Низкое коварство

Всенародно любимая в России Маргарет Тэтчер (в первые Гайдаровские времена звучали призывы, а давайте позовем к нам еЁ, ну типа нынешнего Хидинка, она, дескать, у себя (в Великобритании) осталась без работы). Она получила у себя и в мире патент на небывалую до нее политическую (ПОДЛУЮ!!!) технологию - ДЫРА В АНГЛЕТЕРРСКОМ законодательстве: - любой депутат может в любой момент подать в ОТСТАВКУ, не объясняя причины. А если таких большинство - перевыборы. Так она потому так долго (неимоверно! для свободной страны) держалась у власти, что каждый раз ДОСРОЧНО, на гребне побед (в Фолклендской войне, раз...) и успехов, распускала парламент. В первый раз еЯ соотечественники ОБАЛДЕЛИ - Какая низость! Какие шулерские приёмы! Постепенно привыкли.

Мой случай - редкий. Во время войны 1982 года между Британией и Аргентиной, я слушал ББС на английском и болел за Британию -, хотя все прочие НАШИ умные - за Аргентину. БЕЗУМНЫЙ героизм был тогда с обеих сторон. Недавно прочитал на сайте ББС, что Тэтчер была жутко недовольна (не)объективным освещением событий и готова (ВСЯ!) наслать на них (на ББС!!!) их британский ОМОН, чесслово! Какая же дура, хотя и умница! Если бы они тогда начали лгать хоть на полпроцента, я бы переметнулся "болеть" на аргентинскую сторону, которая, наверняка!, врала не меньше, но Я её не слышал!. Нутром чую, что в мире не один я был бы такой!

Но когда Мэгги гнобила шахтеров Уэльса, насылая британский ОМОН, и даже замучила в тюрьме ирландского террориста Бобби Сандса, который всего-то просил ходить в тюрьме в цивильной робе, не в полосатой...

Из Вики:

Bobby Sands, (9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981), was an Irish Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer and member of the United Kingdom Parliament who died on hunger strike while in HM Prison Maze (also known as Long Kesh).
He was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike, in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected as a member of the United Kingdom Parliament as an Anti H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner candidate. His death resulted in a new surge of IRA recruitment and activity. The international media coverage brought attention to the hunger strikers, and the Republican movement in general, attracting both praise and criticism.

Hunger strike

The 1981 Irish hunger strike started with Sands refusing food on 1 March 1981. Sands decided that other prisoners should join the strike at staggered intervals in order to maximise publicity with prisoners steadily deteriorating successively over several months.
The hunger strike centred around the "Five Demands":
1. the right not to wear a prison uniform;
2. the right not to do prison work;
3. the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;
4. the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;
5. full restoration of remission lost through the protest.
The significance of the hunger strike was the prisoners' aim of being declared as political prisoners (or prisoners of war) and not to be classed as criminals.

Death

Three weeks later, Sands died in the prison hospital after 66 days of hunger-striking, aged 27. The original pathologist's report recorded Sands' and the other hunger strikers' causes of death as "self-imposed starvation", later amended to simply "starvation" after protests from the dead strikers' families. The coroner recorded verdicts of "starvation, self-imposed".

Political impact

Nine other IRA and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) members who were involved in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike also died after Sands. On the day of Sands' funeral, Unionist leader Ian Paisley held a memorial service outside of Belfast city hall to commemorate the victims of the IRA

Reactions

Europe
- In Milan, 5,000 students burned the Union Flag and shouted "Freedom for Ulster" during a march.
- In Ghent, students invaded the British Consulate.
- In Paris, thousands marched behind huge portraits of Sands, to chants of 'The IRA will conquer'.
- In Oslo, demonstrators threw a balloon filled with tomato sauce at Elizabeth II, the Queen of the United Kingdom.
- In the Soviet Union, Pravda described it as 'another tragic page in the grim chronicle of oppression, discrimination, terror and violence' in Ireland.
- In France, many towns and cities have streets named after Sands. Examples include Nantes, St Etienne, Le Mans Vierzon and St Denis.
- In the Republic of Ireland, his death led to riots and bus burning. IRA members allegedly unsuccessfully attempted to coerce shopkeepers into closing for a national day of mourning. In Dublin, the famous Moore Street market closed for the day of Sands funeral.[citation needed]
- Some publications such as the Soviet Pravda took a positive view of Sands, whilst others, such as the West German newspaper Die Welt, took a negative view.
- In Liverpool, England, a march in support of Sands took place from Upper Parliament Street to the Pier Head, chanting "Bobby Sands MP". It was besieged by enraged Liverpool Orange Lodge members along the whole route. The marchers were trapped between the Mersey and the Lodge members.

Asia

- In Tehran, Iran, President Bani-Sadr sent a message of condolence to the Sands family. The government renamed Winston Churchill Boulevard, the location of the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Tehran, to Bobby Sands Street, prompting the embassy to move its entrance door to Ferdowsi Avenue to avoid using Bobby Sands Street on its letterhead.
- The Hindustan Times said Margaret Thatcher had allowed a fellow Member of Parliament to die of starvation, an incident which had never before occurred "in a civilised country."
- A large monument dedicated to Irish protagonists for independence from Britain, including Bobby Sands, stands in the Waverley Cemetery in Sydney, Australia.