MARCH OF SOLIDARITY - JUNE 10th
Jun 9th, 2009 by Donagh
This is a press release taken from the Survivors of Institutional Abuse Ireland (SOIAI) website about tomorrow’s March of Solidarity, which will proceed from the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square at noon. Go here to sign the petition online. Image courtesy of the Irish Times.
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A silent March of Solidarity with survivors of the institutional child abuse crimes detailed in the Ryan Report, which have shamed and appalled the country, will be held in Dublin on June 10 at noon.
The march is being organised by Survivors of Institutional Abuse Ireland (SOIAI), led by Christine Buckley of Aislinn, John Kelly of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA), Noel Barry of Right of Place, and Michael O’Brien, former mayor of Clonmel, who have invited the people of Ireland to join the survivors in the silent march.
It will start at the Garden of Remembrance at noon and proceed past the GPO to the Dail, where a petition is planned to be handed to a Cori representative and a representative of each of the 18 religious orders who participated in the 2002 indemnity deal. An invitation to accept the petition has been extended to them through Cori.
The Petition of Solidarity, which is on the SOIAI website www.irishsolidarity.com, reads:
We the people of Ireland join in solidarity and call for Justice, Accountability, Restitution and Repatriation for the unimaginable crimes committed against the children of our country by religious orders in 216 Institutions.
The survivors will carry a single banner with the words “Cherishing all of the children of the nation equally’ from the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
The survivors hope that those who participate in the march will wear a white ribbon and bring a child’s shoe “to symbolise the lives shattered in these institutions”.
The silence of the march will be broken only when survivors intone the names of each of the 216 institutions as the petition is being handed to the representatives of the religious orders.
The four lead survivors in the march will lay four wreaths –two white and two black — outside the Dail “in memory of the living and dead” in the institutions.
SOIAI hopes that as many people as possible will try to attend the march, which will coincide with the Dail debate on the Ryan Report. Those who wish to show solidarity across the country but who cannot attend the march are asked to sign and post the Petition of Solidarity (see online version| offline version) and wear a white ribbon as a sign of solidarity on June 10.
SOIAI is appealing to unions and employers to allow workers out early at lunch time so that they can join the march. The march is expected to end before 2 p.m.
If you can’t march, post the Petition of Solidarity to PO Box 11618, Swords, Co. Dublin, Ireland. The people of Ireland are also encouraged to wear a white ribbon on June 10 in solidarity with the survivors.
Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate. So to should our Government.
A Government should lead by example.
If a Government becomes the law breaker or protects the law breakers, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every person to become a law on to themselves;it invites ANARCHY.
As Martin Luther King said,”Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere”.
Let Justice be served.
Catherine O’ Riordan.
I agree Catherine, the monsters who engaged in these terrible acts were men and women before they were clergy.
Geraldine Thomas
Just a voice to add to the chorious of sympithy. A voice more watchful.
i wont go to meeting of a survivor group who is blind and deaf to the needs of survivors today.
there was the redress board then the ryan report where each survivor spoke and wrote their own stories.
why not their own views on how government and religious orders can help them PERSONALLY.
instead of things being agreed on their behalf?
there are so many areas in their lives personally where they suffer.
please do not let group committees decide what they THINK.
look what happened to the three year term of redress. time has run out for many.
who agreed to it?
our own story our own requests of support please.