There will be a Gathering of Women At Shannon Airport For the sixth year of the Women’s peace camp.

This year the camp will be part of the international women's day celebrations and will be held from 2 pm on SAturday MARCH 6th, ending with an action-rally at 2pm Sunday March 7th.

(Children & Men are Welcome. Sorry, No Dogs.)

The camp will be set up adjacent to the small roundabout just before the airport entrance (gantry).

• Drumming, Knitting, Storytelling, Patchwork-quilting.
• A Spring Cleanout to use up all our Bits & Pieces, Shreds & Patches.

End Ireland’s complicity in the oppression of Afghan Women.

“Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” is a new documentary film, directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, telling the story of Guantánamo (and including sections on extraordinary rendition and secret prisons) with a particular focus on how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws, how prisoners were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening (and often for bounty payments), and why some of these men may have been in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons unconnected with militancy or terrorism (as missionaries or humanitarian aid workers, for example).

The film is based around interviews with former prisoners (Moazzam Begg and, in his first major interview, Omar Deghayes, who was released in December 2007), lawyers for the prisoners (Clive Stafford Smith in the UK and Tom Wilner in the US), and journalist and author Andy Worthington, and also includes appearances from Guantánamo’s former Muslim chaplain James Yee, Shakeel Begg, a London-based Imam, and the British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce.

Amnesty International Galway are having a Guantanamo Bay event  sat 16/1

It is going to be as follows:

Guantanamo Bay Street Theatre:
Shop Street at 1pm, Sat 16th January.

2 Army officers will be marching 3 Guantanamo Bay detainees. They will stop and make the detainees kneel down.
Then 4 Amnesty activists will be coming and scare away the army officers holding large signs with messages such as: "Stop Rendition", "Close Guantanamo".

If the weather permits it, it will start in Eyre Square and will repeat down Shop Street.

 Amnesty volunteers will be getting the public to sign petitions calling on the Government to advocate among our European neighbours to accept detainees for resettlement to ensure the closure of Guantanamo Bay
Detention Centre; and calling on the Government to follow up their "commendable work" (? my question mark) on resettlement by closing all loop-holes in domestic legislation that has allowed renditions to be facilitated through Ireland..

If you need more information on this event please contact Marie-Anne, of Galway AI on 086 792 40 95.

dette, galway

Plane grounded at Shannon after emergency landing – Garda action highlights inconsistency of inspection policy at the airport

Shannonwatch welcomes reports that Gardai have exercised their powers to board and inspect a foreign aircraft at Shannon today (http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0113/shannon.html). However it shows the selective nature of the Gardai's exercise of duty in this regard. On numerous occasions they have been informed of suspect rendition planes at the airport, but have never, as far as is known, carried out an inspection of one of these planes. 

ALMOST €10 million has been spent in just three years on protecting US troops passing through Shannon airport on their way to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Arial View of Shannon Airport

Department of Justice figures show the cost of providing Garda security at the airport was €8.6m between 2006 and 2008. This includes €2.8m on Garda overtime, more than €1m in expenses and subsistence claims by the gardaí and €4.8m in salaries.

During the same period, the cost of army patrols at the airport was €964,702, according to Defence Minister Willie O’Dea, bringing the total cost of security at the airport to close to €10m.

The latest figures show more than 243,000 US troops passed through Shannon airport in 2009 – or 665 per day. This brings to more than one million the number of military who used the airport en route to US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of 2006.

Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín O Caoláin said the cost to the taxpayer is a "disgraceful situation" and something that should be properly debated in the Dáil.

(gather at airport entrance)

Come to Shannon on Sunday January 10th to