INDYMEDIA IRELAND INTERNMENT DEBATE

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POLITICAL INTERNMENT IRELAND 2013 BELFAST RALLY #BoycottBritish

ENGLISH INTERNMENT 1916-1945

INTERNMENT as a weapon was not new to the British. The nineteenth century alone had seen some 105 Coercion Bills, whose ruthless provisions often included virtual internment of the Irish. In 1881-1882 more than a thousand Irishmen were put in prison without warrant, charge or trial as 'suspects'. Habeas corpus was suspended and the Land League proclaimed. But internment camps were a new thing.
     The Boer War gave the name 'concentration camp' to the world and brought shame and ignominy to Britain, accustomed for so long to have her imperialist way without question. Some 20,000 Boers, mainly women and children, died in the camps from disease and neglect.
     In 1914, with the outbreak of World War One, enemy aliens were rounded up and interned, mainly at Frongoch camp in North Wales. Few Irish were amongst the assorted group of foreigners. Indeed, many Irishmen were in the British army fighting that "small nations might be free"! 1916 changed that. As a military uprising it was as impractical as all those before it: in Dublin 1,500 men marching in Easter Week to occupy the General Post Office, Bolands Bakery, South Dublin Union, and several minor public buildings and solemnly proclaiming Ireland's freedom. Most Dublin people gawked in amazement or jeered the volunteers. At 3.45 p.m. on Saturday 29 April 1916, Padraic Pearse issued his note of unconditional surrender. Connolly and MacDonagh followed suit. The fighting was over, but the war was only just beginning.
     With the crassness born of indolent arrogance the British turned the rebels into martyrs. The signatories of Proclamation of the Republic and others, with four notable exceptions, were shot in the stone breakers' yard on the north-west corner of Kilmainham jail, commandeered by the British in 1914 to accommodate extra troops. The exceptions were Tom Ceannt, shot in Cork; Eamon de Valera and Countess Markievicz who were reprieved, and Sir Roger Casement who was hanged in London. The last to be shot were Connolly and McDermott, the one severely wounded, the other a polio victim. Poets and song writers rushed for their pens. The English had done it again.
     After the rising the number of prisoners in British custody was 3,430 men and 79 women. Almost immediately 1,424 men and 73 women were released. Of those remaining, 159 men and one woman, Countess Markievicz, were court-martialled. Eleven were acquitted. Ninety were sentenced to death but only fifteen were executed. The rest got penal servitude, ranging from two years to life.
     1,836 men and five womenwere interned without being sentenced and were shipped to the Frongoch camps in North Wales. Another bad mistake.
     German prisoners were moved out to make room for the Irish who soon settled in and organized themselves. Frongoch was divided into two parts; the south camp which consisted mainly of an old distillery, and the north camp which was full of huts. In order to lessen sympathy for the Irish prisoners, the British put it about that they were the recipients of 'The Kaiser's Gold', but as a propaganda exercise this backfired. The average Tommy was hardly well paid and was only too willing to treat the prisoners well, run messages for them and smuggle messages in and out in the hope of getting some of this magical (and non-existent) gold in return.
     Another mistake made by the authorities was to try to conscript a number of the internees, not all of whom had been involved in the Easter rising; indeed, many were political innocents scooped up by mistake, but actions like this created solidarity. Conscription of prisoners was strongly and successfully resisted.
     But the worst mistake made by the authorities was to have internment, in the first place. The camps became hotbeds of 'sedition', political education centres and training grounds for resistance fighters, the foremost of all being Michael Collins. In each of the camps, prisoners elected their own commandants (a practice always followed in the future) and established a chain of command with group and hut leaders. Morale was kept up by cultural activities, sports (1916 was a good summer) and lectures. The organizational abilities of men like Collins and MacCurtain were given full rein. Future action was planned and the lines of communication laid. The internees felt that they were much better off in the countryside of Wales than the sentenced prisoners in Stafford, Usk, Lincoln, Lewes or Dartmoor jails. Comradeship grew and with it a feeling of exhilaration.
     All this might well have died had internment lasted for a long time, but in December 1916 Lloyd George pushed Asquith out of office as British Premier and took over. By Christmas the last 600 internees had been released and sent back to Ireland – to drill, train and build up an organization to drive the British out. The process was given even more impetus in June 1917 when all the sentenced prisoners, including de Valera, were released. First, martyrs had been made, then the survivors were turned loose to an admiring audience.
     Irish aspirations for independence had been aroused yet again. Activity intensified. Almost immediately a spate of arrests followed. By the truce of 11 July 1921 there were 7,000 Irish political prisoners in the jails of England and Ireland. Most had been arrested on ludicrous charges. By 1920 people were getting up to two years for "whistling derisively at a policeman", having a single copy of the banned Irish Volunteer paper, An t-Oglach, singing 'The Felons of Our Land' – written 50 years previously – or carrying a hurley. But most of the important arrests were carried out under DORA – the Defence of the Realm Act. Introduced originally at the onset of the war, special 'Irish Clauses' were periodically added to the Act. By 1917 anyone "whose behaviour is of such a nature as to give reasonable grounds for suspecting that he has acted, or is acting, or about to act in a manner prejudicial to the public safety or the defence of the Realm" could be arrested. On 24 April 1918, quietly and without notice, the Defence of the Realm Act was altered to allow the authorities to take Irish prisoners to be interned in England. The constitutionality of such an action was about to be challenged in the courts while internees were in Frongoch, but the challenge was dropped upon their release at Christmas 1916. Now the law was altered to permit deportation to England. The way was being paved for the 'German Plot'.
     Germany had, in fact, very little interest in Ireland. More German guns had been sold to the 'Loyalist' Orangemen in the North than to the Nationalist Republicans in the South. The fiasco of Sir Roger Casement's attempt to form an Irish Brigade from captured POW's in Germany had convinced the Germans that little was to be gained from Ireland. The only other Irish 'agent' of the Germans to set foot in Ireland was Lance Corporal Joe Dowling who was arrested as soon as a U-boat had put him ashore on the Clare coast on 12 April 1918. He was sentenced to penal servitude for life and served six years.
     Casualties in the World War were mounting, however, and plans were afoot to introduce conscription to Ireland, hitherto exempt. This was another tactical blunder, for nothing was more likely to unite the Irish than attempts to compel them to fight for England. De Valera drafted the anti-conscription declaration issued unanimously by the Mansion House Conference of 18 April 1918 which included the words "the passing of the Conscription Bill by the British House of Commons must be regarded as a declaration of war on the Irish Nation". The conference was attended by Sinn Fein, the Irish Parliamentary Party, Trade Union representatives and others. The Catholic hierarchy also were opposed to conscription. Five days after the conference the Trade Unions held the first ever one-day general strike-against conscription. Lloyd George and his Government had been warned what to expect and so they cooked up the 'German Plot'.
     Quietly the Dublin Castle Executive was purged of any 'pro-Irish' elements such as Henry Duke, the Chief Secretary. Lord Wimbourne, the Lord Lieutenant, was replaced by Field Marshal Sir John French, fresh from his recent disasters and blunders in Flanders. General Sir Bryan Mahon was succeeded in the military command by General Shaw. French outlined his simple-minded tactics to Lord Riddel:

