Ireland

Putin’s global ambition

Vladimir Putin’s political career began following the collapse of the USSR; but his life as a KGB man never ended.

Every moment of his political career – from his time in Boris Yeltsin’s administration, to his rise to power and since then – has been a response to the humiliation which was visited upon Russia in the early 1990s.

Putin has shown the world who he is, repeatedly: from Grozny and Chechnya, to Ossetia and Georgia, to Aleppo and Syria, to the lands and cities of Ukraine today. With each atrocity, the question put to the world has been: “What are you going to do about it?” And each response has been criminally lacking.

Thus, Putin repeatedly challenged the post-WWII consensus and international system of laws and customs, and its weaknesses have been found out.

Having established that repeated grave violations of the rule of international law are without consequence, Putin understands that the entire world order is a Potemkin legal order.

Above all, what this means for Putin is that Western hegemonic power is without substance. Equally importantly, Putin does not care for international rules or institutions, principles or agreements, courts or procedures – indeed, he rejects them entirely and has successfully undermined them again and again.

In a lawless world, might is right

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an outrage against humanity. Yet, this horrific invasion is simply the beginning of his next phase of his political career, which is to (re-)establish and (re-)impose Russian hegemonic power. For Putin, this goal is of greater importance than any other consideration, domestic or international.

This invasion, as some commentators believe, may extend beyond Ukraine and at least as far as the Iron Curtain. However far it goes, member states of NATO are seeking to avoid any escalation with a man who controls nuclear weapons.

As we know, Putin has already made threats to use nuclear arms, and we have now seen members of the Russian army fire artillery shells at the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

Therefore, I don’t believe that Putin’s armed conflict will be limited to conventional warfare.

Will he use nuclear weapons against countries which border Russia? He could re-locate to Vladivostok, but he works in Moscow and is from St Petersburg, so that may be unlikely.

What possible alternatives could there be? What might make an easy target? What non-NATO EU member state at the western edge of Europe, next door to NATO and permanent UN Security Council members Britain and France, with basically zero military and defence capabilities might there be?

Such an action would neatly serve to demonstrate Russia’s total power to the world.

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A letter to Claire Byrne Live

I emailed the Claire Byrne Live programme this evening. They cannot say they did not know.

* * *

Date: 9 January 2017 at 20:22
Subject: URGENT: Claire Byrne Live 09/01/2017
To: clairebyrnelive@rte.ie

Dear all,

I understand that tonight’s Claire Byrne Live (Monday, 9th January 2017) is to include Nicholas Pell among the speakers on the programme. Presumably, this will relate to a discussion on far-right extremism or similar.

I am urgently calling on the Claire Byrne Live team not to run with this item. As broadcasters, you have an ethical, moral and legal duty not to engage in such dangerous acts.

The right to freedom of expression is not absolute. It is limited. These restrictions are found in international treaties, such as the ICCPR and ECHR, and were included as a direct response to the events which led to the violent atrocities of the Second World War. Per ICCPR Article 19:

The exercise of the rights provided for in […] this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

 

These principles inform the Prohibition on Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989, as well as the provisions of the Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Bill 2016. And they are found in the Broadcasting Act 2009, Section 39(1)(d):

39.— (1) Every broadcaster shall ensure that—

(d) anything which may reasonably be regarded as causing harm or offence, or as being likely to promote, or incite to, crime or as tending to undermine the authority of the State, is not broadcast by the broadcaster

 

Mr Pell is an avowed far-right extremist. This is publicly known, and he does not deny it. These are precisely the circumstances envisaged by the drafters of the exemptions to freedom of expression in the aftermath of World War II.

As Franz Frison, an Irish survivor of Holocaust, wrote in a letter to The Irish Times on 12 December 1988:

Having experienced fascism in the flesh […] If fascism could be defeated in debate, I assure you that it would never have happened, neither in Germany, nor in Italy, nor anywhere else. Those who recognised its threat at the time and tried to stop it were, I assume, also called “a mob”. Regrettably, too many “fair-minded people” didn’t try to stop it, and, as I witnessed myself during the war, accommodated themselves with it when it took over.

[…]

People who witnessed fascism at its height are dying out, but the ideology is still there, and its apologists are working hard at a comeback. Past experience should teach us that fascism must be stopped before it takes hold again of too many minds, and becomes useful once again to some powerful interests […].

