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Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Bushport Brutes Attempt To Intimidate
And Humiliate World Renowned Irish Heroine
========
From: "Astro" astro@mfi.net
To: "Undisclosed Recipients:"
Subject: Another Ashcroft outrage
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 18:56:28 -0500
"She was a 55-year-old "granny," as she describes herself, and she
couldn't get the agents [at the Chicago
airport] to recognize her public name, Bernadette Devlin. Finally,
from checking computer profiles they
found that McAliskey was Bernadette Devlin, at 21, the youngest
member of the British Parliament in history,
a hero of the jobless in Northern Ireland, a known figure in America for
30 years. The agent said he still had to deport her." � See George
Harrison's comment in the very last paragragh at the bottom of this
message. �
----------------------------------------------------------------------
� Finding Trouble in U.S. Jimmy Breslin February 24, 2003 �
"I'm a 55-year-old granny with a gammy leg after years of to'ins and
fro'ins, and I'm here on a cheap holiday in New York, sourced on the
Internet by my daughter," Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was saying
yesterday. � "We were going for our luggage. We were in Chicago. The cheap
flight takes you to New York that way. We didn't have to go through
immigration, they pass you through in Dublin now. The loudspeaker calls
out 'McAliskey.' We go up to your man and say yes, and we're immedately
surrounded by three men and a woman. They grab the passports out of our
hands. One of the men says to me, "We've a fax from our agents in Dublin.
It says you're a potential or real threat to the United States.'" � She
told them to look at the name on the passport, which says Bernadette
Devlin McAliskey. � "I've been coming back and forth to this country for
30 years," she told them. � "You've evaded us before, but you're not going
to do it now," one of the immigration people, the oldest one, said. �
"Look at the passport. Read the name. I was a member of Parliament." �
"What year?" � "Nineteen sixty nine." � "That made you 21 years old," one
of them said. "Come on." He motioned toward an office. � She was 21 then,
and she was famous all over the world, but fame comes and goes in a minute
and here were four people who not only never heard of her, but were
detaining her. � She remembered yesterday that she said, "This is crazy."
� The older agent said, "If you tell me one more time that this is crazy,
I'll put handcuffs on you and throw you into a cell." � "All right, I
won't say one more time that this is crazy. But it is crazy," she said. �
Then Bernadette Devlin, who for so many years showed Catholics in Northern
Ireland how to breathe and be as unafraid as she was, and by doing so
placed the first jobs they ever had into their lives, this small woman
with music for a voice who thrilled so many Irish in New York, wound up in
an office, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. � Humiliate them.
Then frighten them. "I'm going to throw you in prison," the older man
said. � He tried the wrong party. "You can't do that," she said. "I have
rights. I have the right to free movement. I have human rights. I have the
right to be protected under the Constitution of the United States." � The
daughter overheard one of them say, "After 9/11, nobody has any rights." �
It was common mouthing and behavior from a government that daily shears
people of their rights. � "This must be the way they treat every Mrs.
McAliskey," she was saying yesterday. "That was the most disturbing." �
Under John Ashcroft, a prayer breakfast man who probably prays against
people, the Justice Department doesn't believe in the Bill of Rights.
Ashcroft is useless in a big Justice Department case against such as
Enron. How could he be? Even he says he accepted big donations from them.
� But he can sweep the rights of individuals out of the room, and do it
while humming prayer songs. � In one week in this city, an anti-war
demonstration was blocked by the mayor and police commissioner, and now
Bernadette Devlin is deported. That one comes from Washington. She is
cleared easily by American agents in Dublin who knew she was in order.
Suddenly, they are ordered to send a fax to Chicago to block her. Somebody
in Washington, with the mind of a rodent, has to order that. � This has to
be all about her making a speech against the war someplace and the British
put in a complaint to our authorities. � At the Chicago airport, they
asked Bernadette if she ever had been arrested. Yes, in Northern Ireland.
Had she been in prison? Yes, for six months. "I told them I was convicted
of an offense for civil rights demonstrating 20 years ago." � Her
daughter, Deirdre, remembers one of them saying, "See, that makes her
ineligible to be in the country. She knew that. She snuck past the people
in Dublin." � Bernadette said yesterday, "I told them that it has to be
two years in jail before you're ineligible to enter the United States. I
was in for six months. That put me in bracket A of 211. My ineligibility
was lifted. I've been going and coming to this country for 30 years now.
Go look me up on the computer." � One of them whispered to her, "Don't
make my boss mad. He shot at Russians here." � "I was going to tell them
that I was shot in Northern Ireland, but now I was afraid that he would be
upset and start shooting at me. Who knew what they would do? They were in
a panic. Totally irrational. They had a fax that said I was a potential or
real threat to America. I'm sitting there, an old nuclear warhead." � She
started in again about them looking up her file in the computer. "It's
there," she said. "They have a profile of me." Finally, the older agent
went into another room. Minutes passed. When he came out he was different.
