Post by Wasp on Oct 28, 2009 23:02:45 GMT
Taken from CAIN.
The Provisional IRA has targeted children to a greater extent than is the case with Protestant paramilitaries
Paramilitary child abuse has actually worsened in the last few years as compared to the years immediately preceding the Good Friday Agreement.
"One of them pulled an iron bar from inside a jacket and hit him across the face." This was the opening blow of a "punishment" attack on a 15 year old child. The beating, which involved five masked men believed to be members of the Provisional IRA, took place in a home in the strongly nationalist New Lodge area of north Belfast on Sunday, 11 March 2001. The boy, who has special needs and admits to juvenile delinquency, was taken to the bedroom where he was struck with iron bars for twenty minutes. The blows were mainly to his head and upper body. His jaw was fractured during the attack. Traumatised, disfigured and barely able to speak, he was taken to hospital. Because his mother voiced her outrage and despair, the name of the boy, George McWilliams, featured momentarily in the columns of the nationalist Irish News (see report, 12 March 2001).
Earlier this year up to ten masked men, carrying guns and batons, burst into a home on a housing estate in Belfast. Their target was a 16-year old boy with a reported IQ of 45. Gerard had a troubled history, including severe depression since he had been raped as a child by a relative. When his mother tried to protect him from the intruders, she was also struck and called a "fucking bitch". The local administrators of justice then forced Gerard upstairs to the bathroom and, in the words of his mother: "I could hear him screaming from in there. After that they dragged him outside to the alleyway. I went into the bathroom and saw blood everywhere; after that I passed out". (See report in the Observer, 7 January 2001.)
Dr Lawrence Rocke, senior consultant surgeon in the accident and emergency department of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast says that the youngest victim of a "punishment" beating he has treated was just 14. But many others were only a year or two older. "It beggars belief how people can set out to cause pain and hurt of the terrible type we see in here so often." (See report in the Times, 18 September, 1999.)
Table 1 below, based on data supplied by the Central Statistics Unit of the RUC, gives a breakdown by age of the victims of (recorded) paramilitary shootings in Northern Ireland during the last dozen years.
Although loyalists were responsible overall for more shootings than republicans (636 cases as against 496), a majority of the young victims "took the republican bullet". Within nationalist communities some 30% of all victims were less than twenty years of age. The corresponding figure for loyalists was 19%, a level more than one-third lower.
Then for punishment assaults;
republican groups were responsible for more assaults generally than their loyalist counterparts, though the difference is not great (769 instances as against 737). More importantly, republican vigilantes, primarily the Provisional IRA, continued to select in favour of younger victims. Of the 769 nationalists assaulted or mutilated by republicans, 30% were under the age of twenty (an identical proportion to that for "knee-cappings" and other forms of shooting). This is also well above the level found in loyalist-controlled areas.
Loyalists handed out savage beatings to 78 children and juveniles, while republicans added a further 111 casualties to the toll of human and family misery. Consistent with the earlier analysis, children and adolescents in nationalist areas were more likely to be the object of paramilitary abuse than is the case in loyalist communities.
There were two recorded cases of shootings of women by loyalists during the 1990s and none by republicans. It may be recalled also that one of the most horrifying murders during the course of the "Troubles" was that of a widow and mother of ten children, Jean McConville. She was abducted and murdered after she offered assistance to a British soldier, wounded outside her home (see Seamus McKendry, Disappeared: The Search for Jean McConville, Dublin, 2000).
While the numbers of beatings and mutilations of women were small compared to those for men during the 1990s, they were far from being negligible. Loyalist terror groups were responsible for 33 of the 56 serious assaults on women between 1990 and 2000; republicans accounted for the other 23. On average, therefore, there were five women victims each year. Overall, women accounted for 4% of all "punishment" victims. By contrast with the republican predilection for maiming children and juveniles, loyalist paramilitaries were more likely to select female targets for their attacks. As always with "punishment" statistics, it must be emphasised that these are minimum estimates: the extent of paramilitary intimidation and terror in working class communities in Northern Ireland is greatly underestimated in the statistical record.