 

I campaigned for marriage equality in 2015. Though the outcome was that which we sought, our volunteers experienced sneers, insults, and physicial assaults – some so severe that the Gardaí investigated. I recall that during Germany’s Weimar Republic, a nascent movement for decriminalisation of homosexuality had begun. Just a few years later, these people were being sent to their deaths in concentration camps by the Nazis.

This is not a game. You who are now reading this email may not realise the real danger of proceeding with tonight’s programme and this item, including Mr Pell. However, there are many amongst your colleagues and viewers who do.

I urge you to accede to my request.

Yours sincerely,

The US Senate’s CIA report and Ireland

 

Earlier tonight, on the eve of International Human Rights Day, the United States Senate report on the use of torture by the CIA (PDF) was finally made public.

Compiled by members of the Democratic party on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the report details the scale and range of techniques used during the detention and interrogation of individuals in the custody of the CIA, post-2001. According to the Committee chair, Dianne Feinstein, these techniques amounted to torture. As noted by Channel 4 News this evening, many of the techniques detailed in the report were not previously publicly known.

Where does Ireland feature?

Where is Ireland situated in the context of these latest revelations?

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The problem with Clare Daly’s proposal on bodily integrity

 

I saw this on Twitter this morning:

 

Clare Daly TD proposal tweet 400x313

 

The proposal by Clare Daly TD is to insert the following into Article 40 of the Constitution, replacing the existing Article 40.3.3°:

The state acknowledges right of all citizens to personal autonomy and bodily integrity.

Presumably the intention here is to remove the restrictions around abortion in Ireland, which many have argued have led to abortion effectively being exported abroad, most especially to England.

This is the existing text of Article 40.3.3°, which was insterted following a referendum in 1983:

The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.

One of the problems with Daly’s proposal is that it is exclusive, affecting only “citizens.”

This wording creates a category of individuals in the state whose right to personal autonomy and bodily integrity is recognised – citizens of Ireland – and a category of individuals whose right to personal autonomy and bodily integrity is not recognised – those who are not citizens of Ireland.

One obvious consequence of this approach is that a situation such as the case of Miss Y from earlier this year remains unaddressed.

Thus, a fundamental right that is made contingent on citizenship status is no right at all.

 

The “right to travel” has always been denied to asylum seeking women

 

Ever since my time working with refugees in Ireland (from 2007 until 2011), I have been troubled by the effective blanket bar on allowing asylum seekers to leave the State.

This emanates from Section 9(4) of the Refugee Act 1996 (as amended):

Leave to enter or remain in State.

Section 9(4) An applicant shall not—

(a) leave or attempt to leave the State without the consent of the Minister […]

Irish citizens are free to exit Ireland’s borders and, being citizens of a member state of the EU, have the freedom to travel to over 28 European countries without the need to apply for a visa application and a grant of permission from immigration officers to cross borders.

Most other people residing in Ireland with an officially recognised immigration status have the freedom to exit Ireland in a similar way. In practice these are generally citizens from countries outside of the EU. Whether from Canada or Cameroon, those seeking to travel within the EU, therefore, will need to apply for permission to enter another EU state.

Asylum seekers are in a class of their own. They must seek the permission of the Justice Minister of the day if they wish to leave the territory of the state. (They must also, if the consent of the Minister has been obtained, seek permission from the other state to enter.)

Asylum seekers in Ireland are seeking international protection from this state. While the rationale behind requiring such a person to remain within this jurisdiction throughout the duration of their application is understandable, this blanket rule is inherently problematic.

During the almost five years of my work with refugees I encountered significant numbers of women who claimed to have been subjected to various forms of violence and torture, including sexual violence. Some were subjected to trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Some came from conflict zones, where the systematic use of sexual violence is used as a weapon of war. Some had become pregnant as a result of rape. Some had been subjected to intimate partner violence before or after arriving in Ireland. Some were children under the age of 18, including separated children in the care of the HSE.

None of them could exercise their right to travel, if they so wished and had the resources to do so, without the consent of the Minister for Justice.

This remains the case today.

