Reflections on Bloody Sunday | Julian Assange should be freed | Julian Assange should be freed

Reflections on Bloody Sunday. Somehow human beings, including this columnist,  put more stead in twenty year anniversaries than in nineteen year ones. So in the case of Bloody Sunday 50 years seems more important than forty nine. Why this is so is worthy of some research beyond at this point my capacity. But fifty years it is since that fateful day.  In less than 30 minutes it was all over. The shooting began at 4.10pm. When it ended 13 men and boys were dead. Another was to die weeks later. Another 14, including one woman had been shot and grievously wounded. On our television screens we could see the deadly consequences. The still bodies in their pools of blood. One moment alive. The next dead. Lines of men were filmed being frog marched by British soldiers and forced against walls. A community in shock. Bloody Sunday marked a watershed moment in our history.Julian Assange should be freedBritain’s counter-insurgency guru General Frank Kitson explained it well when he wrote over 50 years ago: “the press properly handled is one of the government’s strongest weapons.”Direct control of reporting by the media through the imposition of censorship or indirect control through political alliances with those who own the media, is not a new phenomena. The Irish people have long experience of British government manipulation of media coverage about events here. The killing of 14 men on Bloody Sunday in January 1972 and before that the Ballymurphy Massacre and the manner in which the British establishment managed the media afterwards are two examples of this.  British political leaders and military commanders rushed to defend the Paras and criminalise the dead and wounded. That they failed took 40 years of hard work and trauma by victim’s families and the people of Derry and Ballymurphy.Leonard PeltierLeonard Peltier has Covid. The Native American rights activist has spent almost 45 years in prison and was already suffering ill-health. His family and supporters are deeply concerned at this serious risk to his life and have renewed their appeal for the US President Joe Biden to exercise clemency. I support their call for Leonard to be freed.