla testa del FAIR (Families Acting for Innocents Relavitives) si sono riuniti, esibendo dei posters, all’esterno della Londonderry’s Guildhall presso la quale il Derry Volunteers Com-memorative Committee (legato al Sinn Fein) aveva organizzato una cena danzante in memoria di membri dell’IRA.
“Siamo stati per chiedere giustizia per le vittime del terrorismo”, ha dichiarato Frazer che ha affermato siano avvenute alcune diatribe verbali con alcuni degli ospiti. Fatto questo, smentito dal portavoce del Sinn Fein che ha sostenuto come i manifestanti siano stati ignorati dai 300 presenti all’evento.
“Non permetteremo loro di presentare questa come una sorta di cena danzante per commemorare i soldati in un conflitto.
“Perché la gente si sta chiedendo – chi sono questi vittime al di fuori dell’evento? E la risposta è che noi siamo le vittime i cui cari sono stati uccisi e strappati loro dall’IRA”, ha continuato Frazer.
L’evento che ormai si ripete da 20 anni, ha suscitato il polverone perchè quest’anno diversamente dal solito (le precedenti edizioni avevano avuto luogo in strutture alberghiere) si è tenuto presso la Guildhall di Derry, una struttura pubblica.
“I partecipanti sono contribuenti e sono in diritto di usarlo come chiunque altro”, ha dichiarato il portavoce del Sinn Fein aggiungendo che nonostante in passato l’IRA avesse fatto saltare l’edificio, e sebbene la cena sia stata in onore di membri dell’IRA, non significa che i partecipanti alla cena danzante siano loro stessi membri dell’Irish Republican Army.
Gregory Campbell, DUP, interpellato sulla questione ha affermato che quanto è successo sarà difficilmente digerita dalla comunità protestante perchè “la gente lo vedrà (l’evento alla Guidhall) come la dimostrazione che il Sinn Fein non si sia ancora del tutto distaccato dal proprio passato sanguinoso e cruento”.
Protest as dinner hails IRA dead (Belfast Newsletter)
Victims campaigners have staged a protest at Londonderry’s Guildhall against a ‘dinner dance’ commemorating dead IRA members.
The event was organised by Sinn Fein-linked republican organisation the Derry Volunteers Com-memorative Committee.
Willie Frazer of victims’ group FAIR said that 12 protestors attended the event and held up posters in front of hundreds of people who turned out.
“We were demanding justice for victims of terrorism,” he said.
The victims campaigner said that there were a few verbal exchanges with some of the guests.
And he expressed concern that those attending the event were there to glorify the actions of the IRA.
“But we will not allow them a free run,” he said.
“We will not allow them to present this as some sort of dinner dance to commemorate soldiers in a conflict.
“Because people are going to ask – who are these victims outside the dance? And the answer is that we are the victims whose loved ones were murdered and had bits blown off them by the IRA.”
A Sinn Fein spokesman agreed with Mr Frazer that around 300 people attended the dance.
“The event has been held for 20 years in local hotels so I don’t understand why all the fuss this year,” he said.
He rejected any significance in the fact that this was the first time the event had been held in the Guildhall, a public facility.
“The people attending are ratepayers and are as entitled to use it as anyone else,” he said.
The spokesman confirmed that the IRA had previously blown up the building but added that although the dinner was in honour of IRA volunteers, those attending it were not the IRA.
He also insisted that there had been no verbal exchanges with the protestors, saying that they had been completely ignored.
Unionist politicians in Londonderry had been scathing at the staging of the event at the Guildhall – regarded as a shared space for all communities in the city.
UUP Alderman Mary Hamilton, severely injured by no-warning Provisional IRA bombs in Claudy Village in 1972 said last week: “There are lots of people who lost loved ones during the Troubles and it is still a very sensitive issue for people. I believe it should be held in some other venue, not in a civic venue like this.”
The DUP’s Gregory Campbell also hit out at the event: “It will go down very badly in the Protestant community because people will see it as Sinn Fein still not completely disengaging from their bloody and gory past,” he said.
A council spokesman said: “The Guildhall is run on a commercial basis and is therefore available for general hire.”
The Five Demands 
Sono solo giochetti patetici, parte di un accordo già scritto. I Provisionals periodicamente fanno queste ridicole dimostrazioni per cercare di “marcare” la loro essenza Repubblicana, ormai svanita completamente. Sono solo carnevalate prive di senso, che offendono la memoria dei Volontari dell’IRA morti per la Libertà Irlandese
"Mi piace""Mi piace"