HISTORIC IRA REALIGNMENT

Posted by admin on July 28, 2012

A regrouping of previously distinct breakaway IRA groups is being described as the most significant development within physical-force republicanism since the Provisional IRA split in 1997. In a statement released yesterday [Thursday] evening, the new IRA grouping said that following extensive consultation, the three organisations “have come together within a united structure under a single leadership subservient to the constitution of the Irish Republican Army”. A completely new command structure and army council has been established to oversee the running of the new organisation which will combine the resources of all three former groups. It is believed members of the three original groups have already been briefed on the merger. The transition was helped by the fact that a majority of the new IRA’s leadership previously held senior roles within the Provisional IRA at various stages of that organisation’s existence. The new organisation does not include the Continuity IRA. In addition, one or two elements which operated under the name Oglaigh na hEireann [the Irish synonym for IRA] may not have been brought into the new group, particularly in Belfast. In a statement issued by the regrouped organisation’s army council, the IRA said it remained “committed to the full realisation of the ideals and principles enshrined in the proclamation of 1916”. “In recent years the establishment of a free and independent Ireland has suffered set backs due to the failures among the leaders of Irish nationalism and fractures within republicanism,” it said. “The root cause of conflict in our country is the subversion of the nation’s inalienable right to self determination and this has yet to be addressed. “Instead the Irish people have been sold a phony peace rubber stamped by the token legislature in Stormont.” It said the continuing British denial of Irish self-determination remained the source of the conflict. “It is Britain, not the IRA that has chosen provocation and conflict,” it said. “The IRA’s mandate for armed struggle derives from Britain’s denial of the fundamental right of the Irish people to national self-determination and sovereignty. “So long as Britain persists in its denial of national and democratic rights in Ireland then the IRA will continue to assert those rights. “The necessity of armed actions in pursuit of Irish freedom can be avoided through the removal of the British military presence from our country, the dismantling of their armed militia and declaration of an internationally observed timescale that details the dismantling of British political interference in our country.” It is unclear what motivated the new development, but the breakaway organisations have reported a surge in support since Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness shook hands and greeted the English queen, Elizabeth Windsor, as part of the British royal jubilee celebrations last month. The increased size and relative unity within the organisation will directly challenge long-standing efforts by the political establishment in the North to portray republican militants as small or “micro” groups. For the moment, there seems no possibility of an engagement between the two, but in the future, the organisation’s new combined structure could allow a single, coherent channel of communication. North Belfast Sinn Fein assembly member Gerry Kelly recently described the breakaway IRA groups as “small groupings” but insisted that his party had sought to engage with them. “They have no right to carry out armed actions, the vast majority of which are directed against civilians in republican areas, in the name of Irish republicanism,” he said. One of the group’s involved in the merger, Republican Action Against Drugs, has operated a controversial vigilante campaign against criminals within the nationalist community in Derry.   However, last month it began to target the PSNI, triggering a wave of raids and searches in which dozens of homes were ransacked, most recently that of the Sinn Fein Mayor, Kevin Campbell. Other units or groupings involved in the merger include one which carried out an attack which killed a member of the PSNI in County Tyrone last year, as well as others which have used the name Oglaigh na hEireann, or simply ‘the IRA’. While the full extent of the regrouping has yet to be confirmed, it has been reported that the new IRA has membership ‘nationwide’. Meanwhile, in an apparently separate development, the Continuity IRA (CIRA) says it has expelled several members and has a new leadership. A statement issued in Dublin said those acting in a criminal manner and using the name of the CIRA would be subject to “military action”. The group said it remains determined to continue its armed campaign in the north.  The CIRA has claimed responsibility for several attacks in recent years, including one in 2009 in which a member of the PSNI was killed. There has as yet been no direct response to the development by Sinn Fein or other IRA groups.

Martin Corey: Exposing the truth behind Britain’s role in Ireland

Posted by Jim on July 22, 2012

Shake Hands With Injustice

Posted by Jim on

Guest Writer Martin Galvin writes an extensive piece on the history of the Gerrry McGeough case.

