Hooded and shackled he was unceremoniously plucked from his home in Belfast and taken to a police station in Surrey. It was 1974 and the end of Gerry Conlon’s life, as he knew it. He was 20 years old.
Gerry Conlon, along with Paul Hill, Carole Richardson and Paddy Armstrong became victims of what is described as one of the worst miscarriages of British justice. The Guildford Four, as they became known, were convicted based on wholly fabricated evidence.
In Gerry Conlon's autobiography, Proved Innocent, he recounts that, despite there being cast iron alibis proving that two of the Four couldn’t have been involved, the witnesses were intimidated, confessions were extracted through torture and a statement proving Conlon was in Kilburn and not Guildford at the time, was buried. Even when an IRA unit took responsibility for the Guildford bombings in 1977, Conlon and the others were sent back to prison until their convictions were quashed in 1989.
Gerry’s ailing father, Giuseppe, who came to Britain to rescue his son, was also falsely convicted, as part of the “Maguire Seven” and died in prison a few years later.
My path crossed that of Gerry’s on 9 February 2005 en route to a parliamentary committee meeting in the House of Commons. I wrote the following account in my diary:
Emerging from Westminster station, the Evening Standard headline caught my eye: “PM to Apologise to Guildford Four and Maguire Seven”.
On entering parliament, I saw a camera crew and a crowd of people huddled around someone. It was Ian Paisley. To get in, I had to squeeze past him as he pontificated loquaciously. I resisted the temptation to slice my spiked heel into the ankle of the man who is to Catholics in Northern Ireland what Primark is to ethical trading.
My head still reeling, I entered Westminster hall, to find myself face to face with Gerry Conlon. There was a group of people with him, standing in the centre of the imposing hall. Mr. Conlon was talking on his mobile. The atmosphere was charged but I couldn’t discern if it was good or bad energy. Had Blair reneged? Had the irascible Paisley stolen their thunder? I hung around trying to glean what was happening. I wanted to reach out to Conlon and say…what? “Congratulations on your prime ministerial apology after 30 years of living purgatory”? Words escaped me, so I just hovered, and stared. I noticed them looking at me awkwardly then moving on.
I realized later how I must have appeared. Looking down on them, vexed at their raised, Irish voices. No doubt donning my default furrowed brow, dressed in power clothes and brief case, ceremonial armour for my dance with the devil. Being an Irish (ex) catholic myself I was racked with guilt. Not only had I failed to communicate my sorrow and anger at the injustice they endured, I had inadvertently driven them on and made them feel they had no right to be there.
Having endured years of torture and abuse, which included, defecating in his food, putting glass in his food, having a gun put in his mouth, as well as spending years in solitary confinement for the audacity of protesting his innocence, it’s little wonder Gerry Conlon suffered post traumatic stress disorder for the rest of his life.
Yet, far from being incapacitated by it, Gerry Conlon galvanized his incredible energy, humility and compassion into fighting injustice globally. He met with survivors of Guantanamo Bay and berated the phlegmatic Irish American community for failing to support Muslims who had taken over the epithet of “suspect community” from the Irish.
Gareth Peirce was the human rights lawyer responsible for Gerry Conlon’s release. She said: "Once a community has been made suspect en masse, every organ of the state will feel entitled, in fact obliged, to discover proof of their suspicions. The example of what happened to Gerry and his entire family should haunt us forever"
SDLP MP Mark Durkan told the House of Commons this week that Gerry Conlon's dying wish was that secret documents relating to the bombings, which are being held in the national archives for 75 years (there are only two cases in history where the Official Secrets Act has been applied in this way), be made available for public scrutiny. He said Mr. Conlon had been promised access by the previous Victims’ Commissioner for Northern Ireland. He asked David Cameron: "Will you ensure that the dying wish of an innocent man is honoured?" He is said to be considering the matter.
Too little, too late for Gerry Conlon, who is being buried in Belfast on Saturday.
Wednesday 25 June 2014
Monday 16 June 2014
We Must do More to Stop Rape Being Used as a Weapon of War Against Girls Like Roa.
An edited version of the below was published in yesterdays Independent on Sunday. Apologies for delay between posts. My internet connection has been down since Thursday.
