Four men arrested at protest against Great March for Gaza
Paul Ainsworth, Irish News, June 9th, 2025
FOUR men arrested in Co Down remained in custody last night following disorder involving pro-Israeli supporters opposing a march for Gaza.
Several thousand people took part in the 25-mile walk on Saturday from Lurgan to Omeath in Co Louth – representing the length of the Gaza Strip.
The march was punctuated by protests from pro-Israeli protesters. The arrests were made in Scarva where there was a heavy police presence at points along the route where there were counter protests.
Superintendent Norman Haslett said the protests were “unnotified”.
“Three males were cautioned in relation to public order offences at the towpath between Portadown and Newry and four males were arrested following minor disorder associated with a protest held at the Main Street in Scarva,” he said.
“These protests had not been notified to the Parades Commission as required by law and officers issued warnings to this effect.
“An evidence-gathering operation was in place and we will now review the footage gathered and consider any potential offences.”
Superintendent Haslett said a flag “believed to be associated with a proscribed terrorist organisation” was removed from a march participant in Newry by police “and this is subject to an ongoing police investigation”.
Arrests of pro-Israeli counter protestors
“This was an appropriate and proportionate policing operation to ensure that the safety of everyone involved was maintained and that the law was upheld,” Superintendent Haslett added.
The march organisers say the event shows the huge demand among people for their political representatives across Ireland to take action against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Marchers were met along the route at points by loyalist counter-protesters carrying Israel flags, and the group behind the walk, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), praised those taking part for continuing unabated.
A heavy police presence was visible at points where counter-protesters had gathered, including Bleary outside Craigavon, and Scarva.
Organisers say that “sectarian abuse” was hurled at marchers by the counter-protesters.
The IPSC’s Pádraig Cairns told The Irish News that the route was planned to minimise any potential confrontation by those opposed to the march.
“We took a route that was a lot longer to avoid any sensitive areas – it was a pretty mammoth undertaking,” he said.
“We had people trying to estimate the numbers on the march, and we believe the maximum was between 2,500 and 3,000.
Demanding better of political leaders
“We had 2,500 leaving Lurgan in the morning, and at stops along the way, some dropped off and others joined.
“What it demonstrated is that even 20 months into the genocide, people in Ireland are still demanding better from our politicians.
“We look at how, north and south, there has been some lip-service paid against the slaughter in Gaza, but there is still complicity at every step, such as seeing US planes sending weapons for Israel through Aldergrove and Shannon.”
“It’s easy to feel despondent about the situation, but knowing there are still thousands of people ready and willing to get out and call for governments to do the right thing can reinvigorate others.”
Speaking of the counter-protestors, Mr Cairns added: “Our stewards did a great job in ensuring the march was unhindered, and encouraging participants not to respond, despite sectarian abuse being hurled.
“That small number of people opposing the march was eclipsed by those who want the genocide to end, and that’s what we should remember.”
It is estimated that up to 55,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces since the invasion of the territory began in October 2023.
IPSC’s Lurgan chair Kathryn Beatty said the atmosphere of the march was “hard to put into words”, adding: “It had to be felt – it was one of deep compassion, mutual respect, and shared commitment to ending the ongoing genocide.
“People of all races, faiths, and communities walked side-by-side to call for justice and the liberation of Palestine. We remain resolute in our demand for an immediate end to the genocide and our unwavering commitment to a free Palestine.”
Four arrested and three cautioned following protests against pro-Gaza march
Belfast Telegraph, June 9th, 2025
Four people have been arrested by police investigating disorder by counter protesters along the route of a Palestinian solidarity march.
Activists in the Great March for Gaza walked a 25-mile long route from Lurgan to Omeath on Saturday - a distance that represents the length of the Gaza strip.
Several thousand people took part in the march on Saturday that was met with protest at several points along the way.
Three men were also cautioned by police in relation to their behaviour.
The largest counter demonstration took place in Scarva in Co Down, where a crowd of people with Israeli and Union flags were waiting on the march. A heavy police presence kept the two groups apart.
A smaller protest was also held in Bleary, with at least one person holding an Israeli flag.
While the march had been notified to the Parades Commission the counter demonstrations were not, with police issuing a warning to those present that it was an unnotified gathering.
Police say a flag linked to a banned terror group was also removed from one person.
Superintendent Norman Haslett, said: “Three males were cautioned in relation to public order offences at the towpath between Portadown and Newry and four males were arrested following minor disorder associated with a protest held at the Main Street in Scarva.
"These protests had not been notified to the Parades Commission as required by law and officers issued warnings to this effect. An evidence-gathering operation was in place and we will now review the footage gathered and consider any potential offences.”
Superintendent Haslett added that in Newry, “a flag believed to be associated with a prescribed terrorist organisation was removed from a parade participant by police and this is subject to an ongoing police investigation”.
