IRELAND’S communists denounced the jailing of peace activist Niall Farrell as a disgrace and an affront to justice at the weekend.

The Communist Party of Ireland strongly condemned the imprisonment of Mr Farrell, serving a two-week sentence in Limerick prison for a peaceful protest against the continued use of Shannon Airport by the US war machine.

Mr Farrell had campaigned for peace and for an end to the transporting of US soldiers and munitions through the airport.

He was handed a suspended sentence in June last year after being convicted of entering a part of Shannon Airport closed to the public but refused to be deterred by the sentence, continuing his protest.

Mr Farrell said: “my actions at Shannon Airport were specifically to oppose the continuing criminality taking place there.

“Indeed as I speak, cargoes of death that have travelled freely through Shannon airport or Irish air space are raining down in an act of genocide on the helpless people of Gaza.

“It is not I who is the criminal, rather those in the Irish state who have willingly been an accessory to crimes against humanity carried out through Shannon Airport and Irish air space by the US war machine.”

The communists demanded the immediate release of Mr Farrell and the closure of all Irish air space to the US military.

They noted the contrast between Mr Farrell’s sentence and that of two bankers whose actions had brought great hardship to working people but were sentenced to “community service.”