 
One former IRA commander was presented for a “royal handshake” while one suspected former Volunteer was presented with a more customary brand of royal invitation for carrying out IRA commands. Gerry McGeough found himself on a dubious honours list. His royal invitation, engraved by three Queen’s Bench appeals judges, “invited” the Tyrone Republican to remain a guest of their “gracious queen” at HMP Maghaberry. It was an offer he could not refuse.
The Stormont Agreement says that credit towards 2 year early release must be accorded those “sentenced outside Northern Ireland” on pre-1998 conflict related offenses. The crown nullified these terms and summarily dispensed with the 7 1/2 years McGeough had spent on IRA charges in German and American prisons.
Those who choreographed the “do-able” handshake did not permit inconvenient topics like Republican prisoners or crown murder victims, to intrude on their discussions. Such matters were relegated for mention after the jubilee tour, when neither Cameron nor his queen need take note. The week began with a queen’s handshake symbolizing change and ended with a queen’s bench meting out the same old injustice.
Context
Few legal battles embodied so many issues and inspired so much emotional reaction as that of Gerry McGeough. Dail deputies and Stormont MLAs have journeyed to Maghaberry and urged his release. Americans have given help to his family that once would have been provided by Green Cross, An Cumann Cabhrach and Tyrone PDF.
Meanwhile DUP members, who scarcely conceal contempt for Republicans with whom they sit in partnership at Stormont, attended his trial to spew venom at someone they see as an unrepentant Republican.
Nigel Dodds called it “outrageous” that anyone was “demanding the release of such a person from prison.” Arlene Foster decried any “special treatment” while demanding McGeough serve his 20 year sentence “in full”, apparently without normal remission, much less the two year early release accorded to other prisoners. Maurice Morrow whinges about public monies paid for McGeough’s legal defense, while collecting public monies as Councillor, Lord and MLA triple-jobber.
In order to understand the issues and emotions running through this case, it is important to begin with the crucial political debate that foreshadowed McGeough’s imprisonment.
Debate
The March 2007 election climaxed a watershed period. Sinn Fein had stamped party approval on the re-named Royal Ulster Constabulary, and urged supporters to ratify this move at the polls. The vote would launch a new era of justice.
Patten, they claimed, had opened the constabulary ranks to nationalists. Future chief constables and someday even justice ministers would take up their posts subject to a Sinn Fein veto. Constabulary boards and district partnerships were touted as controls which Republicans would work to “put manners on the RUC.” A widely quoted Andersonstown News editorial predicted it would be “fun” bringing the RUC to heel. Calls to “trust the leadership” swayed many doubters.
Other equally sincere veteran Republicans, Brendan Hughes and John Kelly among them, felt a moral duty to say no. The RUC was the cutting edge of British repression. RUC hands were bloodstained by shoot-to-kill, or murders carried out in collusion with loyalists. Hundreds had been locked in British prisons, on confessions taken under torture and whitewashed with perjury in Diplock courts. The re-badged RUC-PSNI would merely dress up British law and rule in new insignias and uniforms. The constabulary would be commanded, trained and deployed by RUC veterans.
These skeptical Republicans feared that familiar nationalist faces on constabulary boards would become cosmetic fronts allowing the British to camouflage repression behind the mask of powerless public talking shops.
Gerry McGeough was among those veteran Republicans who stood against any nationalist endorsement for the British constabulary. Without party machinery or funding, he took the debate against the RUC to the same Fermanagh-South Tyrone venues where he had once campaigned for Bobby Sands MP.
McGeough said this battle for Republican hearts and minds was really about future elections, when dreamers of fun putting manners on the RUC had awakened to the dawn of continuing British repression.
With his votes cast but not yet counted, McGeough walked out to retrieve an item from his car. He never returned. The renamed constabulary had pocketed its mandate and was about to take a historic first step in its version of a new era of justice. The candidate was surrounded in a premeditated arrest by waiting RUC-PSNI officers.
Gerry McGeough, over fifty, married and settled with four young children, was charged with joining the Provisional IRA in 1975, and, taking part in a 1981 IRA ambush of an armed member of the UDR, in which both were seriously wounded.
The new era had begun with the new constabulary making an old fashioned retaliatory arrest of an Independent Republican whose real offense seemed to be campaigning for election against them.
Delays