"She's telling the truth," he told the others. � Then he said to her,
"You're Bernadette Devlin." � "Yes, I am." � "Then you're right. It is
crazy. I can't do anything about it. This fax says you can't enter the
country. I've got to send you back." � She was seething with contempt.
Amazingly, they let the daughter, Deirdre, go off to New York, so she
could tell everybody what had happened. The agents hadn't looked at the
luggage; Deirdre picked hers up and was gone. � Bernadette was escorted to
the Aer Lingus flight back to Dublin. She had arrived at 5:20 p.m. Now, at
7:30 p.m. on Friday night, all this beauty was being deported. � She was
found yesterday at her home in Coalisland, Northern Island. �
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/ny-
nybres243144609feb24,0,2135199.column?coll=ny- lipolitics-print
----------------------------------------------------------------------
� Just One Voice In Her Defense � February 25, 2003 � �
Herewith today a communique from George Harrison, formerly of County Mayo,
Ireland, and residing for many years at Prospect Park Southwest in
Brooklyn. At 88, he is one of the last of the race. � "I have just been
informed by my friend and comrade Frank Durkan, that our mutual comrade,
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, was prevented from paying a visit to this
writer who is now broken in health and almost housebound. From what I know
Bernadette was stopped in Chicago and sent home to Ireland. � "The
arresting officers gave no consideration to the fact that Bernadette is
now in her mid-50s, a mother of three grown children, the beloved wife of
Michael McAliskey, and that she carries in her body bullets from her
would-be assassins. When Bernadette and Michael were close to death she
let it be known that she wanted me and the late Paul O'Dwyer to provide
for the upbringing of her three children. We considered this request a
singular honor indeed and accepted it with humility. � "For 40 years she
has fought imperialism wherever its ugly head appears and its offsprings,
racism, sectarianism and fascism. Her name now is joined forever with all
the heroic women of the centuries - old struggle to rid Ireland of British
rule - to name just a few, Matilda Tone, Ann Devlkin, Lilly O'Donnell,
Mary McSweeney, Maude Gonne McBride and Betsy Gray. � "Like a soul afire,
the contempt I feel for the despots who prevented the revolutionary flower
from seeing me is matched by the respect I have for her and for her brave
and noble kind, both living and dead. � "It is not those who can inflict
the most but those who can endure the most who will finally triumph." �
George Harrison Patriot Republic Sinn Fein Former Kilkelly Company East
Mayo Battalion County Mayo, Ireland." � It wound up yesterday that
Harrison's was the only voice of all the people with Irish names in the
city to protest the deportation on Friday night of Bernadette Devlin.
People with Irish names today think criticism is criminal, protest is
subversive. � They will settle for their names above saloons and on the
breasts of their police uniforms. You wait in hopes they will change and
pick up their heritage and for decades now they have not. Harrison always
was different. � "They wait on line without knowing if it is right or
wrong," George said yesterday. "As long as it is a line and they are
standing behind somebody." � In the 1980s, George and a group of Irish of
New York were indicted for gun-running to Northern Ireland. The trial was
in federal court in Brooklyn. The prosecutor started by saying, "For the
last seven or eight months, George Harrison has sent weapons to Northern
Ireland." � At which point, there was great agitation at the defense
table. Harrison was livid. Attorney Frank Durkan rose and said, "My client
is furious. Instead of seven months, he wants it known that he has been
running guns to Northern Ireland for the last 25 years at least." � As
usual, Harrison yesterday railed against the oppression of a government
that deported Bernadette Devlin McAliskey immediately after she got off an
Aer Lingus plane in Chicago. She had boarded it in Dublin, where the
United States immigration people now clear passengers. As there is no need
to clear in America, passengers miss lines. � In Dublin, Bernadette and
her daughter, Deirdre, 25, were passed through cheerfully. The daughter
had found the flight, on cheap tickets, from the Internet. It went through
Chicago, where they had a connection to New York. Bernadette and her
daughter were out in the terminal, going for their luggage, when she was
paged as "McAliskey" and when she answered she was surrounded by
immigration agents. They had a fax from Dublin that was sent after she was
in the air to America. It said she was a potential and real threat to
American security. � She was a 55-year-old "granny," as she describes
herself, and she couldn't get the agents to recognize her public name,
Bernadette Devlin. Already we have decided that the order came from
Washington, where the attorney general, Ashcroft, finds oppression
exhilarating. Bernadette had made several speeches against the war, and
then once more she was no favorite with governments. � Finally, from
checking computer profiles they found that McAliskey was Bernadette
Devlin, at 21, the youngest member of the British Parliament in history, a
hero of the jobless in Northern Ireland, a known figure in America for 30
years. The agent said he still had to deport her. � She never had that
visit to George Harrison. Who yesterday, at age 88, sat in Brooklyn and
used his memory of the years of his life. � "I would like to state that we
had two conservative Republican United States attorney generals who were
against the people," he said. "In Nixon's years, John Mitchell was
convicted. And Kleindienst was convicted. Bush is now president. I now
await with great anticipation the third."
posted by Vetzine
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