On Sunday night in the Andersonstown Social Club prominent republican Gerry Kelly (himself a former hunger striker) will be giving the annual Bobby Sands Lecture. Also on Sunday night in the Felons Club there will be another opportunity to see ‘1981’, a drama written and performed by Tony Devlin and produced by Brassneck Theatre Company. The play starts at 8pm.

The Huffington Pos

Heather McIlkenny dedicates her drawing, The Lark in Barbed Wire, as follows: “For The Fighter’s Daughter… may the passion of the Lark run through the heart of any and all Irish persons….Through fear and pain, your courage and passion will prevail.”

On this the 31, anniversary of the death on hunger strike of Bobby Sands, his friend and comrade, former IRA prisoner Colm Scullion from South Derry, recalls first meeting Bobby while on remand in Crumlin Road Jail. Colm had been injured in a premature explosion at the time of his arrest in October 1976 along with his fellow comrade Tom McElwee, the ninth republican to die on the hunger strike, on 8th August 1981. Colm was later sentenced, and in the H-Blocks met up with Bobby again and there in H-3, during some of the darkest days of the protest, they shared a cell. Here, the quiet South Derry republican speaks about Bobby Sands’ humour, his humanity and his concern for especially the younger prisoners as the blanket men entered their fifth year of beatings on the protest for political status.

Four years after its release the award-winning film ‘Hunger’, an account of the last days in the life of Bobby Sands, is to be shown in Italy (in Italian). It is being released by BIM Distribuzione, the leading company which deals in high-level arthouse films. ‘Hunger’ garnered praise for its director Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbinder in the lead role as Bobby Sands. Its numerous awards include: the prestigious Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 2008; Gucci Group Award – Mostra del Cinema di Venezia 2008; Discovery Award – Toronto International Film Festival 2008; the Sydney Film Prize; best picture from the Evening Standard British Film Awards, receiving two BAFTA nominations, winning one; and winning six out of eight awards at the 2009 Irish Film and Television Awards.

A trailer for the film can be watched here.

Silvia Calamati, the journalist and writer who brought Bobby Sands’ story to Italy through her writings and translations was interviewed on the mainstream arts station, RAI’s Radio 3 which can be accessed here.

A vigil was held in recent days in Belfast in support of Palestinian hunger striker, Hanan al-Shalabi, whose condition has rapidly deteriorated. Amnesty International has expressed concern for Hana al-Shalabi, a young Palestinian woman, who is being held on Administrative Detention in Israel’s Hasharon Prison and who is now on the 35^th day of her hunger strike.

At dawn, on February 16^th, fifty Israeli soldiers, together with attack dogs, raided her family home in Jenin. She was arrested without warrant or charge, beaten and humiliated. Upon arrival at the prison she was forcibly strip-searched by a male soldier. She immediately began a hunger strike demanding her release, for which she was punished with solitary confinement. She has already served a thirty-month period of Administrative Detention for which she was never charged or brought to trial.  For more information see here.

Last month another Palestinian prisoner, Khader Adnan,ended his 66-day hunger strike against his imprisonment in a deal that will see him released on April 17^th.

At the recent Anti-Colonial Week held in La Bellevilloise, Paris, an event was organised to commemorate Bobby Sands and the 1981 hunger strikers. Among the guest speakers were Julie Duchatel (translator of Bobby Sands, jusqu’au bout, by Denis O’Hearn), Francis Wurtz (former European MEP, French Communist Party) and Belfast’s Joe Austin (left, representing Sinn Fein). The meeting was chaired by Alain Frilet.

Alain Frilet asked Julie Duchatel, who was very young at the time of Bobby Sands’ death, what motivated her to do the translation. Julie, who undertook the task without remuneration, said that the O’Hearn book was much more than a mere biography. The subject was intriguing and the book was very impressive, movingly dealing with the transformation of one young Irish boy (Bobby Sands) interested in music, girls and sport who became, at the end of his short life a worldwide recognized revolutionary icon. One couldn’t help but admire the hunger strikers, the unimaginable conditions they suffered, and what they ultimately were to accomplish.

Many French people, she said, were interested in Irish history and had been involved in anti-imperialist struggles and in acts of solidarity.

“It was my way of paying respect to these Irish freedom fighters, to all of the staunch republicans, these sons and daughters of Erin, who devoted their life to their cause. This story took place more than thirty years ago, but the dimension of the struggle led by Bobby Sands knows no borders, is ageless. Bobby Sands and his comrades left all activists with many legacies… still to be fully evaluated.

