As one many people who has been supported as a writer and campaigner by Margaretta D’arcy I was shocked to learn the news that she had been taken to prison last week.
Margaretta D’arcy, feminist, writer and social justice campaigner, began a three month jail sentence after she refused to sign a bond that would have prevented her carrying on her campaign to highlight the abuse of Irish neutrality that is ongoing in Shannon airport.
The letters in last week’s Irish Times provide a good sample of the volume of local and international outrage at her arrest and imprisonment (see Irish Times letters).
I would like to add my voice to those expressing their shock at her arrest and demand her immediate release and fully support the recent statement by the Global Woman’s Strike calling for Margaretta’s release (see statement below).
Statement to the Press and the Public by the Global Women’s Strike
We are outraged to learn that our dear sister and colleague Margaretta D’Arcy has been jailed – and for three months! – for protesting the use of the civilian airport at Shannon for US wars. And we are deeply worried about her health and well-being as a cancer patient. One of the many public services Ms D’Arcy has performed is to protest the Irish government’s many years of complicity in US war crimes and its destruction of Irish neutrality. She has been dedicated to highlighting that the most devastating impact of war is on women and our children, both directly from the bombs that rain down on us, and by paying with our poverty for the horrendous weapons of massive destruction that surround us all.
Ms D’Arcy is a veteran of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, which opposed the US military placing cruise missiles on common land in England, and won – the camp is no longer a military base. To dissent from a perspective of permanent war and austerity, and demand the protection of life and the planet, is increasingly labelled subversive and even criminal behaviour. While war criminals are allowed to pass through Irish airports and financial criminals go unpunished, the Irish State in thrall to the US, UK, EU and IMF Masters of War has imprisoned a pensioner who has dedicated herself to highlighting and preventing war crimes.
An attack on courageous and principled Margaretta D’Arcy is an attack on us all.
We demand the immediate release of Margaretta D’Arcy.
Selma James
Global Women’s Strike
Maggie Ronayne
Global Women’s Strike, Ireland
Margaretta D’arcy, feminist, writer and social justice campaigner, began a three month jail sentence after she refused to sign a bond that would have prevented her carrying on her campaign to highlight the abuse of Irish neutrality that is ongoing in Shannon airport.
The letters in last week’s Irish Times provide a good sample of the volume of local and international outrage at her arrest and imprisonment (see Irish Times letters).
I would like to add my voice to those expressing their shock at her arrest and demand her immediate release and fully support the recent statement by the Global Woman’s Strike calling for Margaretta’s release (see statement below).
Statement to the Press and the Public by the Global Women’s Strike
We are outraged to learn that our dear sister and colleague Margaretta D’Arcy has been jailed – and for three months! – for protesting the use of the civilian airport at Shannon for US wars. And we are deeply worried about her health and well-being as a cancer patient. One of the many public services Ms D’Arcy has performed is to protest the Irish government’s many years of complicity in US war crimes and its destruction of Irish neutrality. She has been dedicated to highlighting that the most devastating impact of war is on women and our children, both directly from the bombs that rain down on us, and by paying with our poverty for the horrendous weapons of massive destruction that surround us all.
Ms D’Arcy is a veteran of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, which opposed the US military placing cruise missiles on common land in England, and won – the camp is no longer a military base. To dissent from a perspective of permanent war and austerity, and demand the protection of life and the planet, is increasingly labelled subversive and even criminal behaviour. While war criminals are allowed to pass through Irish airports and financial criminals go unpunished, the Irish State in thrall to the US, UK, EU and IMF Masters of War has imprisoned a pensioner who has dedicated herself to highlighting and preventing war crimes.
An attack on courageous and principled Margaretta D’Arcy is an attack on us all.
We demand the immediate release of Margaretta D’Arcy.
Selma James
Global Women’s Strike
Maggie Ronayne
Global Women’s Strike, Ireland
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