Julie Hanna, a member of Mothers Against Genocide, described the counter protests as “scary”.
“The stewards told us before we started to expect protests and keep a dignified silence, we are all middle aged we don't want any bother we wanted this to be dignified, so we were all of the same attitude,” she said. “Apart from that it was a really positive event, every time we got to the main points there were people were cheering at the side of the road. It was very emotional at times.”
Comment
And this march has something to do with NI? Maybe it should remind us of the death marches of Jewish people from concentration camps as the Russians were approaching. One march reminds us of another.
Nicholas Dunne-Lynch
Legacy body has up to 26 former RUC and soldiers on staff
Connla Young, Crime and Security Correspondent, Irish News, June 9th, 2025
UP TO 26 former RUC officers, staff and British soldiers are working for the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), which began operating last year after the introduction of the Legacy Act.
The Court of Appeal later found that a British government veto over sensitive material that can be disclosed by the commission to relatives of the dead is incompatible with human rights laws.
While the government claims it has plans to repeal the contested Act, it intends to retain the ICRIR. The controversial body’s chief commissioner is former Lord Chief Justice Declan Morgan, while former senior police officer Peter Sheridan heads its investigations.
While it was previously known that 10 RUC officers and staff had been employed by the commission, it has now emerged that figure has now almost doubled to 17.
In response to a freedom of information request from the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), the ICRIR also confirmed that “fewer than 10 former UK military” are on its books. However, the commission has refused to reveal the exact figure claiming that “given the very low number of individuals, we are not in a position to provide further details”.
“This is on the basis that given the comparatively small size of the organisation, this could lead to their identification,” it added.
The legacy body has also failed to confirm the numbers of former “members of the intelligence and security services within the ICRIR”, which includes MI5, MI6 and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) – responsible for carrying out electronic and other surveillance.
The ICRIR has claimed any response to the question is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act.
The body has also suggested it does not hold any information on the number of live investigations and deaths where it is known the deceased died as a “result of the use of lethal force by the security forces”.
It also claimed it does not hold any information when asked for statistical data setting out the number of “cases and numbers of deaths relating to the use of lethal force by the security forces”.
During a recent hearing of the Northern Ireland Affairs committee Mr Sheridan said there are “over 60 live investigations” and provided details of several cases.
Cause for fresh concerns
CAJ director Daniel Holder said the recently released figures raise fresh concerns.
“Whilst we still don’t have figures for any former MI5 officers we do know that there are now up to 27 ex RUC and military officers working for the ICRIR,” he said.
“This represents a considerable proportion of their staff and raises concerns about compliance with legal duties for ‘practical independence’ in legacy cases, a requirement of Article Two (which protects the right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
“This is the reason why previous bodies like Operation Kenova and the Police Ombudsman had rules against involvement of ex-RUC and military personnel in their legacy investigations.”
Mr Holder said potential conflict of interest issues arise.
“We are not questioning the integrity of any individuals or their past roles but rather the involvement of ex RUC and military personnel raises questions of fundamental conflicts of interest in legacy investigations which themselves may involve the actions of the RUC, military or other state bodies,” he said.
“There is no clean way of separating ‘state involvement’ cases from cases where there is no state culpability until you have actually completed an investigation.
“The involvement of an informant may only become apparent at a late stage of an investigation, for example.”
The ICRIR was contacted.
Spanish court expected to uphold politically divisive Catalan amnesty law
Guy Hedgecoe, in Madrid, Irish Times, June 9th, 2025
Fate of former regional president Carles Puigdemont remains unclear
Tomorrow Spain’s constitutional court will start debating the legality of an amnesty law, the country’s most divisive piece of legislation in recent decades. The ruling is expected to settle a fierce public argument over the law’s technical soundness, although it is unlikely to calm political tensions surrounding it.
The amnesty law of 2024 sought to withdraw pending legal action against Catalan political leaders who had made a failed secession attempt from Spain in 2017, as well as hundreds of activists who had supported the same cause. The most high-profile intended beneficiary was former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium.
The law secured for the Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez the support of Catalan nationalists to keep his left-wing coalition government afloat. He points to the improved political climate in Catalonia, where independence is no longer a live issue, as proof that the policy of engagement has paid dividends.
However, the law has also been at the heart of attacks on Sánchez by the opposition, which has cast it as a legally unsound, cynical ploy by the prime minister to stay in power.
The constitutional court will now consider an appeal lodged against the law by the opposition conservative People’s Party (PP). The stridently unionist PP alleged that the legislation breached the constitution by being an arbitrary measure that was the result of a dubious political transaction.
The tribunal’s ruling is expected later this month, although leaks from a preliminary report it has published in advance of the debate strongly suggest it will reject such objections and broadly endorse the law, while introducing some minor changes.