“The struggle against criminalisation that these brave volunteers led still echoes nowadays for many social movements all around the world. The story of Bobby Sands introduces you to Irish history and the Irish struggle and is a story that leads to human advancement. It will make you go even further – and fall in love with Ireland, a beautiful country, and its people. Reading this book is also a good introduction to the Irish history because Bobby Sands encapsulates the whole struggle in Ireland and many historical figures, and it will get, for sure, people to go further on and to fall in love with Ireland, which is a beautiful country, and with its people.”

Julie also marked her thanks to Philippe Paraire for his valuable and essential collaboration to the translation.

Alain Frilet then turned to Francis Wurtz and asked him why the French Communist Party decided to support Irish political prisoners. Francis described in detail why he attended Bobby Sands’ funeral and how he got there, as well as his feelings that came across him during that special time. It was very difficult to get left-oriented political parties involved or to take a stance on the Irish issue. To him, the French Communist Party did its best. Francis emphasised that even if he was opposed to the means the IRA used to pursue its goals, he supported the Irish republican struggle.This opinion raised most of the questions from the audience during the debate.

Joe Austin was the next speaker and said that the biography of Bobby Sands is compulsory reading for anyone who wants to understand the meaning of struggle: all types of struggle, about women being exploited, about immigrants being exploited, about speechless and repressed trade unionists.

“The core of the involvement in struggle is motivated by one universal reason, the one Bobby Sands expressed beautifully in his famous poem The Rhythm of Time:

“It lights the dark of this prison cell,

It thunders forth its might,

It is ‘the undauntable thought’, my friend,

That thought that says ‘I’m right!’”

Joe reminded the audience that hunger strike as a weapon of passive resistance has a long history in Ireland.

“What Bobby Sands and his comrades accomplished, stands for the whole republican history in Ireland. The British misunderstood the strength and determination of the Irish republican men and women and found tough adversaries. But the fact that Bobby Sands and his comrade’s claims were merely ignored by Thatcher and the British authorities in 1981, and who bear responsibility for their deaths, was of ill omen, announcing to the world the next crushing of the English miners and workers into the 1980s. Such violence had not been fully perceived and did not raise at that time the degree of resistance necessary to fight back. Sinn Féin understood the need to build bridges between the Irish and the British working class, and, for instance, raised a lot of money in Ireland to support the miners’ strike.”

In conclusion, Joe said: “We cannot have a free Ireland without a free Palestine, or a free Ireland without the liberation of women or the liberation of workers. All struggles leading to progressive societies are linked, the struggle is international and there are many ways of expressing solidarity. Let us remember what Bobby used to say: ‘Everyone, republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small. No one is too old or too young to do something’.”

Julie Duchatel (below, translator of Bobby Sands, jusqu’au bout, by Denis O’Hearn, ed. CETIM and l’Epervier) – see here for more details

Il y a 31 ans 10 Irlandais du Nord de l’Irlande mourraient au terme d’une longue grève de la faim pour réclamer le statut de prisonniers politiques que l’État britannique leur refusait. Un mouvement immense de solidarité internationale s’organisa face au courage et aux sacrifices de ces hommes, en particulier autour de Bobby Sands, leur dirigeant qui fut élu député pendant cette grève de la faim. Cet évènement changea le cours de la lutte de l’Irlande du Nord contre la colonisation anglaise. A l’occasion de la sortie du livre “Bobby Sands jusqu’au bout” de Denis O’Hearn, traduit de l’anglais (« Bobby Sands, Nothing but an unfinished song »), nous reviendrons sur ce moment inoubliable de l’histoire irlandaise.

Conférence/ Débat sur BOBBY SANDS à PARIS (France) le Samedi 25 février à 14 heures.

Avec :   –  Joe Austin, dirigeant du Sinn Fein; Francis Wurtz ex Député Européen ; Julie Duchatel traductrice.

Lieu : Salle de Conférences, Salon anticolonial, à La Bellevilloise, 19 rue Boyer 75020 PARIS

This week Florence City Council voted to name a street after Bobby Sands who died on hunger strike in 1981 fighting for political status. There was a discussion and when it came to a vote 33 city councillors out of 34 voted in favour of the street naming and there was just one abstention.

There were three other streets newly named after Oriana Fallaci, a well-known journalist and writer from Florence; Ilaria Alpi, a brave young journalist killed in an ambush in Mogadishu, Somalia; and world-renowned Italian film director Mario Monicelli.

Irish republican supporters hope that the move will encourage other municipalities to act and honour Bobby Sands and his comrades in similar ways.