As fathers throughout Britain unwrap their polyester pyjamas on Sunday morning, imagine this. You’re sitting down to a meal with your family when you hear gun shots. Moments later you’re surrounded by militia pointing AK47’s at your family. You, the father, are given a choice, “We either rape your daughter or kill your son. You decide”.
The father was a relative of a Darfuri friend of mine. His daughter, Roa, was 4 at the time.
The UN has recognized rape as a deliberate weapon of war in Sudan since 2005. Yet, it steadfastly fails to provide adequate protection for the victims or any consequences for the perpetrators. UN special envoy, Angelina Jolie and William Hague co-chaired a summit to end sexual violence in conflict in London this week. Roa and her family could not be there.
Driven from their homes and their livelihoods they, like an estimated 4 million others, sought refuge in a displaced persons camp on the border with Chad. Given the government of Sudan (GoS) persistently obstructs access of humanitarian aid to the camps, Roa’s nightmare is far from over.
Three weeks ago the UNICEF representative in Sudan, Geert Cappelaere, warned that an entire generation in Darfur may be lost as a result of over a decade of violence in the region. Given that 60 percent of the displaced in Darfur are minors, he warned that the children growing up in the camps may not be able to return to a normal life. Many are traumatised having witnessed attacks against their families or being themselves subjected to violence, abduction, and other assaults. In addition, the malnutrition figures are very high. More than 80,000 children in North Darfur are severely malnourished. He warned that the world should not turn its back to the tragedy of the children in Darfur.
Despite the shocking nature of this very red flag and the fact that is was raised by a senior UNICEF official, apart from Radio Dabanga and Reuters, it was not picked up by the mainstream media.
In order to combat starvation, women and children in Darfur face the prospect of being raped and beaten on a daily basis. Leaving their homes and camps in search of food and firewood is highly hazardous. It’s where over 80% of the rapes occur. Some women refuse medical help after being raped because they say they fear being arrested by the Sudanese security forces. Many never reveal their ordeal to spare their family the stigma. Those are the “lucky” ones. Others are “branded” by their attackers (including facial scarring) so that they will never be free from “shame”.
Rape is an integral, strategic component of the genocide in Darfur. Women and children are routinely raped in front of their families, breaking minds as well as bodies in a bid to crush their will and erode family structures where virginity and chastity are sacrosanct.
A few years ago I collaborated with Ricken Patel, who since founded the hugely impactful campaigning group Avaaz, to organize a series of global demonstrations for Darfur. One of which focused entirely on rape as a weapon of war. We asked the women in the camps what the international community could do to help and that is what we campaigned for.
Firstly, they wanted whistles so that when women and children ventured outside the camps for firewood, they could raise the alarm if attacked. Citizens around the world simultaneously demonstrated outside their respective parliaments, blowing whistles against the systematic rape of women and children in Darfur. Having got the attention of our respective governments and the media, we pressed for the other key “asks”, which included; more UN peacekeepers to protect civilians, sending groups of policewomen from African nations to accompany the firewood-gathering trips, rape counseling in a bid to break the taboo of silence and increased medical treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
Seven years on and there’s no sign of African policewomen and efforts to provide medical treatment and counseling have been obviated at every turn by the GoS. More peacekeepers have been deployed to the region, with a mandate to protect civilians, yet the raping rampage continues undeterred. We blow our whistles, said one woman, but no-one comes. The dins of their whistles, like their cries for help, fall on deaf ears.
After a decade of sexual violence being used as a weapon in the ongoing genocide in Darfur, a generation of women will never be able to have children due to infection or physical damage. Countless raped women (little data is collected or reported) who became pregnant by their attackers, or “branded”, will live with the stigma of rape for the rest of their lives. For the London summit to be of any use to Roa, it must translate into action. We owe her that.
As fathers throughout Britain unwrap their polyester pyjamas on Sunday morning, imagine this. You’re sitting down to a meal with your family when you hear gun shots. Moments later you’re surrounded by militia pointing AK47’s at your family. You, the father, are given a choice, “We either rape your daughter or kill your son. You decide”.
The father was a relative of a Darfuri friend of mine. His daughter, Roa, was 4 at the time.
The UN has recognized rape as a deliberate weapon of war in Sudan since 2005. Yet, it steadfastly fails to provide adequate protection for the victims or any consequences for the perpetrators. UN special envoy, Angelina Jolie and William Hague co-chaired a summit to end sexual violence in conflict in London this week. Roa and her family could not be there.
