by BASICS Team Kitchener-Waterloo
This past September, Kitchener’s Anti Colonialist Working Group – a grassroots organization supporting political prisoners and prisoners of war against colonialism around the world – toured the independent Irish Republican, Brendan Casey, around parts of Canada to speak of today’s struggles of Irish prisoners of war (POWs) incarcerated by the British.
The purpose of the tour — which lasted a week and touched down in Guelph, Kitchener, Hamilton, Toronto, Montreal, and several other cities — was to raise awareness of the reality of the occupation, as well build ties with others fighting colonialism and imperialism.
In the words of one participant, Jason Lamka, “The tour was very powerful and Brendan is a great speaker. We never hear anything in the media about the stops and searches, the internment of prisoners like Martin Corey and Colin Duffy, or loyalist violence.”
Jason added, “From what I understand the purpose of this tour is to break the media silence around what is happening under the British occupation, and for me his presentation did just that. I’m glad I went.”
Brendan Casey himself was also pleased with the tour. “We have met with all sorts of people from Mapuche resistors, to members of the Cuban Federation of Women, to people from Six Nations. People across this whole country seem very political and active and I look forward to coming back.”
Despite the positive reception at the events, the tour was mired by threats of violence in Kitchener from ‘Loyalists’ who support Britain’s occupation of Ireland, in addition to police harassment. Tour organizer Julian Ichim said, “We got some threats of violence from Loyalists; and the police warned the venue that we were hosting a speaker from “the bad IRA” that didn’t disarm and they tried to intimidate the venue into cancelling but that didn’t happen.” Ichim added, “These so called loyalists are idiots and I’m a bit sorry they didn’t show up as we would have made short work of them. Still the slander of the police demonstrates that anyone who stands up against occupation can and will be smeared and criminalized.”
In spite of some of the intimidation and harassment, the tour succeeded in raising awareness of the brutality of the British occupation against those who continue to uphold Irish republicanism, especially for Prisoners of War in Ireland.
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