McGeough’s solicitors filed for dismissal based on decades of delay. The Tyrone Republican could have been arrested 20 years earlier, simply by lodging an extradition warrant during his 4 year confinement in a notorious German bunker prison, or during his 3 years in an American jail on IRA weapons charges.
McGeough lived openly in Tyrone, joined in BBC studio debates, attended public rallies, and gave speeches outside constabulary barracks with his campaign posters prominently displayed.  Instead the crown moved against him only in March 2007, outside the polling centre where his votes were being tallied.
A British judge had refused to charge RUC members for Nora McCabe’s murder on July 9, 1981, and for perjury during the cover-up which followed, even after television film belied their cover story of rioting and petrol bombers. Too late, the judge said. Charges delayed so many years would be a clear abuse of process and inevitably dismissed.
Somehow this same judge applied different rules to Gerry McGeough, for an incident which occurred four weeks before Nora McCabe was murdered by the RUC.
Human rights observers from British-Irish Rights Watch and the Committee for the Administration of Justice were ordered out of the courtroom. British pledges that McGeough was free to return to Tyrone were disavowed. McGeough was blamed that no extradition warrant was lodged or that no attempt was made to bring charges when he returned home. RUC-PSNI members were blameless for the ongoing cover-up of Nora McCabe’s murder.
If the heralded new era meant anything how could the same judges still bend the same rules in favor of the RUC-PSNI and across the backs of nationalists?
Undeclared Amnesty
Soon after Gerry McGeough’s arrest, the British began to admit a litany of state force murders and murder cover-ups of innocent nationalists.
Cameron euphemistically called the Bloody Sunday murders, “unjustified and unjustifiable killings”. These are polite words for murder or manslaughter. Cover stories given under oath by these troopers before Widgery or Saville must accordingly be perjury. No arrests of any of these troopers have yet been made, including named troopers identified in multiple killings.
Many fear that the newly announced 4 year constabulary investigation will deliver more years of delay and disappointment for these courageous families. Will this inquiry end in judicial terminations like Nora McCabe’s murder, or sham trials like those which whitewashed the murders of John Downes and Majella O’Hare?  Will the constabulary be more interested in pursuing IRA membership charges than British Army murder charges?
The families of some other victims received apologies but no arrests. In more politically sensitive cases, such as the Ballymurphy Massacre, Pat Finucane’s assassination, or the Dublin-Monaghan Bombings, the crown refused or stonewalled any inquiry.
No one predicts arrests of any members of the British Army or RUC who colluded in murders by their loyalist agents or tortured nationalists at interrogation centers and then sent them to Long Kesh or Armagh, with perjured accounts of voluntary confessions.
The crown seems to have bestowed an undeclared amnesty on members of the British Army and RUC which does not apply to those Republicans like Gerry McGeough who speak against the British administration.
Diplock Court
A Diplock trial was ordered. Those who design repressive British laws choose their terms with deliberate irony. Words like ‘temporary’, ‘emergency’ or ‘prevention of terrorism’ invariably create provisions and powers which are permanent, lasting and routinely used to terrorize nationalists.
These non-jury courts replaced Internment, with show trials that could be counted upon to dispose of unwanted Republicans. Diplock courts were “abolished” which meant never to be used except in every case where the crown deems them useful.
Only a Diplock court would entertain, much less credit, the testimony against McGeough. There was no identification by any witness. McGeough was forcibly stripped and photographed after his arrest. Photos of an old wound were displayed as the crown speculated that it might possibly be a bullet wound, and possibly sustained as far back as 1981.
A bullet fragment with no forensics or DNA link to McGeough was introduced. The smashed fragment may or may not have been the same caliber fired by then UDR member Sammy Brush.
A key Garda witness, known as the “The Badger”, was named by former MI6 officer Fred Holroyd as someone linked to British intelligence.
Pages from a fictional novel authored by Gerry McGeough were read into the record as evidence of intent. Finally a political asylum application, whose confidentiality is a cornerstone of international law, was admitted without hesitation.
During the trial McGeough suffered two heart attacks. The judge ordered constables to monitor McGeough’s treatment at the hospital where he was confined, and to retrieve his medical records.
In 1916, British commanders ordered Army doctors to keep James Connolly alive until British troopers could shoot him. Nearly a century later, it seemed a British judge feared Gerry McGeough might die from a heart attack before the crown could jail him.