 

Broadcast coverage of Ireland Women’s rugby

 

On Saturday, confirmation of Ireland’s qualification to the semi-final round of the IRB Women’s Rugby World Cup was followed by this tweet from RTÉ’s 2FM:

 

While increased coverage in Irish media of women’s sport is welcome, is it really satisfactory for the state broadcaster to announce radio-only coverage half-way through a major international tournament?

Could we even imagine a world where this would be the kind of coverage given to the senior men’s rugby team?

 

I’ll try to respond to Damien in this post, since 140 characters isn’t nearly enough.

To give credit where it is due: RTÉ News’ sport bulletins have improved over the couple of last years – to go so far as leading with reports on the women’s squad, even before the recent New Zealand win; and there has been consistent coverage and reporting of the Irish women’s rugby squad’s achievements from the likes of Damien O’Meara and Game On 2FM, RTÉ’s Michael Corcoran, Mary White of The Irish Examiner, Gavin Cummiskey of The Irish Times, Dan Sheridan and Billy Strickland of Inpho, the photojournalists of Sportsfile, and precious few other Irish journalists.

Indeed, reporters are more often than not present at fixtures and events.

The question is whether or not Irish eyes can fix on moving images of women on a playing pitch: through the medium of television. Will a report or footage end up on the cutting floor; and if a piece is published or broadcast, just what treatment will it get?

We can only judge on what has gone before, so let’s work back from this latest tournament.

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Getting it first, but not getting it right: An example of journalistic failure?
  • You can contact Samaritans in Ireland on 1850 60 90 90 -or- 116 123 -or- jo@samaritans.org, and in Northern Ireland on 08457 90 90 90

 

Diario El Universo. Image: © Alfredo Molina/Creative Commons 3.0
Diario El Universo. Image: © Alfredo Molina/Creative Commons 3.0.
Image: © Alfredo Molina/Creative Commons 3.0

 

This morning, An Garda Síochána in Dublin closed of part of a city centre thoroughfare due to a major incident.

The incident, which had been unfolding from around mid-morning and which has reportedly now been resolved successfully, attracted significant attention among members of the public using Twitter. Some of these people posted written comments; some of these people posted images.

Not long afterwards, well-known Irish journalists, blogs, publications and broadcasters were on the story. They, too, posted comments and images of the incident on social media, as well as on their own websites.

Shortly after that, several members of the public (including me) posted comments, as well as replies, on Twitter to draw attention to the Samaritans Media Guidelines for reporting on such incidents.

To their credit, some individuals and blogs removed their tweets and content from their websites. To their shame, the established media organisations did not; instead, they continued to update their social media accounts and online reports with live updates, photos, videos, embedded tweets, and so on. (To date, many of these remain available to view.)

Image: Screengrab: @Oireachtas_RX (Oireachtas Retort) - 11:46 AM, 1st July 2014

Image: Screengrab: @Oireachtas_RX (Oireachtas Retort) – 11:46 AM, 1st July 2014

 

The problems with the reporting on today’s incident

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Shattered island

The news was announced in Dáil Éireann this afternoon that Alan Shatter TD has resigned as Minister for Justice and Defence. Beyond the immediate political fall-out, this potentially calls into question pending and proposed reforms within the Department of Justice, including immigration and family reforms.

Waiting In Line For a Job - Fine Gael's Public meeting at the Aviva Stadium, 20th February 2011 (detail). Image: © William Murphy

Waiting In Line For a Job: Fine Gael’s Public meeting at the Aviva Stadium, 20th February 2011 (detail). Image: © William Murphy/infomatique (CC Licence)

The announcement was made by An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD, in the Dáil chamber, in light of Sean Guerin SC submitting his 300-page report on Garda whistleblowers. RTÉ has a copy of Alan Shatter’s letter of resignation here. The Guerin report is due to be published on Friday of this week.

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Football: Ireland -v- Russia

Tonight, Ireland face Russia in Tallaght Stadium in a crucial World Cup Qualifying fixture, following Ireland’s narrow defeat at home to Germany last month.

Ireland v Germany. Ireland players celebrate Stephanie Roche's late equalising goal against Germany, 5th April 2014. Image: © Joan O'Connell
Ireland v Germany. Ireland players celebrate Stephanie Roche’s late equalising goal against Germany, 5th April 2014. Image: © Joan O’Connell

 

Ireland will be battling Russia for second place in their Group, to secure qualification to the play-off stage of the tournament. Kick-off is at 7:30pm.

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