Then there is this;
RAPE is being used as a weapon of paramilitary terror in Northern Ireland by both republican and loyalist terrorists. Human rights workers and rape counsellors in Ulster have told the Sunday Herald that more than 1000 women a year are reporting violent sexual assaults at the hands of paramilitary gangs.
Eileen Calder, of Belfast's Rape Crisis Centre, says one in three women who arrive at the organisation's Donegall Street offices claim to have been raped by members of either the IRA or the UVF and UDA. "Many of these assaults are gang-rapes at gunpoint," Calder said.
"Women in Northern Ireland are suffering the most extreme form of sexual violence and it is going unnoticed throughout Britain and the world."
The RUC says prosecuting paramilitary rapes is almost impossible because of the fear among victims of reprisals. One officer said: "It is the same as trying to arrest a paramilitary for a punishment beating. Everyone knows who is carrying out these attacks, but without witnesses we can't get the evidence to take them to court."
Other sex attacks include:
l the gang-rape of a Catholic woman in the Divis area of Belfast by about 10 INLA men. The attack lasted hours.
l the murder of Margaret Wright in Belfast in 1994 by members of the Red Hand Commando. The 35-year-old woman, who suffered from epilepsy, was also allegedly sexually assaulted. One of the men involved in her death, Ian Hamilton, was later shot dead.
l a Protestant woman in her early 20s was kidnapped by six members of the UDA outside Belfast. She was held for hours, tortured and raped repeatedly.
l the female relative of a Progressive Unionist Party member who was doped with rohypnol and raped by two loyalists. They were later kneecapped.
l the abduction, rape and murder of a Catholic girl from Portadown by three IRA men. She was buried in the Irish Republic. The rapists later became Special Branch informers and were executed by the IRA.
l the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl from Armagh who was abducted, molested, tied to a lamp-post and had her head shaven by the IRA after splitting up with her boyfriend - the son of a local IRA commander.
Now setanta I included loyalists in this as well so I would like to hear what kind of fantasy riddled excuse you are going to come up with for all of this, is it the 'occupying forces', spies or what etc etc?
The Provisional IRA has targeted children to a greater extent than is the case with Protestant paramilitaries
Paramilitary child abuse has actually worsened in the last few years as compared to the years immediately preceding the Good Friday Agreement.
"One of them pulled an iron bar from inside a jacket and hit him across the face." This was the opening blow of a "punishment" attack on a 15 year old child. The beating, which involved five masked men believed to be members of the Provisional IRA, took place in a home in the strongly nationalist New Lodge area of north Belfast on Sunday, 11 March 2001. The boy, who has special needs and admits to juvenile delinquency, was taken to the bedroom where he was struck with iron bars for twenty minutes. The blows were mainly to his head and upper body. His jaw was fractured during the attack. Traumatised, disfigured and barely able to speak, he was taken to hospital. Because his mother voiced her outrage and despair, the name of the boy, George McWilliams, featured momentarily in the columns of the nationalist Irish News (see report, 12 March 2001).
Earlier this year up to ten masked men, carrying guns and batons, burst into a home on a housing estate in Belfast. Their target was a 16-year old boy with a reported IQ of 45. Gerard had a troubled history, including severe depression since he had been raped as a child by a relative. When his mother tried to protect him from the intruders, she was also struck and called a "fucking bitch". The local administrators of justice then forced Gerard upstairs to the bathroom and, in the words of his mother: "I could hear him screaming from in there. After that they dragged him outside to the alleyway. I went into the bathroom and saw blood everywhere; after that I passed out". (See report in the Observer, 7 January 2001.)
Dr Lawrence Rocke, senior consultant surgeon in the accident and emergency department of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast says that the youngest victim of a "punishment" beating he has treated was just 14. But many others were only a year or two older. "It beggars belief how people can set out to cause pain and hurt of the terrible type we see in here so often." (See report in the Times, 18 September, 1999.)
Table 1 below, based on data supplied by the Central Statistics Unit of the RUC, gives a breakdown by age of the victims of (recorded) paramilitary shootings in Northern Ireland during the last dozen years.