The verdict was a foregone conclusion. The flimsy evidence somehow was pronounced inescapable proof of guilt. The crown judge refused to wait for medical documents and directed that McGeough be taken forthwith to Maghaberry.  Senior DUP members celebrated outside the courtroom.
Maghaberry
McGeough was jailed for an IRA ambush that took place on June 13, 1981. Republican prisoners, in June 1981, were in the midst of a Hunger Strike, forced upon them by years of beatings and brutality, much of it accompanying mirror searches or strip-searches. Today in Maghaberry the same sort of brutal strip-searches are being inflicted, despite the agreement of August 2010, to halt the practice.
On his sentence date McGeough was subjected to such a search. He ended up in a hospital instead of court. His solicitors noted that brutality of this type could be life threatening.
David Ford’s appointment, with Sinn Fein backing, brought no protection to Republican prisoners from the same sort of callous brutality that Brendan Hughes and Bobby Sands resisted.
The judge imposed a twenty year sentence, angry that Gerry McGeough made no apologies for the IRA.
Reviews And Appeals
The Diplock judge’s verdict and sentence did not end McGeough’s legal fight. The Stormont Agreement mandates early release for those imprisoned 2 years on pre-1998 offenses. The carefully crafted document specifically referenced those “sentenced outside Northern Ireland” for qualifying offenses and noted that the rights of individual prisoners must be protected under international law.
The provision might have been drawn up with McGeough’s case in mind. In August 1988 McGeough had been arrested on the Dutch-German border and charged with actions arising from the IRA campaign. He remained in a notorious German bunker prison until 1992.He was then transported under an extradition warrant to America on charges that he had supplied weapons for the IRA in 1982. Gerry McGeough was imprisoned approximately 7 1/2 years outside northern Ireland, on charges that would have been qualifying IRA offenses in the six counties. He was entitled to early release but was denied by the crown.
McGeough filed for a judicial review to challenge the British. His solicitors cited more than a dozen comparable cases where prominent Republicans had been accorded early release credit for jail time spent in other jurisdictions through a British legal device, termed a Royal Prerogative for Mercy (RPM).
Ironically the matter was assigned to Seamus Treacy. While an idealistic young barrister a quarter century earlier, Treacy had traveled to Germany as a human rights observer and adviser at the request of McGeough’s co-defendant Gerry Hanratty. Treacy expressed genuine anger at the conditions and injustices which Hanratty and McGeough suffered. Now donning the wig and robes of a British judge, Treacy atoned for his youthful idealism by wiping out those years from the crown ledgers. The “change agenda” had struck again.
McGeough appealed again. Within days after the royal handshake, McGeough got the brand of royal invitation conferred on many Republicans. His appeal was denied and he was kept at HMP Maghaberry.
The crown court redefined the words “outside northern Ireland” to mean only Britain and Ireland, without explanation why more expansive terms had deliberately been written into the agreement. Subtle technical distinctions between McGeough’s case and the dozen comparable cases introduced by his solicitors were contrived. For good measure, Britain’s Weston Park pledge that those wanted on pre-1988 offenses would not be pursued, was hastily discarded as nothing more than an unfulfilled wish, with no legal effect.
Ironically one of the first Republican prisoners to commiserate with McGeough was Martin Corey, who within days would find himself the recipient of his own “royal invitation”.
Settled
It is said that Gerry McGeough will only serve 2 years with little more than 6 months to go. To paraphrase the old saying made famous by IRA author Ernie O’Malley, it is easy to sleep on another man’s 2 years.
However the early release provided by the Stormont deal is by no means guaranteed. Ford and his parole commissioners inspire little confidence. If released McGeough would remain on British license well into his 70s. Martin Corey and Marian Price are even now examples of internment by license. No one would be surprised if still more injustice awaits Gerry McGeough.
This case began more than 5 years ago with a soul-searching debate amongst Republicans. Many believed that endorsing the re-named RUC-PSNI and joining British constabulary boards would enable Sinn Fein to housetrain the British constabulary away from injustice. Other Republicans feared that the British would tout Sinn Fein’s backing and constabulary board seats, to make the party accomplices in British injustice. For Gerry McGeough, Marian Price, Martin Corey, and so many other victims of British oppression imposed in the queen’s name, the photograph of the royal handshake has forever sealed and settled that debate.

