Defend Civil Liberties: Political Status for Irish Republican Prisoners

The situation of Irish Republican prisoners in the north of Ireland continues to deteriorate; they are subject to frequent beatings and brutal strip and searches in Maghaberry. From May 2011, some have been on dirty and no-shave protest, evoking memories of the blanket men and hunger strikers of the late 70’s and early 80’s. (According to the Irish Freedom Committee – POW List of 28/8/2011, more than 13 years after the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) on 10 April 1998, there are still 62 Irish Republican Prisoners in Ireland and 2 abroad, not counting remand prisoners.) They have been imprisoned because they oppose the partition of Ireland via the British occupation of the six north eastern counties by Britain, and the GFA, which they contend merely seeks to legitimize this partition and occupation. (None would be in jail if Britain did not occupy the six north eastern counties of Ireland.)

Under the terms of the GFA, those republicans still opposing the GFA and continuing to fight for a united Ireland have lost their special category status and are treated more or less as common criminals. In August 2010, after a protest that went on since Easter of that year, an agreement was reached and signed by the prisoners representatives and by the prison authorities in Maghaberry Prison. The agreement conceded the two demands of the prisoners, freedom of movement and an end to strip searching. A body scanner was provided instead. But the screws broke the agreement within weeks. The first prisoners to go to court were brutally strip searched. Colin Duffy was strip searched 8 times for a 4 day court hearing, so brutally that he had very obvious injuries and appeared in court naked from the waist up because he refused to wear a prison uniform top.

Marian Price, a founding member of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, is one of a number of political activists held without trial. To be a member of the 32 County Sovereign Movement is by no means illegal, nor is it a criminal offence to support or join this organization. It is not proscribed by law, nor is the Irish Republican Prisoner’s Welfare Association which Marian Price helped found, and was until her arrest and illegal detention, the group’s secretary. Her apparent ‘crime’ is that she ‘poses a significant threat to society!’ She held a piece of paper for a masked man who read a speech from it.

Marian’s case is but one of many examples of the full frontal assault on civil liberties that threaten the liberty of every serious trade unionist and political activist.

We therefore support the demands of the Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group for: 1. Immediate implementation of the agreement of August 2010 granting freedom of movement and an end to strip searching. 2. Restoration of Political status to all Irish Republican political prisoners in the North of Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and abroad. 3. Repatriation of Michael Campbell and no extradition to Lithuania of his brother Liam, framed by the same secret intelligence agencies. 4. Release of Marian Campbell and Martin Corey and an end to arrest using the excuse of revoking the GFA license – this amounts to political censorship and the reintroduction of internment in another name.