1820 Martyrs

That the Parliament expresses its concern that ‘more materials’ regarding the 1820 Martyrs, as referred to by the then Deputy Minister for Education and Young People, Nicol Stephen, on 5 September 2001 (Official report, c 2263), have not yet been produced; notes that the answer given by the Minister for Education and Young People, Peter Peacock, on 22 September 2003 to question S2W-2170 does not re-affirm that more materials will be produced; calls on the Scottish Executive to recognise fully this important act of civil unrest in Scottish history when working class people rose against the British state to obtain a better standard of living and demonstrated under the banner ‘Scotland Free or a Desert’; further calls on the Executive and Inverclyde Council to provide a memorial to the demonstrators, men, women and children, who were shot indiscriminately by the British Army in Greenock as they protested against the holding of political prisoners in Greenock jail; recognises the need for Scottish history to be preserved and taught to schoolchildren, and calls on the Executive to provide these materials forthwith to enlighten current schoolchildren and future generations of the struggle for better living conditions and independence.