Hugh Hamilton (HH) of WBAI Pacifica Radio interviews Bernadette

Posted by Jim on June 30, 2012

  HH: Marian Price is a former Irish Republican militant who first gained

 international notoriety nearly forty years ago following her conviction

 in the 1973 bombing of London’s Old Bailey.

 She was subsequently freed in 1980 when she was thought to be on the

 brink of death from severe anorexia nervosa and suffering multiple

 complications from hundreds of forced feedings while on hunger strike

 in prison.

 But now, her supports say that Ms Price, who is also known by her

 married name, Marian McGlinchey, has been illegally imprisoned in

 northern Ireland for more than a year on the basis of secret evidence

 that neither she nor her lawyers have been allowed to see. They say she

 is a political prisoner effectively detained without trial, sentence or

 release date.

 And unless the courts intervene she could spend the rest of her life in

 prison.

 In fact just this past weekend the authorities issued a statement

 saying that she’s been transferred to hospital on the advice of

 psychiatrists but remains in custody.

 Among those demanding justice for Marian Price and calling for her

 immediate release is the noted northern Ireland civil rights leader and

 former Member of Parliament Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey.

 Ms McAliskey was herself imprisoned for her part in defending a

 Nationalist ghetto which was under attach northern Ireland police and

 she’s currently a leader in the campaign to free Marian Price. She

 joins us now. Good Afternoon, Ms McAliskey.

 BDM: Hi. How are you?

 HH: Very well, thank you and thank you very much for joining us. You’ve

 said of Marian Price that while she’s not the only political prisoner

 who’s being detained in this manner, her case is urgent and becoming

 critical. How so?

 BDM: Marian is not the only person in prison at the minute in violation

 of due process.

 And while that’s important, it’s important to set the context:

 following the peace process and the restoration of a democratic

 assembly in northern Ireland and the restoration of justice and

 policing to northern Ireland, all of these matters should be matters

 for due process of law and for the democratic process.

 However, running along side that, we have still got essentially secret

 policing, secret intelligence run directly by the military

 intelligence, MI5 in London, through the UK Secretary of State, who is

 a British appointment, and seems to over-ride the democratic authority

 of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

 And in Marian’s case the urgency relates directly to the impact of this

 unwarranted imprisonment on her physical and emotional health.

 There are charges pending against her in that she is alleged to have

 supported a terrorist organisation by holding up a piece of paper at a

 rally in a rainstorm from which somebody else read.

 And she was granted bail on that charge.

 But the Secretary of State over-rode the court’s decision to grant bail

 and ordered her detention in prison.

 And she’s now been in there for over a year.

 HH: And what is her state of health right now? I’ve read that over the

 weekend – I think on Friday – she was moved to a hospital?

 BDM: The present position is that as the result of her deteriorating

 health and the refusal of the the Parole Commissioner, the Secretary of

 State or Minister of Justice to exercise their authority and restore

 her bail, an urgent alert was made to the United Nations Rapporteur on

 Health.

 It’s important to remember that when Marian was on hunger strike,

 unlike the later hunger strikes when people literally starved, Marian

 Price as a young woman was forced fed three times a day by having a

 tube pushed down a throat, she was forcibly restrained and liquid

 nutrition was poured down her throat three times a day.

 If she brought that up the process was repeated.

 And that experience is what led to her anorexia nervosa and eating

 disorders. And (it) also exacerbated a condition that had existed from

 childhood relating to tuberculosis and it’s impact on her emotional and

 mental health because of the trauma of the re-incarceration in that

 environment.

 So the was a UN alert and the UN Rapporteur on Health, Anand Grover,

 who’s an Indian lawyer, an excellent, excellent defender of health, he

 sent a UN Inspector to the prison.

 And the UN Inspector was denied access to the prison.

 But had finally secured an inspection meeting for today.

 On Friday, the Chief Medical Officer of the prison issued a press

 statement that Marian had been transferred to hospital.

 But when the press statement was issued Marian was still in the prison.

 And she was fundamentally being coerced to agree to go to a psychiatric

 unit outside of the prison despite a medical report that she was not

 suffering from any form of psychosis – she was suffering from mental

 and emotional trauma directly as a result of her environment.