“The interpretation [of the law] made by the People’s Party is incompatible with a constitution that is open, inherent to the democratic state and political pluralism,” reads the leaked document. It adds that the legislature “can do anything that is not explicitly prohibited by the constitution”, which is the case with the amnesty.
The report also dismisses the PP’s claim that the political backdrop to the legislation undermined its legitimacy.
Remains barred
Oriol Junqueras, leader of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), who remains barred from public office as he waits to be amnestied, described the development as “another step along a path that is always too long”. He spent three years and eight months in jail for his part in the events of 2017, before being released on a government pardon. The government has also cautiously welcomed this news. Digital transformation minister Óscar López said the administration has always known the amnesty was constitutional and that it “has helped to normalise political life in Catalonia”. Culture minister Ernest Urtasun went further, describing the leaked report as “good news which reaffirms the government’s policy in the face of the judicialisation of [the Catalan] conflict and debunks the lies of the right and the PP”.
Since its approval almost a year ago, 178 Catalans have been amnestied on the case-by-case basis outlined by the law, according to a study commissioned by the civic organisation Omnium Cultural. Another 49 pending cases have been dismissed and nine defendants absolved. Many of those facing legal action were civil servants who had helped the Catalan regional government stage an illegal independence referendum in October 2017. However, the same report also found that 158 amnesty requests had been rejected, indefinitely postponed, or simply had not been answered.
But while the strict legality of the amnesty appears likely to be confirmed in the upcoming ruling, the opposition’s fierce response to the leaked court document suggests that its political combustibility is undimmed.
‘Buying a government’
“Now they want to convince us that buying a government with privileges is legal,” said PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo. “I say it’s not. It’s not ethical, moral or legal.” His party’s spokesman, Borja Semper, suggested that the legal question was irrelevant. “Constitutional or unconstitutional, it’s political corruption,” he said.
With the legality of the law appearing to be settled, the opposition is now placing more emphasis on its morality. Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, the controversial chief adviser to the PP’s president of the Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, appeared to equate the amnesty with slavery, female genital mutilation, polygamy and paedophilia, “because they are not expressly prohibited by the constitution”. News of the constitutional court’s anticipated ruling has been well timed for the government, which is being corralled by an array of corruption allegations. Investigations have been carried out into the wife and brother of Sánchez for alleged irregularities, although the government insists these are part of a right-wing witch hunt.
However, another inquiry, into a kickback scheme in which a former minister, José Luis Ábalos, is implicated, is more damaging. So too is a scandal in which a Socialist Party activist, Leire Díez, was apparently caught on tape trying to gather evidence that would discredit the civil guard’s organised crime unit, which has been investigating the above cases.
A favourable ruling could also be helpful to the government for parliamentary reasons.
Puigdemont’s Together for Catalonia (JxCat) party has seven members of congress whose support is crucial for the stability of the Sánchez government. The relationship between the two has been turbulent since the formation of a new administration in late 2023, with the amnesty law a key part of their deal.
Open the door
Lola García, a political columnist at La Vanguardia newspaper, noted that “if the Constitutional Court definitively supports the law in its ruling, the amnesty will be a political fact which will reinforce the [government’s] relationship with JxCat and could open the door to a meeting between Pedro Sánchez and Puigdemont”. However, even if the constitutional court does endorse the amnesty law, its full application is likely to remain pending. That is because the supreme court previously ruled that several politicians, including Puigdemont and Junqueras, had benefited financially from the independence drive, disqualifying them from being amnestied. The constitutional court did not specifically tackle that issue in its preliminary report and it is not known if it will do so in its final ruling.
The conflicting positions of the two top tribunals appear to reflect the political allegiances of their magistrates, with the PP controlling the supreme court and the constitutional court under the Socialist Party’s influence.
Commentator Ignacio Varela, writing about the left-leaning balance of the constitutional court, said it is “the colour of the shirt” of the magistrates that decides their vote, rather than technical considerations. “Polarisation has reached [the court’s] headquarters and the militant vote is embedded there,” he said.
Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, criticised the supreme court for the same reason, albeit from the opposite point of view. “The supreme court is in a position of rebellion which is incompatible with a democratic system,” he told The Irish Times. “The judges in the top courts are tremendously ideologically skewed and refuse to apply laws which, ideologically speaking, they do not agree with.”
Boye said that Puigdemont’s plans are still uncertain, with his potential return to Spain depending on judicial developments. They include appeals against Puigdemont and others being excluded from the amnesty.
Last summer the former Catalan president made a dramatic public appearance in Barcelona before being whisked away again across the border to escape arrest. Several members of the Mossos d’Esquadra Catalan police force have been investigated for their possible role in the stunt.
Comment
“The amnesty law being considered by the Spanish Constitutional court does not relate to legacy and past conflict (e.g. civil war & franco dictatorship) nor is it an amnesty for human rights violations and abuses. Rather it relates to offences linked to organising a referendum a few years ago when it was outside the legislative competence of the Catalan administration.”
