From the Global Women's Strike:
Statement to the Press and the Public
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
