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A plainclothes policeman catches a woman during a police crackdown on prostitution in Quanzhou, Fujian province, October 29, 2011. China should remove criminal and administrative penalties against sex workers which often lead to serious police abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on May 14, 2013. The abuses include torture, beatings, physical assaults, fines and arbitrary detentions of up to two years, as well as a failure to investigate crimes against sex workers by clients, bosses and state agents, according to the report. Prostitution is not permitted under Chinese law, although the industry has boomed since the country launched economic reforms in 1978. REUTERS/Stringer

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State collusion in North Irish murder "shocking": David Cameron

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Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron speaks at the The Electric City Conference in London December 6, 2012. REUTERS/Peter Macdiarmid/POOL

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron speaks at the The Electric City Conference in London December 6, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Peter Macdiarmid/POOL

LONDON | Wed Dec 12, 2012 8:03am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday there had been "shocking" levels of state collusion in the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989.

Cameron was quoting from a new report of into the killing of Finucane, saying that while it did not find that there had been an "over-arching state conspiracy" over the murder, it was still "extremely difficult reading".

Finucane, whose clients included members of the anti-British Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla group, was shot dead in front of his family by pro-British paramilitaries, and there have since been long-running allegations of state collusion in the murder, one of the most controversial in 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

Speaking in parliament, Cameron said of the report: "It sets out the extent of collusion in areas such as identifying, targeting and murdering Mr. Finucane, supplying a weapon and facilitating its later disappearance and deliberately obstructing subsequent investigations."

He repeated a British government apology to Finucane's relatives but said he would not order a full public inquiry, as the family have been demanding.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; editing by Stephen Addison)
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Comments (3)
Tiu wrote:
He should read “Fenian Fire” by Chirstie Campbell, a seemingly well researched history book which discloses the very close and intimiate involvement of the British Government in the formation of the IRA, facilitating the transfer of 1,000’s of Irish American Civil War veterans to Ireland and the UK, with the aim of discrediting the Irish Home Rule movement led by Parnell.
Curiously enough Salisbury was also involved in setting up the current modern secret services. This was their first task!

Dec 12, 2012 8:20am EST  --  Report as abuse
DeanMJackson wrote:
Tiu, who do you think it was who created the new IRA in 1969 and turned Sinn Fein shortly after that? Remember what was going on in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s? The Catholic Civil Rights Movement was taking place. Well, who came along in 1969 to effectively destroy that movement…the new IRA.

Who benefited by the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland? The Conservative Party and their allies within the British security state apparatus (military/intelligence), who were in a Cold War with the USSR. The Conservatives needed all the votes they could get in Parliament, and what group in the UK is more Conservative than Northern Irish Protestants?

Get the picture?

Dec 12, 2012 2:53pm EST  --  Report as abuse
Tiu wrote:
Couldn’t agree more DeanMJackson, now and then I take the bike over and ride around Ulster and there’s always a fresh Union Jack flying everywhere you go. Head into Wales you only see the David’s Cross, in England it’s the George Cross, and in Scotland the Andrew’s Cross. You rarely see a Union Jack in the UK nowadays.
The conservative Ulstermen are some of the most obnoxious hate-filled people I’ve ever talked to. Their hatred of Catholics is pathological.

Dec 12, 2012 4:59pm EST  --  Report as abuse
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