Journalists please read

[Unrepentant Fenian]

Pol Brennan is a friend from Ireland who has been in "Immigration Jail" since Jan'08 when he was arrested at a check point for having an expired work permit. His backstory is of great interest but the way the Bush administration has trampled his civil rights is the pressing issue.
I would like to draw your attention to yet more behavior by Homeland Security which could affect his right to a fair trial. At the last video conference court appearance Pol asked the judge if he may be present during the court appearance on the 12th and 13th November to determine if he will be granted political asylum or if they will deport him back to Nothern Ireland. The judge stated he had no objection to this request, in the last few days the Homeland Security prosecutor has informed his Attorney that she had received directions from her supervisor that he did not want Pol to appear in court personally which is surely his right to face his accusers.



This supervisor is Mark Moore and up until this point he has given no reason for his stance, the security aspect of a court appearance is muted as Pol has 3 times been outside the Detention Center to travel to Harlingen for medical tests and has been accompanied only with Detention Security Guards and no ICE or added Security for these trips.



This objection by Homeland Security must be seen as an attempt to take away the human aspect of the court appearance which would let the judge see Pol and be able to judge his character and his sincere commitment to wanting to stay and live in the US with his wife rather than the sight of Pol through a video screen most likely presented in the worst possible light. This unjust and calculated on Homelands Security's behalf and must be challenged.



Homeland Security must be made to give an explanation for their actions which will be detrimental to Pol having any chance of a fair trial. We are asking for your help as journalists to contact this Mark Moore and ask for a valid reason that Pol cannot appear in court personally. Homeland Security have went above and beyond in their treatment of Pol Brennan all people America and beyond are shocked at his treatment and lack of accountability by Homeland Security Please assist us in seeking a fair and balanced trial for Pol Brennan.



Thank You



Pol Brennan Support Group



Contact us at [e-mail]

www.polbrennan.com

[ClayZ]

1. K and R

[alittlelark]

2. K n R for obvious reasons.

Hello...... is there anyone out there?

[McCamy Taylor]

3. Is profit--privatization of the prisons for detainees--the reason for abuse under Bush?

I was reading the info about the abuses in the privatized facility where Brennan is being held and I wondered if this is the reason why immigration is being so unreasonable about rounding people up and holding them so long---because the Bush administration is lining the pockets of some business crony?

If so, this should be publicized, because it is a human rights violation and a big fat waste of tax payers money at a time when the government has nothing to waste.

Under Bush/Cheney, the federal govt has become nothing but one huge pig trough for their fat cat friends to feed at.

[lala_rawraw]

4. Reading...

Checking in. Wow, very sad story:(( Reminds me of my cousin and what they did to her and continue doing to her.

[Divernan]

5. Has any past or current Taoiseach spoken in his behalf?

See this article for the background:
www.counterpunch.org/boyer05232008.html
From the H-Blocks to a Texas Jail

The Long Incarceration of Pol Brennan
By SANDY BOYER and SHAUN HARKIN

TWENTY-SIX years ago, Pol Brennan was an Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoner in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, watching his friends die on hunger strike. Today, he is in solitary confinement in a Texas immigration holding center. His story reveals a great deal about the evolving Anglo-American attitude toward the IRA wrought by the Northern Ireland Peace Process. It is also where the war on "terrorism" meets the war on immigrants in the United States.

Pol Brennan was born in 1953 in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Belfast, Northern Ireland. While growing up, being detained and beaten by British soldiers or the pro-British police force was almost routine. By 1972, when he was 19, like many of his generation, he joined the IRA to end British rule in Northern Ireland. In 1976, Brennan was convicted of possessing explosives and immediately joined the blanket protest in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh prison. Here, IRA men refused to wear the prison uniform, demanding to be recognized, rightly, as political prisoners. They lived for years in cold prison cells, covered in nothing but a blanket.

Brennan shared a cell with Bobby Sands, the first man to die on the 1981 hunger strike for political status. As 10 men died, he lost several other friends. Along with British miners, Irish hunger strikers were on the vicious cutting edge of the Thatcher regime's attack on working people everywhere. In 1983, two years after the hunger strike ended, Brennan was one of 38 IRA prisoners who escaped from the H-Blocks. It was the largest prison break in British history from Her Majesty's Prison Maze, considered one of the most secure prisons in Europe.

Pol made his way to the Bay Area, where he met and married Joanna Volz, a U.S. citizen. They lived quietly until January 1993, when federal agents arrested Brennan on a British extradition warrant. He was forced to spend more than seven years fighting extradition, and was imprisoned for three of those years, half the time in a building with no windows. A campaign to block his extradition received wide support, with Noam Chomsky, Christy Moore and Alexander Cockburn among the many who spoke out on his behalf. The British government finally withdrew its extradition request in October 2000. By that time, Northern Ireland had changed dramatically. The IRA had ended its war. Sinn Fein, the main Republican political party, had agreed to govern Northern Ireland in coalition with Unionist political parties whose bottom line has always been preserving British rule in Ireland. In this new environment, Britain released IRA prisoners and withdrew its extradition requests.

(Much more in article)

[Unrepentant Fenian]

6. UP DATE !

I just got word that the Judge will travel (across town) to the prison for the hearing. Thank you all for your help!

[otherlander]

7. Gah, this is so fucked.

Not too far from my college there's a warehouse that's been turned into a jail and anyone who arrives as an asylum seeker at either of the two nearby airports without their papers all in order will be jailed there for about eight months before their documents are sorted out and they're allowed to become citizens. Eight months is typical, but one woman was stuck there for two and a half years.
:grr:

Do you think Obama will do anything about this?