“A great relief,” is how Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, described the ending of Khader Adnan’s hunger strike and a deal which will see him released early by Israeli authorities who will not allegedly renew the order of administrative detention against him.” Here is the response and analysis of 82-year-old former Princeton international law scholar, Richard Falk:

It is a great relief to those millions around the world who were moved to prayer and action by Khader Adnan’s extraordinary hunger strike of 66 days that has ended due to Israel’s agreement to release him on April 17.

We, who were inspired by such a heroic refusal to accept humiliation and arbitrary arrest, can only hope that for the sake of his family, for the cause of Palestinian resistance, and for the struggle to achieve a just peace that Mr Adnan will fully recover to resume his personal and political life. We cannot take for granted that there will be a full recovery given Mr Adnan’s critical condition confirmed by examining doctors, just prior to his decision on February 21 to resume eating in a normal manner.

While it is appropriate to celebrate this ending of the strike as “a victory”, there are several disturbing features that deserve comment. To call an arrangement that saved someone’s life a “deal”, as the media consistently put it, is itself demeaning, and reveals at the very least a failure to appreciate the gravity and deep dedication of purpose that is bound up with such a nonviolent form of resistance.

Similarly, the carelessness of the initial reactions was notable, often referring to Mr Adnan’s “release” when in fact he will be still held in administrative detention for several more weeks, and could conceivably be confined much longer, should Israeli military authorities unilaterally decide that “substantial evidence” against him emerges in this period immediately ahead. It should be noted that on matters of principle, Israel gave not an inch: even in relation to Mr Adnan, he will remain in captivity and will be subject to the “legal” possibility that his period of imprisonment could be extended indefinitely; beyond this, Israeli authorities conceded no intention whatsoever to review the cases of the 309 other Palestinians who are presently being held under the administrative detention procedure.

These include one prisoner held for more than five years, and 17 others for periods of two to four years. Israel did not even agree to a review of their excessive use of administrative procedure, an approach that, at best, is supposed to be reserved for true and credible emergency situations.

An inconvenient truth – It should also be noted that Israeli commentary treated the arrangement with measured cynicism, if not disdain. Even those Israelis who supported the agreement justified it as a way of avoiding trouble down the road should Khader Adnan have died, while held by Israelis in view of the measure of support his hunger strike was receiving among Palestinians and people around the world.

Keeping Mr Adnan alive was also seen by Israelis as a means to avoid a wider scrutiny of the institution and practice of administrative detention as it has been used by the Israeli military “justice” system. The announcement of the arrangement was made an hour before an emergency session of the Israeli Supreme Court was scheduled to hear Mr Adnan’s petition for release. This highest judicial body in Israel has in the past supported the military position in such instances. Here there was worry that the extremities of this case could produce an adverse result and even a repudiation of the manner in which Israeli authorities used administrative detention.

The procedure is allegedly used by Israel for security purposes. Instead, administrative detention is seemingly used to harass and intimidate militant opponents of an oppressive occupation – an occupation that has continued for 45 years, and is aggravated by continuously appropriating Palestinian land and water for the benefit of settlement expansion, while disrupting and cleansing long-term Palestinian residency.

What was entirely missing from the Israeli public discourse was some expression of compassion, even if only for the family of Mr Adnan, which consists of two daughters of four years or younger and his articulate pregnant wife, Randa. There was not even the slightest show of respect for the dignity of Mr Adnan’s long hunger strike or sympathy for the acute suffering that accompanies such a determined foregoing of food for an extended period.

Instead, the Israeli commentary that was at all favourable to the arrangement stressed purely pragmatic factors. It was one more lost opportunity for Israelis of all shades of opinion to reach across the abyss of political conflict to affirm a common humanity. In contrast, the spokesperson for the Netanyahu government, Mark Regev, was only interested in deflecting criticism aimed at Israel. He parried criticism by cynically observing that other goverments use administrative dentention in the name of security, including the United States, and that the legality of Israel’s use of administrative detention should not be questioned as it depends on a 1946 law enacted when Britain was controlling Palestine, implying not inaccurately that Israel was the “colonial” successor to the British!

Half-baked – Of course, Israeli ultra-hardliners went further in the same direction, referring to Mr Adnan as “a terrorist” despite the vagueness of official allegations that never made such a claim – instead contending that Adnan constituted what an official in Tel Aviv described as “a threat to regional security”, whatever that might mean.

As might be expected, the notorious Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, was characteristically forthright, calling his “release” a “wrong decision” because it is “our duty to honour and respect every Supreme Court decision even when we don’t agree with it”. As we know, Mr Adnan was not released nor did the Israeli Supreme Court make a decision. This comedy of errors by a leading government official should raise questions about Lieberman’s competence, not to mention his questionable political judgment on policy.