 And that medical report recommended that she be released to the care of

 her family to recover her health so that she could answer the charges.

 So it looked on Friday that the authorities were attempting to remove

 her from the prison environment to head-off the UN inspection.

 Or alternatively, attempting either to discredit Marian by putting her

 in a position where she would be refusing medical help.

 The other alternative to the prison authorities was of course to use

 use The Mental Health Act which would allow them to place her in

 psychiatric care against her will.

 But from their point of view, to have done that, to have used the

 Mental Health Act and forcibly placed her in a psychiatric unit, would

 then have undermined their capacity to charge her with any offence

 because she couldn’t be both mentally incapable and mentally capable of

 being charged.

 So at present, Marian is in hospital we believe…but we are unsure, at

 this precise point, as to whether that’s a temporary assessment within

 the prison regime.

 We’re waiting today to hear the outcome of the United Nations medical

 visit.

 And we have at this point no idea whether that will lead to a

 recommendation again that she be released that will be acted upon or

 whether she will be returned to the prison environment.

 It’s very important that people do campaign and do contact,

 particularly those Irish-American and other politicians in America, who

 played such a role in setting up the peace process, to recognise that

 these violations are still going on.

 So, on the one hand we have Her Majesty the Queen feeling it’s safe

 enough for her to stand on Irish soil and be greeted by the leader of

 Sinn Fein in the new assembly but it’s not safe for Marian Price to

 stand on the same ground because she has no access to due process of

 law.

 HH: We’re talking with the noted northern Ireland civil rights leader

 and former Member of Parliament, Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey.

 We’re discussing the case of Marian Price who her supporters say has

 been illegally imprisoned in northern Ireland as a political prisoner

 for more than a year on the basis of secret evidence that neither she

 nor her lawyers have been allowed to see.

 There is growing international campaign, including here in the United

 States. In fact, on Wednesday there’s going to be an evening in

 solidarity with Marian Price here in New York at O’Lunney’s – I’ll give

 you more information about that a little later on in the programme.

 But if you have questions about Marian Price or if you’ve got questions

 for Bernadette McAliskey will take them at 212-209-2900. (repeats

 number)

 Ms McAliskey, the question arises, particularly for those people who

 might not be very familiar with the situation in Ireland and in

 northern Ireland. The question arises…Why is this issue important?

 I’ve seen you as quoted as saying that: “Ms Price’s case reflects the

 increasing powerlessness of global organisations, including the United

 Nations, to defend human rights.”

 I’d like you to expand on that and explain why that is relevant to this

 case.

 BDM: Hugh, I’m losing your voice intermittently.

 HH: I was just asking, you’re quoted as saying that – The Marian Price

 case: “It reflects the increasing powerlessness of global

 organisations, including the UN” and I’d like you to explain what you

 mean by that.

 BDM: Yes. I think what is very important for people to recognise that

 what is happening to Marian is not an isolated case.

 While it’s happening here in northern Ireland and we have had to call

 upon the UN Rapporteur for Health to exercise his authority to examine

 it, the fundamental disrespect that the prison authorities here treat

 that, as if to say:” “what business is it of his?” and try to avoid

 their responsibilities is, although in a very small and certainly less

 traumatic than for example what is happening in Syria what is happening

 in Palestine, what happened in Egypt, what happened in Iraq, what goes

 on throughout the world is not only in unstable, if you’d like,

 political societies or clear dictatorships, but the confidence and the

 arrogance with which many of the western powers, who created the UN in

 the middle of the twentieth century, and actually undermine that

 organisation in both its protection of the UN Charter on Human Rights,

 on it’s collective role for peace keeping, for democracy, for

 compliance with UN resolutions…

 I think Marian’s case is symptomatic of those things we see every day:

 the impunity with which Israel flouts UN resolutions in regard to

 Palestine, the manner in which Syrians are now just massacring their

 own people, and the fact that Guantanamo Bay, despite the promises of

 Obama, is still there. That we still haven’t had the truth on

 renditions…

 That people can still be imprisoned without due process and that many

 countries, particularly in the very powerful western alliances, feel

 that UN resolutions and UN protections are for protecting them from

 their enemies but not people from powerful states.

 And that’s what I was saying. That Marian’s case is not just something

 peculiar to the northern Ireland situation.