Daniel Holder, Director of the Committee for the Administration of Justice
The nationalist grievance machine that is constantly paying off
Owen Polley, Belfast News Letter, June 9th, 2025
There is an abiding contradiction that continues to affect politics here in a negative way. As Irish nationalists enjoy ever greater power, influence and status in Northern Ireland, many of their political representatives only work harder to claim some form of victimhood.
The GAA still wants a £260 million Casement Park arena, not much less than the projected £300 million plus for Euro 2028
By Owen Polley, Belfast News Letter, June 9th, 2025
This grievance machine looks like it can never be satisfied. As our society is increasingly contorted, and the Britishness of this part of the UK is eroded, to satisfy nationalist demands, new complaints are generated at an alarming rate.
The trick is to keep asking for things, then cast them as human rights that are withheld. And the formula can be applied to almost anything.
In nearly every corner of the province, for example, expensive, politically divisive Gaelic language signs are being imposed on communities where there is little proof they are wanted.
The latest row involved ‘Irish leading gateway signs’ in towns and villages controlled by Newry Mourne and Down District Council. They have been erected in places like Saintfield, Killinchy and Ballynahinch, where many people regard them as controversial. The result has been vandalism, but the council plans to force them on other towns and villages, even when they have been rejected at consultations.
In Belfast, 15 per cent of residents can already impose dual language signs on streets, sometimes when they are comfortably out-numbered by objectors.
There are, no doubt, people who genuinely love the Irish language and want to see it flourish. The erection of signs, though, is often about claiming ownership of public spaces and provoking unionists. When they react, they can be demonised and accused, in the words of SDLP MLA Cara Hunter, of possessing a ‘coloniser mindset’.
Gaelic can be portrayed, however unconvincingly, as a cherished aspect of Irish culture and a key plank of nationalist identity. There may not be a human right to impose minority languages on other people, but you can understand how campaigners’ demands could be twisted into that framework.
‘Moral obligation’
The attempts to imply that the GAA is entitled to government funding for a massive stadium in west Belfast takes this mindset to a different level. The GAA president actually claimed ministers have a ‘moral obligation’ to pay for the facility at Casement Park, as ‘recompense’ for the hurt they apparently caused to the nationalist community. It was an argument that channelled an ocean of self-pity and entitlement.
As the GAA’s demands intensified, they were accompanied by protests from ‘Gaels’ who seem to believe they have a ‘human right’ to an enormous, state-of-the-art home for their sport, costing far more than facilities for rugby or football.
This would be easy to laugh off, except that it just might work.
The GAA originally exploited an understandable desire for Northern Ireland to co-host the Euro 2028 football championships, to justify asking for such a lavish ground. UEFA, the body which organises that tournament, required potential venues to have a large capacity and meet other criteria.
Now that the Euros are not coming to Northern Ireland, any pretence that the whole community would use the stadium, or that it needs to be so large or well equipped, has long since evaporated. Yet, the GAA still wants a £260 million arena, not much less than the projected £300 million plus for Euro 2028.
The republican grievance mongers insist that Gaelic sports, which are followed almost exclusively by nationalists, have been denied funding claimed long ago by football and rugby. In reality, there is at least £120 million available, tens of millions have already been spent on the planning process and the GAA is asking for more than other sports.
The quickest way to get Casement built would be to trim back these demands and build a more modest stadium with the existing budget. Instead, the organisation took its campaign to Westminster, enabled by the Alliance MP Sorcha Eastwood, and it seems it may get at least some of what it asked for, even though public spending is under strain across the UK.
‘No shortage of ministers, officials or even naïve Unionists’
There is never any shortage of ministers, officials or even naive unionists who are prepared to make more concessions, and spend more money, in the belief that they can stop the grievance machine.
You could see another potential example developing last week, as Sinn Fein raged about the BBC, after the obscene Gerry Adams judgment in Dublin. This took the conspiratorial republican mindset, and its victim complex, even further.
Some of the national broadcaster’s political programmes in Northern Ireland cover nationalists’ campaign for a border poll almost obsessively. You will struggle to find a unionist who thinks his or her views are adequately reflected in BBC NI’s output. Yet Adams and his followers claim the organisation “upholds the ethos of the British state in Ireland.”
It would be great if BBC NI did uphold a British ethos (and it should), but the argument is risible. Still, if you create a sense of victimhood, particularly about an organisation as diffident to nationalism as the BBC, your incoming demands will most likely be listened to.
That’s how this relentless grievance machine works and it pays off constantly. The government effectively admitted recently that the Irish Sea border was created to placate nationalists and prevent republican violence.
However many demands are met, though, there will be new ones arriving. There are no longer any excuses for government ministers, or indeed unionist politicians, who think just a few more concessions can buy off nationalism.
