Visa Denial   Sean O Lubaigh • 29 June 2003 The Bush Administration continues to chip away at the basics liberties of the citizens in America. Like a rat nibbling on a wedge of cheese, George Bush and his cronies do not know when enough is enough. The Patriot Act was the beginning and continuing amendments erode our open and free society into a heavy handed government created “police type” state where the scales of justice seem no longer balanced. All under the auspices of the threat of terrorism. The censorship of speech, thought and discourse is not new for the U.S. Government; it is just affecting a more wide-ranging and diverse population. The government has been for many years denying the rights of Irish Americans to engage in the free flow of speech and discourse with the leadership of the Irish political party Republican Sinn Fein. The government does this by denying visas for the leadership to enter the U.S. and garner support for the only realistic and viable alternative to the failing Good Friday Agreement, Republicans Sinn Fein’s EIRE NUA (NEW IRELAND) proposal for peace with justice in Ireland. There is no excuse to continue this state sponsored visa denial policy aimed at Republican Sinn Fein. If the U.S. Government is truly interested in an all-inclusive peace in Ireland, it must take off the blinkers and see things as they are and not through Brit eyes. To deny the Republican Sinn Fein leadership visas is a to deny me my rights as a citizen. To dissent, to question, to offer alternatives, to show a better way, to believe in free and New Ireland in the vein of Connolly, Tone, Mellows, Emmet, Costello or O Bradaigh is no crime! National liberation can not be stopped. Delayed yes, but right will win out in the end. All right thinking people should demand of our U.S. Congress to call hearings into why the State Department continues the draconian visa denial policy towards Irish Republicans. We should never forget our liberties and freedoms in America were gained only through the blood of those who rose to strip off the chains of the Brits.             Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews + Letters + Archives

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