Driven from their homes and their livelihoods they, like an estimated 4 million others, sought refuge in a displaced persons camp on the border with Chad. Given the government of Sudan (GoS) persistently obstructs access of humanitarian aid to the camps, Roa’s nightmare is far from over.
Three weeks ago the UNICEF representative in Sudan, Geert Cappelaere, warned that an entire generation in Darfur may be lost as a result of over a decade of violence in the region. Given that 60 percent of the displaced in Darfur are minors, he warned that the children growing up in the camps may not be able to return to a normal life. Many are traumatised having witnessed attacks against their families or being themselves subjected to violence, abduction, and other assaults. In addition, the malnutrition figures are very high. More than 80,000 children in North Darfur are severely malnourished. He warned that the world should not turn its back to the tragedy of the children in Darfur.
Despite the shocking nature of this very red flag and the fact that is was raised by a senior UNICEF official, apart from Radio Dabanga and Reuters, it was not picked up by the mainstream media.
In order to combat starvation, women and children in Darfur face the prospect of being raped and beaten on a daily basis. Leaving their homes and camps in search of food and firewood is highly hazardous. It’s where over 80% of the rapes occur. Some women refuse medical help after being raped because they say they fear being arrested by the Sudanese security forces. Many never reveal their ordeal to spare their family the stigma. Those are the “lucky” ones. Others are “branded” by their attackers (including facial scarring) so that they will never be free from “shame”.
Rape is an integral, strategic component of the genocide in Darfur. Women and children are routinely raped in front of their families, breaking minds as well as bodies in a bid to crush their will and erode family structures where virginity and chastity are sacrosanct.
A few years ago I collaborated with Ricken Patel, who since founded the hugely impactful campaigning group Avaaz, to organize a series of global demonstrations for Darfur. One of which focused entirely on rape as a weapon of war. We asked the women in the camps what the international community could do to help and that is what we campaigned for.
Firstly, they wanted whistles so that when women and children ventured outside the camps for firewood, they could raise the alarm if attacked. Citizens around the world simultaneously demonstrated outside their respective parliaments, blowing whistles against the systematic rape of women and children in Darfur. Having got the attention of our respective governments and the media, we pressed for the other key “asks”, which included; more UN peacekeepers to protect civilians, sending groups of policewomen from African nations to accompany the firewood-gathering trips, rape counseling in a bid to break the taboo of silence and increased medical treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
Seven years on and there’s no sign of African policewomen and efforts to provide medical treatment and counseling have been obviated at every turn by the GoS. More peacekeepers have been deployed to the region, with a mandate to protect civilians, yet the raping rampage continues undeterred. We blow our whistles, said one woman, but no-one comes. The dins of their whistles, like their cries for help, fall on deaf ears.
After a decade of sexual violence being used as a weapon in the ongoing genocide in Darfur, a generation of women will never be able to have children due to infection or physical damage. Countless raped women (little data is collected or reported) who became pregnant by their attackers, or “branded”, will live with the stigma of rape for the rest of their lives. For the London summit to be of any use to Roa, it must translate into action. We owe her that.
Thursday 5 June 2014
Wanted: BBC Trust Chairman (women need not apply).
* There is currently a bidding war between the BBC & the Sunday Times to publish this piece...
In the spring of 2004 Barbara Cassani, then chair of the London 2012 Olympic bid, successfully led London through to the final five shortlist. In reporting that not insignificant feat the BBC News at Ten referred to Cassani as the bids “Chief Cheerleader”, not once but on two consecutive nights.
Despite her obvious business acumen and talent, the British media, disgruntled it seemed to have an American woman at the helm of the British bid, made her position untenable. After reportedly winning a libel action against the Telegraph, she stepped aside, making way for her successor, Lord Coe, who is now in the running for the position of chair of the BBC Trust, along with another American woman, Marjorie Scardino.
According to the job specification, Scardino appears to be the most qualified of the two (if they apply). Yet, David Cameron is already being warned not to give the job to a woman but to award it on merit, as if the two are mutually exclusive. In the corridors of power, however demonstrably brilliant a woman’s track record, a male (sometimes mediocre) with the right other credentials (class/title, political affiliations, race, old boy club carrying card) will always be the best “man” for the job.