Although loyalists were responsible overall for more shootings than republicans (636 cases as against 496), a majority of the young victims "took the republican bullet". Within nationalist communities some 30% of all victims were less than twenty years of age. The corresponding figure for loyalists was 19%, a level more than one-third lower.
Then for punishment assaults;
republican groups were responsible for more assaults generally than their loyalist counterparts, though the difference is not great (769 instances as against 737). More importantly, republican vigilantes, primarily the Provisional IRA, continued to select in favour of younger victims. Of the 769 nationalists assaulted or mutilated by republicans, 30% were under the age of twenty (an identical proportion to that for "knee-cappings" and other forms of shooting). This is also well above the level found in loyalist-controlled areas.
Loyalists handed out savage beatings to 78 children and juveniles, while republicans added a further 111 casualties to the toll of human and family misery. Consistent with the earlier analysis, children and adolescents in nationalist areas were more likely to be the object of paramilitary abuse than is the case in loyalist communities.
There were two recorded cases of shootings of women by loyalists during the 1990s and none by republicans. It may be recalled also that one of the most horrifying murders during the course of the "Troubles" was that of a widow and mother of ten children, Jean McConville. She was abducted and murdered after she offered assistance to a British soldier, wounded outside her home (see Seamus McKendry, Disappeared: The Search for Jean McConville, Dublin, 2000).
While the numbers of beatings and mutilations of women were small compared to those for men during the 1990s, they were far from being negligible. Loyalist terror groups were responsible for 33 of the 56 serious assaults on women between 1990 and 2000; republicans accounted for the other 23. On average, therefore, there were five women victims each year. Overall, women accounted for 4% of all "punishment" victims. By contrast with the republican predilection for maiming children and juveniles, loyalist paramilitaries were more likely to select female targets for their attacks. As always with "punishment" statistics, it must be emphasised that these are minimum estimates: the extent of paramilitary intimidation and terror in working class communities in Northern Ireland is greatly underestimated in the statistical record.
Then there is this;
RAPE is being used as a weapon of paramilitary terror in Northern Ireland by both republican and loyalist terrorists. Human rights workers and rape counsellors in Ulster have told the Sunday Herald that more than 1000 women a year are reporting violent sexual assaults at the hands of paramilitary gangs.
Eileen Calder, of Belfast's Rape Crisis Centre, says one in three women who arrive at the organisation's Donegall Street offices claim to have been raped by members of either the IRA or the UVF and UDA. "Many of these assaults are gang-rapes at gunpoint," Calder said.
"Women in Northern Ireland are suffering the most extreme form of sexual violence and it is going unnoticed throughout Britain and the world."
The RUC says prosecuting paramilitary rapes is almost impossible because of the fear among victims of reprisals. One officer said: "It is the same as trying to arrest a paramilitary for a punishment beating. Everyone knows who is carrying out these attacks, but without witnesses we can't get the evidence to take them to court."
Other sex attacks include:
l the gang-rape of a Catholic woman in the Divis area of Belfast by about 10 INLA men. The attack lasted hours.
l the murder of Margaret Wright in Belfast in 1994 by members of the Red Hand Commando. The 35-year-old woman, who suffered from epilepsy, was also allegedly sexually assaulted. One of the men involved in her death, Ian Hamilton, was later shot dead.
l a Protestant woman in her early 20s was kidnapped by six members of the UDA outside Belfast. She was held for hours, tortured and raped repeatedly.
l the female relative of a Progressive Unionist Party member who was doped with rohypnol and raped by two loyalists. They were later kneecapped.
l the abduction, rape and murder of a Catholic girl from Portadown by three IRA men. She was buried in the Irish Republic. The rapists later became Special Branch informers and were executed by the IRA.
l the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl from Armagh who was abducted, molested, tied to a lamp-post and had her head shaven by the IRA after splitting up with her boyfriend - the son of a local IRA commander.
Now setanta I included loyalists in this as well so I would like to hear what kind of fantasy riddled excuse you are going to come up with for all of this, is it the 'occupying forces', spies or what etc etc?