 The increasing confidence with which fundamental human rights and due

 process and protections are being ignored – I think is frightening.

 HH: We’re talking with the noted northern Ireland civil right leader

 and former Member of Parliament Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey. We’re

 discussing the case of Marian Price who her supporters say has been

 illegally imprisoned in northern Ireland for more than a year on the

 basis secret evidence that neither she nor her lawyers have been

 allowed to see.

 They say that she is a political prisoner effectively being detained

 without trial, sentence or release date and without the intervention of

 the courts could end up spending the rest of her life in prison.

 There’s been some discussion and debate on this question of whether Ms

 Price was out on parole as we say in the United States or licence as

 you say in northern Ireland.

 There was an argument that said she wasn’t out on parole at all but had

 in fact been granted a full pardon, The Royal Prerogative of Mercy,

 when she was released from prison in 1980.

 Are you in a position to clarify exactly which of those two

 situations…

 BDM: Yes. There are two clear positions on that and there’s a very

 clear legal position on it.

 Marian Price was released on a royal pardon.

 Now what the Secretary of State claimed when he imprisoned her was that

 she had been imprisoned on two separate charges and that she got royal

 pardon on one but was released on parole on the other.

 Now the likelihood of that is very small. That you would actually get

 out on a pardon… you know, half of you would be on pardon and the

 other half would be on parole… since it’s only one person.

 But the law is perfectly clear and there’s a lot of British case law to

 substantiate that. The law is perfectly clear:

 that if the information and advice provided to Marian Price at the time

 of her release was such as to give her a reasonable belief, that is to

 say the belief that any reasonable person would hold, that she had been

 released on royal pardon then the law must accept she was released on

 royal pardon.

 And that’s where the legal battle is.

 So that there is a precedent in UK and European law.

 If she believed at the time of her release and ever since that it was a

 pardon, then she had a legitimate expectation that that’s what it was.

 Now the matter could be readily resolved if the document of release and

 pardon or parole was produced.

 But when the northern Ireland Secretary of State was asked to produced

 it he said it had been mislaid. It had been lost.

 He claims it was lost in the period after which she was sent to prison.

 And it also appears that in the history of the British state, Marian

 Price’s pardon, that is to say the physical document signed by Her

 Majesty, is the only one such document to ever have disappeared.

 And you have to really ask yourself questions about that.

 HH: The question arises: Why is this happening to Marian Price now?

 BDM: I think it’s happening for a number of reasons.

 There are parts of it have very, for me, have resonance for the arrest

 of my own daughter and the context in which that happened at the

 beginning of the peace process. I think the normalisation and the peace

 process here has reached a position where the voices of Republican

 dissidents have, according to the state, to be silenced.

 There are many, many, particularly, in the present economic climate,

 there are many poorer people, particularly the youth who have not had

 any social, political or economic benefits from the peace.

 There are people of course who have had significant benefits.

 And overall there is an absence of war. There is political stability.

 There has been economic development.

 But large sections of the most impoverished people have not seen any

 economic or social benefits from the peace.

 And it’s amongst those young people, many of whom suffer from

 trans-generational trauma of war, and many who fundamentally disagree

 with the politics of their former political leaders.

 That dissidence has steadily grown – fueled by the lack of economic and

 social opportunity, fueled by the lack of any understanding of that

 group of disaffected people or lack of any opportunity for them to

 articulate what their grievances are.

 So as the dissidence has grown, the repression has grown and the

 numbers of people in prisons have grown.

 And then with that we begin to see again the development of a prisoner

 support constituency.

 And I think the government has decided, which is fairly traditional

 here as well as elsewhere, to use repression as a means of stifling

 discontent and dissent.

 And Marian Price is therefore identifiable as a kind of flexing of the

 government’s muscle – that they’re not afraid to take on a woman –

 they’re not afraid to take on a Republican of long standing.

 And the irony of course is: that the young man who went to London on

 the same bombing expedition with Marian Price is now a senior member in

 the government.

 HH: When this case was brought to my attention by my colleague, Sandy

 Boyer, and I asked him for some additional information, I was rather

 surprised by the volume of information that is out there and which had

 not yet come to my attention.

 And I’m wondering whether, in your estimation, the case of Marian Price

 is resonating as extensively as it should within the Irish-American

 community. The…

 BDM: No! I think there are two things happening there, Hugh.

