[CIMC-working] More on Bernadette Devlin McAliskey refused entry into US...

[dhgo@midway.uchicago.edu]

RIGHTS LEADER BERNADETTE DEVLIN MCALISKEY IS TURNED AWAY AT THE U.S. BORDER
AND DEPORTED

World-renowned Irish civil rights activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was
refused entry to the US over the weekend, and deported.

She passed through the US immigration office in Dublin just fine. But when
she arrived in Chicago, a loudspeaker called out her name. McAliskey says
she was surrounded by four immigration officers. One of them told her they
had received a fax from their agents in Dublin. The fax called her a
"potential or real threat to the United States."

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is a world-renowned civil rights activist. She
was elected to the British Parliament from Northern Ireland in 1969, when
she was just 21 years old. She was the youngest British MP in history.

In August of that year she was arrested during the "Battle of the Bogside,"
an uprising in Derry that marked the beginning of 30 years of armed
resistance to the British occupation of Northern Ireland. She served four
months in prison for inciting a riot. She was still an MP.

Over the years she continued her activism. In 1981, she and her husband were
shot by members of a Protestant paramilitary group at their farmhouse near
Belfast. Bernadette was struck by nine bullets.

We go now to Bernadette Devlin McAliskey in Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

Guest:

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Irish civil rights leader.
Go to Democracy Now to listen to interview.......