Gareth Peirce - Birmingham Six Lawyer speaks on Torture and the ‘War on Terror’

Published: Thursday, April 28, 2011

Gareth Peirce, the London solicitor who fought for the release of the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, Maguire Family and Judith Ward, all wrongly convicted of IRA bombings in Britain in the 1970s, will give the Law Society's Annual Human Rights lecture on 10th May next in Dublin. It will be just 20 years since the release of the Birmingham Six after one of the most important appeal hearings in British legal history.

Ms Peirce, who was portrayed by Emma Thompson in the film 'In the Name of the Father', has acted more recently for young British Muslims detained in Guantanamo Bay and for supposed terrorism suspects held without trial in Belmarsh Prison in London.

Shocked by the revelations about rendition and secret CIA prisons, the outsourcing of torture by the US to brutal regimes in Central Asia, and attempts to introduce evidence obtained by torture in the UK courts, Ms Peirce has recently published a book of essays entitled "Dispatches from the Dark Side - On Torture and the Death of Justice".

She will talk about the subject of her book at the Law Society of Ireland, Blackhall Place, Dublin at 5.30 pm on Tuesday 10th May next. The lecture will be chaired by High Court Judge, Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and is open to the public.

All are welcome.

Gareth Pierce photograph courtesy of Siobhan Byrne Photography