New booklet demands Marian Price release
A new pamphlet calling for the release of political prisoner Marian Price was officially launched yesterday by the Derry-based Prison Crisis Group, detailing the human rights violations involved in this contentious and highly-publicised case.
The booklet, which was launched at the Pat Finucan Centre in Creggan’s Rath Mor Centre, outlines the facts of the case against Ms Price and her incarceration without trial – an issue deemed unacceptable by many activists, human rights campaigners and politicians.
Speaking at yesterday’s launch were Paul O’Connor of the Pat Finucane Centre, activist Eamonn McCann and Betty Doherty of the Prison Crisis Group.
Paul O’Connor said: “The continued detention of Marian Price is both shocking and an indictment of the justice system at this moment in time.
“This whole idea of secret evidence against her is an oxymoron. If it is secret, then it’s not evidence. Evidence is produced in a court of law, evidence is what a defence counsel gets and uses to defend their own client or what the prosecution uses to prosecute an individual. If it is secret – then by definition – it is not evidence. I think we are all agreed about the injustice that is happening here before our very eyes.”
Eamonn McCann spoke of the continued campaign to liberate Ms Price.
“We’re trying to make a point that the issues raised by the detention without trial of Marian Price are not simply personal to her, it is evident also in relation to the order from Owen Paterson to return Martin Corry to prison and one or two others also. What we are witnessing is the emergence of a pattern, and it is a pattern of a return to the past that many people believed was long gone.
“Marian Price was twice given bail on the two charges against her, and on both occasions Owen Paterson simply intervened to say he would set aside the court’s decision and send her back to prison.
“We are coming up to August 9, the anniversary of the introduction of internment 41 years ago. How far away that seems but how close it is coming back. The anniversary will be marked with a series of events accross the North which we will do our best to coordinate to make the point that, from Belfast to Belmarsh Prison in England, what we are witnessing is internment yet again.”
Marian Price has been imprisoned in Maghaberry and Hydebank prisons since May 2011 – and has spent the majority of that time in solitary confinement.
She should not be in prison and has been granted bail twice – both times the Northern Ireland Secretary of State Owen Paterson overruled this decision and ordered her return to prison.
While Northern Ireland has a Minister for Justice, a Department of Justice and a Parole Commission, all three institutions deny any responsability for Marian Price’s continued detention, claiming they are powerless to intervene.
The booklet is now available from the bookshop, An Cló Ceart in An Culturlann on Great James Street, priced £2.50, and from the republican organisation Tar Abhaile at 1 West End Park.