The BBC is in crisis. The rot that enabled a series of debacles that exploded with the Saville scandal and which continue with the ongoing bullying revelations is systemic. More than ever the role of the BBC Trust is to be the conscience of the organisation. The person taking the lead will need to have the moral fortitude, independence of mind and a strong track record in governance (as opposed to the 100 metres) to have any chance of reinstating a semblance of trust in the BBC. The head hunters will need to be creative in their approach and recognise that titled elites, male or female, may not be the best people for the job.
Looking on the appointed head hunter’s website though, I’m not hopeful. Groupthink and faulty decisions are the product of homogeneity, a core factor, I believe, in the BBC’s downfall. Yet, of the 21 listed employees, the 18 pictures I could see were all white with the co-founder boasting having worked in Whitehall. It doesn’t bode well, in my view, for finding a wide rage of diverse talent from which to choose an outstanding candidate.
The Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid, and the BBC should know that, when outsourcing contracts to external parties they are obliged to ask for evidence of their adherence to Equality legislation. I wouldn’t have thought that an apparently all white head hunter in London, where 10% of the population is BME, would make the grade. The Culture secretary, the BBC and the head hunters themselves should also be aware of their duty to promote gender equality under the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA). It’s not enough to be seen to remove barriers to gender equality, they must actively promote and encourage it. The advertisement for the position falls at the fist hurdle with the title, Chairman. Subtext (whether intentional or not), women need not apply. As part of the SDA’s duty to remove barriers and promote gender equality, gender neutral language would be an absolute minimum requirement.
Ten years ago I conducted research into the impact of testosterone charged images and language used in advertising for leadership positions. I tracked several adverts and followed up on the appointments, all of which were men. In some cases, no women even applied. The advert that spurred my action was the following: What Turns Businessmen on: DOMINATION?
This advert appeared regularly in The Sunday Times “Appointments” section during the summer of 2004. When I first encountered it, I felt as though, as a woman, I was a non-person. Like a waitress at a free mason’s ball, with Bernard Manning as the guest speaker. You may say the newspaper was merely employing the term ‘businessmen’ as a universally understood euphemism for business people of both sexes. You might also brush off the concept of ‘being turned on by domination’ as a vaguely humorous and largely innocuous turn of phrase that underlines the newspaper’s attractiveness for recruitment advertising. And indeed, this was how the Sunday Times defended its use of language to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) when I lodged a complaint. However, when viewed as a strategy of dismissal, we can begin to understand how such language contributes to the marginalization of women at work. It does so by portraying the business arena as an inherently “man’s world”. The complaint was upheld.
Encouraging the use of gender-neutral language is an unashamed and totally legitimate act of political correctness. Many titles, such as ‘chairman’ and ‘businessman’, are so culturally imbued that they are not recognised for what they are, i.e. symbols of a masculinised business paradigm. Examining language within the social constructivist paradigm, as I do, it would be fatuous not to acknowledge the political aspect and the power it wields. Language does not simply reflect reality (i.e. that the majority of chair or business people are men) but constructs and perpetuates it (i.e. “that’s the norm” and “lets keep it that way”).
The discourse of the dominant sets out different rules for those with and without power. Language, which itself can be understood to be constitutive of both knowledge and power, is hijacked to legitimise what is deemed mere “common sense”. Protestations that serve to challenge this rationality are ridiculed and labelled as “radical”. Some media very deliberately choose their language to enflame prejudice by playing on people’s fears, inciting outrage at the very thought of introducing positive discrimination to attract black recruits to the police, for example.
The fact is that positive discrimination has existed for years. The metaphorical tap on the shoulder and old boys’ networks are all practices so institutionalised that we take them for granted. Those who profit from privilege accept such benefits as their birth-right, and are the ones who have the most to lose if these unwritten rules are exposed by the critical scrutiny of language.
In the spring of 2004 Barbara Cassani, then chair of the London 2012 Olympic bid, successfully led London through to the final five shortlist. In reporting that not insignificant feat the BBC News at Ten referred to Cassani as the bids “Chief Cheerleader”, not once but on two consecutive nights.
Despite her obvious business acumen and talent, the British media, disgruntled it seemed to have an American woman at the helm of the British bid, made her position untenable. After reportedly winning a libel action against the Telegraph, she stepped aside, making way for her successor, Lord Coe, who is now in the running for the position of chair of the BBC Trust, along with another American woman, Marjorie Scardino.
