Two of the characters who appear in a documentary I and a group of accomplices have just released on the Internet were arreted yesterday in Ireland for attempting to report the presence of a plane heavily involved in the CIAs Extrordinary Rendition Program at Shannon Airport in Ireland. This is national news in Ireland today. I quote from a report of this incident from one of those arrested, retired Irish army commandant Edward Horgan
Conor and I were wrongfully arrested, possibly in an atempt to prevent us from positively identifying the CIA plane, fortunatley, as the arrest was taking place the aricraft N478GS was taxiing past us and we were able to confirm its tail registration number.
Coincidentially, earlier that evening in the Dail Deputy Michael D Higgins raised the issue of the previous plane N475LC refuelled at Shannon on 30 Oct 07, and which the Gardai also refused to search, and during which incident Garda Karen Fitzgerald informed me that they were not searching such planes because of an instruction from the Attorney General.
During the Dail debate the Government spokesperson Pat Carey TD stated categorically that no such instruction exists. This is likely to be a play on words. I have since been informed by a senior Garda source that a specific letter of some kind, which he referred to as a Letter of Advice from the Attorney General to the Garda Commisioner did exist, and that as a result of this letter or advice the Gardai were not searching the aircraft owned or controlled, or operated on behalf of the CIA.
During our attest and detention at Shannon Garda Station I handed the arresting officer a full copy of the 77 page report by the EU Parliament TDIP committee into the CIA rendition issue, in which both planes, N475LC and N478GS were cited as having been involved to a significant degree in the rendering of prisoners for torture. I also handed him a printed photo of the Gulfstream IV N478GS which I informed him had been taken in the US about 8 hours previously as it was about to leave for Shannon, and I also handed him a copy of a report printed in the Chicago Tribune in 2006, concerning the rendition activities of N478GS, particulalry the crash in Romania in which the plane was substantially damaged.
The primary issues here are not about the arrest of Horgan and Cregan. The issue is that the US government and its agents are torturing prisoners in Guantanamo, and other secret location on the instructions of President George W Bush. Because of constraints on the degree to which they are allowed to torture these prisioners in Guantanamo, a significant number of these prisoners have been sent from Guantanamo to other so-called Black Hole prisons, particulalry in Egypt, Morrocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries ruled by dictatorial regimes. Several hundred of such prisoners are now "missing", in that there whereabouts is not known to either the Red Cross or the Red Crescent as is obligatory under unternational law. It is tknown that some of these prisoners have died under torture, and it is most likely also that many others will be permanently disappeared or executed when they are no longer of use to the US and its allies. The reason for this is to prevent the facts of their torture becomming public knowledge, and to prevent large claims for compensation from the victims and their families.
This is a link to a page detailing how to download/view the documentary (made between 2002 and 2006) which has just released through various outlets including bittorrent networks under a GPL licence. That means it is free to download and distribute and you are not pirating anything. The documentary details the growth of Irish opposition to the fact that Shannon Airport, as well as being the main stopoff points for the US military en route to Iraq, has been used extensively by CIA planes involved in the extraordinary rendition program.
This opposition included the disarming of a US military plane (twice!) in 2003. Those who did this were as the film documents later found not guilty of criminal damage by an Irish jury. The group involved in that action are part of the same group as the Berrigan brothers who notoriously burned draft cards with homemade napalm in the 1960's in the US.
Detailed information on rendition planes use of irish Airport
Detailed description and screenshots from the film
There is NO WAY this film would ever be broadcast domestically here as it details Ireland's number one dirty secret. Thus the makers have decided to use the internet to ensure it gets to a broad national and international audience. Pass on this link to any peace / ex-pat networks that it might be of interest to.
I hope this is of interest to Daily Kos users and do drop me a line if you need any further information. We're pretty happy today because the film had it's first international screening last night in Budapest and downloads from a standing start 5 days ago hit the 500 mark today.