Israelis call Mr Adnan “a terrorist” without charges or proof. He is most often described more neutrally by those knowledgeable about his role and activities as a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad. There is no indication in his past or present that he was involved in violence, or even advocated it. Although Islamic Jihad has been responsible in the past for suicide bombings, it has abandoned the practice in recent years, and seems to be in line with the repudiation of such forms of violent resistance made by Hamas more than 10 years ago.

Mr Adnan’s prior arrests stemmed from militant peaceful demonstrations that landed him in Israeli jails eight times, and induced him to undertake shorter hunger strikes on three previous occasions, one as recently as 2010. From what we can tell, Mr Adnan is a committed activist who has associated himself with Islamic Jihad, but works on a daily basis as a baker and maintains an admired strong family role and popular community presence in his small West Bank town of Arraba.

Legacy – It is important to pause long enough to take account of Khader Adnan’s achievement - symbolically, substantively, and with respect to future possibilities. We should note that Mr Adnan’s hunger strike of 66 days is the exact length of Bobby Sands’ hunger strike in 1981 – strengthening the bond between the two men, a bond that has been movingly confirmed by a number of Irish family members of the strikers. What is more, the date of Bobby Sands’ death, May 5, 1981, is generally viewed as the turning point in the Irish struggle, the time when the British government finally started treating the Irish Republican Army as a political actor with genuine grievances rather than as a terrorist organisation that must be run into the ground and exterminated. We can only hope that Febuary 21, 2012 will live in history as a turning point in the Palestinian struggle. Only the future will reveal whether this is a pious wish on my part or becomes over time a historical reality.

Substantively, it is crucial to support a campaign to free the other several hundred Palestinians currently being held in administrative detention and to exert enough pressure to end reliance on the practice altogether. Mr Adnan’s brave stand will have been mostly without effect if his compelling exposure of the cruelty and arbitrariness of Israeli reliance on administrative detention is allowed to slip from view now that his strike is over.

Instead, knowing what we have come to know, it is the responsibility of all of us to do all we can to discredit and force the abandonment of administrative detention by Israel, and challenge its role in the United States and elsewhere. A fitting tribute to Mr Adnan’s hunger strike would be to put opposition to administrative detention on the top of the human rights agenda throughout the world. We should begin by refusing to use the phrase “administrative detention”, rechristening it as “administrative torture” or “lawless captivity”.

And finally, we will know the enduring significance of Mr Adnan’s self-sacrifice by what takes place in the future. Will this event, possibly along with other influences, inspire a greater commitment to the Palestinian struggle for peace, justice, and liberation in occupied Palestine and throughout the world?

Maybe “the regional threat” that was being referred to by the Israeli official justifying Mr Adnan’s detention was an indirect, and hopefully accurate reference to the growing impact of the positive sides of the Arab Spring – that is, as an occasion prompting a further awakening of self-empowerment among Palestinians both in relation to their struggle and in their renewed quest for unity among themselves. Let us hope that Khader Adnan’s bravery becomes contagious!

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008). He is currently serving his third year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. Follow him on Twitter: @rfalk13

On behalf of the Bobby Sands Trust, its secretary Danny Morrison has called upon the Israeli government to immediately release Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan who is close to death. Danny Morrison said: “Here in Ireland the British government’s prime minister Margaret Thatcher thought that she could break the will of our struggle by killing our prisoners who were hunger striking for their rights as political prisoners. She was wrong and the violence that the British sewed only reaped a whirlwind of resistance but at a heavy cost in Irish and British lives. The lesson from history is that one must talk and negotiate and recognise the rights of people to be free and to be free from injustice and persecution.

“An earlier British prime minister, Ted Heath, thought that he could also break us through the use of ‘administrative detention’, that is through the use of internment-without-charge-or-trial, which is the pretext used by the Israelis for imprisoning Khader Asnan against whom they have no evidence. People in Derry who marched against internment were massacred on Bloody Sunday and fourteen of them were killed by British paratroopers. Again, that did not break us but only made us more determined to fight for our rights.

“It is probable that Israeli rulers are so hardened that they cannot find it within themselves to exercise clemency and resolve this hunger strike. They possibly do not even care what effect their behaviour has on their reputations and how people around the world view Israel’s behaviour with disgust. But they cannot win over the Palestinian people – even should Khader Adnan lose his right to life.

“It was a great Irishman, Terence MacSwiney, the Mayor of Cork, who was arrested by the British and went on hunger strike to the death, who said: ‘It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can suffer the most who will conquer in the end’.

“The thoughts of Irish republicans throughout Ireland are with Khader Adnan and his family and we hope that he wins his right to freedom.”