According to the job specification, Scardino appears to be the most qualified of the two (if they apply). Yet, David Cameron is already being warned not to give the job to a woman but to award it on merit, as if the two are mutually exclusive. In the corridors of power, however demonstrably brilliant a woman’s track record, a male (sometimes mediocre) with the right other credentials (class/title, political affiliations, race, old boy club carrying card) will always be the best “man” for the job.
The BBC is in crisis. The rot that enabled a series of debacles that exploded with the Saville scandal and which continue with the ongoing bullying revelations is systemic. More than ever the role of the BBC Trust is to be the conscience of the organisation. The person taking the lead will need to have the moral fortitude, independence of mind and a strong track record in governance (as opposed to the 100 metres) to have any chance of reinstating a semblance of trust in the BBC. The head hunters will need to be creative in their approach and recognise that titled elites, male or female, may not be the best people for the job.
Looking on the appointed head hunter’s website though, I’m not hopeful. Groupthink and faulty decisions are the product of homogeneity, a core factor, I believe, in the BBC’s downfall. Yet, of the 21 listed employees, the 18 pictures I could see were all white with the co-founder boasting having worked in Whitehall. It doesn’t bode well, in my view, for finding a wide rage of diverse talent from which to choose an outstanding candidate.
The Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid, and the BBC should know that, when outsourcing contracts to external parties they are obliged to ask for evidence of their adherence to Equality legislation. I wouldn’t have thought that an apparently all white head hunter in London, where 10% of the population is BME, would make the grade. The Culture secretary, the BBC and the head hunters themselves should also be aware of their duty to promote gender equality under the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA). It’s not enough to be seen to remove barriers to gender equality, they must actively promote and encourage it. The advertisement for the position falls at the fist hurdle with the title, Chairman. Subtext (whether intentional or not), women need not apply. As part of the SDA’s duty to remove barriers and promote gender equality, gender neutral language would be an absolute minimum requirement.
Ten years ago I conducted research into the impact of testosterone charged images and language used in advertising for leadership positions. I tracked several adverts and followed up on the appointments, all of which were men. In some cases, no women even applied. The advert that spurred my action was the following: What Turns Businessmen on: DOMINATION?
This advert appeared regularly in The Sunday Times “Appointments” section during the summer of 2004. When I first encountered it, I felt as though, as a woman, I was a non-person. Like a waitress at a free mason’s ball, with Bernard Manning as the guest speaker. You may say the newspaper was merely employing the term ‘businessmen’ as a universally understood euphemism for business people of both sexes. You might also brush off the concept of ‘being turned on by domination’ as a vaguely humorous and largely innocuous turn of phrase that underlines the newspaper’s attractiveness for recruitment advertising. And indeed, this was how the Sunday Times defended its use of language to the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) when I lodged a complaint. However, when viewed as a strategy of dismissal, we can begin to understand how such language contributes to the marginalization of women at work. It does so by portraying the business arena as an inherently “man’s world”. The complaint was upheld.
Encouraging the use of gender-neutral language is an unashamed and totally legitimate act of political correctness. Many titles, such as ‘chairman’ and ‘businessman’, are so culturally imbued that they are not recognised for what they are, i.e. symbols of a masculinised business paradigm. Examining language within the social constructivist paradigm, as I do, it would be fatuous not to acknowledge the political aspect and the power it wields. Language does not simply reflect reality (i.e. that the majority of chair or business people are men) but constructs and perpetuates it (i.e. “that’s the norm” and “lets keep it that way”).
The discourse of the dominant sets out different rules for those with and without power. Language, which itself can be understood to be constitutive of both knowledge and power, is hijacked to legitimise what is deemed mere “common sense”. Protestations that serve to challenge this rationality are ridiculed and labelled as “radical”. Some media very deliberately choose their language to enflame prejudice by playing on people’s fears, inciting outrage at the very thought of introducing positive discrimination to attract black recruits to the police, for example.
The fact is that positive discrimination has existed for years. The metaphorical tap on the shoulder and old boys’ networks are all practices so institutionalised that we take them for granted. Those who profit from privilege accept such benefits as their birth-right, and are the ones who have the most to lose if these unwritten rules are exposed by the critical scrutiny of language.
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