Distretto NordPOW

Ex prigioniere repubblicane manifestano per Marian Price

Women protest in support of republican Marian Price

Suzanne Breen, Sunday World

Free Marian PriceEx-republican women prisoners will mount a protest this week in support of jailed dissident Marian Price. Price, who has been held nine months in solitary confinement, was last week moved from the top-security Maghaberry jail to Hydebank female prison due to a rapid deterioration in her health.

Isolation has had a serious mental affect on the Old Bailey bomber who is also suffering a range of health problems from over 200-days on hunger-strike and force-feeding in Brixton jail in the 1970s. Female republicans previously held in both Maghaberry and the old Armagh jail – along with non-political nationalist women – will mount a protest in Belfast on Friday before handing a letter into Justice Minister David Ford.

Ex-INLA prisoner, Gina McElroy, said: “We know what it’s like to be women in jail but our situation was so much better than Marian Price’s.

“We were young women prisoners freely able to mix with our comrades. She’s a 58-year-old woman with serious health problems who has been held in isolation for almost a year.

“She’s being detained without charge so she doesn’t even have a release date.” McElroy claimed it was a “disgraceful situation that shames the British government”.

She added: “It’s a clear abuse of human rights. The UN says solitary confinement should rarely be used and never for more than 15 days. If this were happening anywhere else in the world, Britain would condemn it.”

Price is being held in Hydebank’s hospital wing. In a recent interview with the Sunday World from behind bars in Maghaberry, Price spoke of the toll solitary confinement had taken on her health. She had shed several stones in weight and was losing her hair.

Last year, she was charged with holding a statement for a masked Real IRA man at an Easter commemoration in Derry and with allegedly providing a mobile phone for terrorist use.

She was granted bail by the courts on both charges but Secretary of State Owen Paterson withdrew her licence.

Price’s lawyers claimed he’d no right to do so as she’d been granted the royal prerogative of mercy when freed from jail – weighing five stone and suffering from tuberculosis – in 1980.

The government claims this pardon has been lost. The SDLP has called for the dissident republican’s release. Her lawyers are to launch a judicial review alleging that by continuing to detain her without charge the British government is acting illegally. Price’s supporters are due to step up their campaign to free her. Hundreds of flags with her face emblazoned on them will be erected in nationalists areas.

Next week, former MP Bernadette Devlin and Monsignor Raymond Murray will address a meeting in west Belfast against Price’s detention.

Once a close associate of Gerry Adams, Price became disillusioned with Sinn Féin in the mid-1990s and joined the dissident political group, the 32 County Sovereignty Movement.

With her sister Dolours and Gerry Kelly, now a senior Sinn Féin politician, Price was part of an IRA team which bombed Britain. Around 200 people were injured, mainly with flying glass. One man died of a heart attack.

Pagina precedente 1 2
Tags

René Querin

Di professione grafico e web designer, sono appassionato di trekking e innamorato dell'Irlanda e della sua storia. Insieme ad Andrea Varacalli ho creato e gestisco Les Enfants Terribles.

Related Articles

Close