On 30 January the well-known 74-year-old Irish anti-imperialist activist, Sean Garland, member of the Central Executive Committee of the Workers' Party of Ireland and former party chairman, was once more arrested outside the Party's head office in Dublin following an application by the USA for his extradition.

He had already been arrested by the British Special Forces in 2005 while attending the annual conference of the Workers' Party in Belfast in Northern Ireland, again in response to an extradition request by the American authorities on trumped up charges of 'a Communist conspiracy to undermine the American dollar'. However, his extradition was prevented by a powerful wave of international solidarity in his favour. The facts show that the action being taken against him is blatant political persecution seeking to undermine democratic rights and the workers' movement and revealing the real objectives behind the EU-USA extradition agreement and the EU ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation.

Does the Council condemn the inadmissible arrest and political persecution of Sean Garland as an infringement of democratic rights and freedoms? Does it agree that he should be immediately released?