 The first is: the degree of co-option, which to me is sad.

 The degree of co-option and, in my understanding of the word,

 corruption of people’s principles that have come with their

 participation now in the administration of government.

 It is always harder to say that things are not going well -always

 harder to say things are wrong when you have a stake in the government

 as opposed to when you have no stake in that class.

 And Irish-Americans were very influential in helping to develop

 peaceful structures here, in helping to bring about political

 stability, but they have a stake in that stability so they now have a

 stake in the suppression of information.

 They now have a stake in that stability so they now have a stake in

 denying the imperfections.

 And I think that makes life very, very difficult then for principled

 opposition for highlighting these issues and it makes it all the more

 important for people whose principles are justice – regardless of its

 nationality. Whose demand is for peace – regardless of its geographic

 location – to stand up for the principles of due process and of human

 rights.

 HH: So what’s next in the international campaign for Marian Price?

 BDM: There are a number of groups supporting Marian locally.

 There’s a Free Marian website which people can get to if you just go

 on… Marian Price… if you google Marian Price …Free Marian…

 you’ll get that website. I think it’s freemarian.nr

 The prison crises group of which I am a member is drawing the

 international parallels and seeking solidarity with other human rights

 organisations fighting against unjust imprisonment in other places. So

 we’re building that. We have produced a pamphlet. There are a number of

 local rallies.

 We are building in the United Kingdom; I’ve just spoken in Glasgow.

 Sandy Boyer, as he has done for as long as I have known him – forty

 years – championed human rights in Ireland, continues to build in the

 United States and we are building across Europe as well.

 It is a long, slow process that sounds like we’re doing great things.

 It’s a slow process because many of those we would have relied on in

 the past are now in denial because of their stake in the current

 administration.

 But we continue to highlight it. We continue to build. We continue to

 draw the levels of solidarity.

 And her very good legal team continues to challenge in the court.

 So we will await the outcome of the UN visit. We hope to have a

 judicial review of the Parole Commission’s latest decision.

 And we just keep battling on until we have her released.

 The sadness is, that all that Marian Price is asking for, all she is

 asking for, is that she be granted the bail that she has repeatedly

 been given in the court.

 The original charge against her has in fact been dismissed by the court

 because of the violation of not bringing the case to trial for over a

 year.

 A new charge has been instigated for which no evidence has been

 produced – that’s the one about the secret MI5 evidence. But she was

 granted bail on that charge as well.

 And she is demanding only so that she be released from prison and

 allowed to recover her health at home so that she defend herself

 against these charges.

 She is not asking to be released from prison and not charged with

 anything simply on the grounds that she’s is ill.

 The position is that she has been charged without evidence. She has

 been denied bail.

 The incarceration in prison, for the greater part in solitary

 confinement, has re-traumatised her from the early experience and she

 asks only for her right to be released as the court has ordered so that

 she can go home, regain her health and answer the charges against her.

 HH: We’ve been talking with the noted northern Ireland civil rights

 leader and former Member of Parliament Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey.

 Ms McAliskey, thank you very much for elucidating this issue for us on

 the case of Marian Price. We will of course keep our listeners

 informed. I’ll be announcing an event this weekend…

 BDM: Might I say thank you again to WBAI who for many years have helped

 tell the truth and defend democracy across the USA. I don’t know where

 we would be without you.

 HH: Thank you very much indeed, Ms McAliskey.

The prison issued a statement this morning that Marian had been transferred to hospital. She remains in the prison.

Posted by Jim on June 22, 2012

by Bernadette Devlin Mc Aliskey

 They had attempted to move her to a psychiatric unit as a prisoner but this requiires invoking powers under  the mental health act – the  prison medical officer has already given evidence  last week that this course of action would be counterproductive and inappropriate as she is not psychotic.  She is suffering from trauma created by her environment of incarceration.  The chief medical officer  has now sought to override this evidence  today before the UN visit on Monday

–  to  transfer her to the psychiatric hospital without her informed consent adds another dimnesion to the violation of her rights – family issuing a statement and I believe her lawyers will be trying to get into court today.  So maybe we are at make or break.  Urgent alert s and e-mails to  Ford would be good

Bernadette