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I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the shock at the number of English people I personally knew who not only thought it was ok for soldiers to shoot *civilians but who considered any possibility of prosecution against them a violation of their human rights.
*obv only NI civilians https://twitter.com/lottelydia/status/1384573871559479304
*obv only NI civilians https://twitter.com/lottelydia/status/1384573871559479304
Just seeing some of the tweets about Mercer today. It is so incredibly othering to realize how detached NI is from the GB consciousness that so many non-troll accounts feel it’s absolutely fine their armed forces can literally shoot civilians in the back with impunity.
Even those with some sympathy can be so incredibly detached from the reality of what killing someone means - real people with families who have had to endured their loved ones being blamed for their own deaths, had no or whitewashed inquiries and denied justice for decades.
I know that there is under reporting and even high profile cases barely make the news but so-called ‘legacy’ cases exist because the govt denied inquests and inquiries for decades. When legacies are created by the govt then I don’t care how much they cost https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/commentisfree/2019/may/26/the-lack-of-coverage-of-the-ballymurphy-inquest-is-a-scandal
Even cover like the BBC’s details on the victims of the Ballymurphy massacre - which are pretty awful - don’t provide the full details of how indescribably wrong the actions of soldiers were in these cases https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46199577
44 year old mother of 8 Joan Connolly was shot three times, once in the face, and left to bleed to death. Numerous people tried to get to the injured and were prevented by soldiers. Some of the dead’s bodies were later moved so they could be implicated https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-48273920
To get some sense of this process for justice, the families of those who died in Ballymurphy only heard each other’s stories in 1998. They had their own investigation and found the witnesses. With activists help the first inquiry / inquest started in 2019. http://www.ballymurphymassacre.com/campaign.htm
The inquest is due to report back in May: 50 years after the events. My dad came from the area and never talked about it; my uncle told me there was so much chaos at the time - and misinformation circulated by authorities - no one knew what to believe. Families deserve justice.
