more on the "strategy of isolation", a stasi tactic possibly used in ireland.

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Sunday March 20, 2005 01:31 by Brian Nugent

The O'Hara family and Adrienne McGlinchey

These cases have got a lot of publicity recently , to the credit of the irish media,
so I guess everybody can see the implications in them but in case there is anybody interested but without access to the irish media I thought I would write them up here.

As everybody knows the O'Hara family from Meath were astonished to be greeted by the gardai at their door recently and accompanied by a court order to take their children into care very much against their wishes. They feel , it is clear from the media reports, that this step was taken because they had begun to speak out in condemnation of the bad public services available for their autistic children. Mr and Mrs O'Hara will now have to undergo a psychological examination if they hope to keep custody of their children. It is not known what criteria was given by the state that could explain what causes it to insist on this step apart from the fact that the couple had gone public with their frustrations about the health and education service. This has caused some disquiet as Dolores O'Riordan , a grandmother of an autistic child , has written in a letter to the Irish Independent "To add insult to injury , I read that in order to regain custody of their children, the parents have had to agree to a psychological assessment. Are we now living in a totalitarien state ?"(18 March 2005, p35). There is also many references to other families in the same situation that seem to have been silenced by these means.While it is pure speculation, one wonders if that will prove to be an intrusive and far reaching examination and whether or not any negative results of it might get leaked to other departments or to the media. Of course a totally in depth analysis like this would be something few people would survive without some sticking points. I guess most people are also aware of the serious allegations that autism is caused by the MMR vaccine including genetic tests in TCD that link the strain of measles used in the vaccine to the strain of measles found in autism sufferers. (http://www.autismconnect.org/news.asp?itemtype=news§ion=000100010001&page=30&id=4849 ).

The other case I thought I'd mention was the interview of Adreinne McGlinchy on the Late Late Show (RTE1,March 18 2005). Her story is that she was arrested one night on false terrorist charges and held by the Gardai in Donegal. When she got out and spoke to her family she found out that they had already been given a lurid story by the gardai claiming that she was in the IRA and unfortunately they believed the gardai. So in a huff she left the house and sustained herself for a time elsewhere cashing some cheques from a family chequebook to tide her over. Then she was arrested on a charge of stealing the money from her family. Her family had agreed to sign a document alledging this theft on the basis that the gardai had told them that the money was going to the IRA. She didnt know that that was the only reason her family were making the claim about the cheques and and the gardai were constantly telling her how her family were out to get her and prosecute her over the money. So now she was isolated from them and also from the law because the law , in the form of the powerfull garda special branch, were pressing false charges on her related to her non existent membership of the IRA.Hence she was unable to resist preassure put on her to become a kind of fake IRA informer. I didnt see it stated in the interview but I take it that as a result of this also her sole source of income would also be her garda 'handler'. Her garda handlers meanwhile were acquiring a great reputation as being experts on terrorism in Donegal. This isnt so surprising when you consider that they were basically creating it .They were manufacturing the explosives, purchasing all the materials , supplying all the weapons and ammunition, fake arms finds, it has been alledged even explosive attacks across the border etc. Incidentally she of course was not a terrorist now were her family or anything like that but it is a political family , Adrienne's father was a Senator for a while. When the story began to emerge and get some publicity she describes how she was then accused of being a 'walter mitty' kind of person who just made the whole thing up. One reason as well why she felt she couldnt get out of this trap was simply that whenever she complained about anything she got a punch in the face from her Garda handler.
(see also http://www.emigrant.ie/article.asp?iCategoryID=177&iArticleID=9831)
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/06/01/story344592683.asp )

When I was writing up this 'strategy of isolation' tactic that seems to be used by intelligence agencies east and west I left out references to that kind of physical intimidation not knowing how common it was. But in fact threatening phone calls particularily is something you come across quite often when reading up on the experiences of dissidents. What makes me wonder now that it must be a common thing is the reference recently to Dana's experience in politics in Ireland. Her last Presidential run clearly showed that she was very disliked by the powers that be in Ireland and was blatently frozen out by the system with only a tiny number of voices like Michael Ring prepared to stand up for the idea of a presidential election with her in the race. Apparently she is now stating that behind the scenes of her life in irish politics she was receiving death threats against her and her family.
(Irish Independent,18 March 2005, p3)

One irish person who has to cope with this kind of thing all the time apparently is Kathy O'Beirne who is trying to highlight the case of the former Magdalen victims being incarcerated in Irish mental institutions. She "has received constant threats after she decided to go public with her allegations."
The threats are to "not rock the boat" and "not to talk to anybody about what happened to Elizabeth". This last is a reference to the recent death of Elizabeth Keegan.
"Rita Nolan, Elizabeth Keegan and several other Magdalen victims have died in circumstances , which to this layman [the journalist] at least, seem disturbing."
Kathy is quite certain that Rita Nolan was not insane although she suffered panic attacks, as Kathy says: "Wouldn't you if you were locked up all your life simply because you were raped or abused by someone in authority ?" She says also that "there are many beautifull young laundry girls in that unit [in grangegorman] who dont even know their own names because they are so heavily drugged. They are not even allowed to speak to each other."
Its the state that imprisons these people not the church and you cannot help thinking that its hardly the religious orders who are really threatening Kathy .Anyhow she "says she was obstructed all the way by the church authorities and Health Board officials. Their attitude was, she says, to leave the past alone."
"Despite changing her phone numbers four times and complaining to the police, the threats continued in a more serious and frightening way."
(Irish Crime Vol1.issue 7,Dec-Jan 2004/5,"What happened to Rita Nolan ?/ Another victim locked away in Grangegorman dies in strange circumstances."by Aodhan Madden,p8-11)
I know I shouldnt generalise but I only know of only one case where the perpratators of this kind of ongoing threatening phone call harassment were unmasked. One of the Donegal families who were getting this treatment employed a private investigator and he managed to trace the source of the calls from phone records. It turned out that they came from the home phone number of a garda who has admitted that an informer of his made the calls while he was there.
(http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/10/19/story629480993.asp)

There must a pattern in all this somewhere !!lol Here is the article where I was describing the isolation tactic and other stuff.( http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68750 )
BTW I would like to acknowledge an earlier article that Eoin Dubsky mentioned, it shows that suspicion about what these agencies are doing in ireland is pretty widespread.(http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62498 ).