James Joyce Ramble dedicated to slain Irish journalist Lyra McKee and others in the pursuit of truth.
Dissident republicans are being blamed for killing 29-year-old Lyra McKee after violence broke out during police searches in Londonderry on Thursday, April 18.
Ms. McKee’s partner said she had been left without “the love of my life”.
Sara Canning, speaking at a vigil in Derry, said
Prime Minister Theresa May said the killing was “shocking and senseless”.Ms. McKee was a journalist who “died doing her job with great courage”, added Mrs. May.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) described Ms. McKee as “one of the most promising journalists” in Northern Ireland.
The leaders of Northern Ireland’s six biggest political parties said they were “united in rejecting those responsible for this heinous crime”.
In a joint statement, they said: “Lyra’s murder was also an attack on all the people of this community, an attack on the peace and the democratic process.”It was a pointless and futile act to destroy the progress made over the last 20 years, which has the overwhelming support of people everywhere”.Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar said Ms McKee “changed lives” as a journalist and an activist and would continue to do so.
Irish people stood in “solidarity with the people of Derry” after the murder,” he said.”We stand with you as strong as your walls and for as long as they stand,” he added,”This was an attack not just on one citizen – it was an attack on all of us, our nation and our freedoms.”
Ms. McKee was a journalist of “courage, style and integrity” and a “woman of great commitment and passion”, according to the NUJ’s Séamus Dooley. “I have no doubt that it was that commitment which led to her presence on the streets of the Creggan last night, observing a riot situation in the city,” he added.
Filmmaker Alison Millar, who was due to have dinner with Ms McKee on Friday night, said her friend had been “stolen from us”. Lyra was the most beautiful human being,” she said. “She was compassionate, she was honest, she was funny… she had so many friends and was loved by so many people.”
In 2018 an estimated 54 journalists lost their lives on assignment. Source, Committee to Protect Journalists.
For a free press and Human Rights.
Ulysses was banned in America for a short time and so it is fitting that we cast a light each yearon continuing repression of literary expression and honest journalism throughout the world.
We have petitioned in the past on behalf of writers such as Vaclav Havel, Xu Wenli, Aung San Suu Ky, Daniel Pearl, Anna Politkovskaya, and Rael Badwawi, who is still at this writing in a Saudi Arabian prison sentenced to 10 years for merely writing words of dissent.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are two such individuals now unjustly held in a Myanmar prison for covering the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya since December, 2017 and we again wish to remind people of their plight.
The two reporters had been working on a Reuters investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men who were buried in a mass grave in northern Rakhine state after being hacked to death or shot by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist neighbors and soldiers.
After Reuters published its report on the killings on Feb. 8, 2018, calls have mounted for the release of the two reporters. The United States said at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council that Myanmar had “the gall to blame the media” for the situation in Rakhine and demanded that the reporters be freed.
“For the crime of reporting the truth, the Burmese (Myanmar) government arrested and imprisoned the reporters,” said Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “Unhindered media access is vitally important. Journalists like the two imprisoned Reuters reporters are an indispensable source of information.”
Britain, France, the Netherlands and Kazakhstan also called at the meeting for the release of the reporters.
Myanmar U.N. Ambassador Hau Do Suan said Myanmar recognizes freedom of the press and the journalists were not arrested for reporting a story, but were accused of “illegally possessing confidential government documents”.
Nearly 690,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine and taken refuge in neighboring Bangladesh since the Myanmar military launched a crackdown on insurgents in August 2018, according to the United Nations.
We join Amnesty International USA in demanding their immediate release.
Contact: Martin Hanley at 781.367.7103