Conscription will be enforced. If they leave me alone I can do what is necessary. I shall notify a date before which recruits must offer themselves in the different districts. If they do not come we will fetch them.

On 8 May Sir Edward Carson, not a Cabinet Minister, issued a statement to the effect that the Government "had the closest evidence in their possession that the Sinn Fein organization is, and has been in alliance with Germany". On 17-18 May the Government swooped. Seventy-three people were arrested. They included Arthur Griffith, de Valera, Count Plunkett, Countess Markievicz, Mrs. Tom Clarke, Maud Gonne MacBride, W. T. Cosgrave and Joe McGrath. Sean McEntee and Denis McCullough were arrested in Belfast. By the evening of 18 May they were all aboard a man-of-war at Dun Laoghaire. It was then they were informed that under the Defence of the Realm Act they were being deported and interned. After a week in a disused army camp near Holyhead they were split up and sent to Usk and Gloucester jails. A little later some or the Gloucester prisoners, including de Valera, were transferred to Lincoln jail.
     Meanwhile the furore about the 'German Plot' continued. In the House of Lords on 20 June 1918 the recently-sacked Lord Lieutenant, Lord Wimborne, told members that there was no plot. The Government shifted its ground. Edward Shortt, the Chief Secretary, told the Commons on 4 August;

They (the Irish prisoners) are there under suspicion. Supposing they were found innocent of that (i.e. conspiring with Dowling) do you imagine that that would let them out? Of course it would not. They may not be the individuals, but they may be equally dangerous to the State.

Dangerous they might well have been, but in most cases constitutionally so, for those arrested included most of the public speakers arid election agents for Sinn Fein, who were soon to win the next general election. Despite the exposure of the 'plot', however, a further 20 men were arrested and deported.
     The fight to be treated as political prisoners began upon their arrival at British jails. The internees, many already veterans of the English and Irish jails, were adamant. At Usk, Governor Young was out of his depth, and he soon gave in: the right of association, of writing and receiving letters and parcels were all granted; so was the prisoners' right to wear their own clothes instead of the broad arrow of the convict. In Usk and Lincoln they did not have to resort to the 'Lewes tactic' – i.e. smashing up the jail. During the summer, conditions were not too bad, but winter brought the cold and the influenza epidemic which savaged all Europe. Most of the internees were affected, but only two died. Statistically at least they fared better than the rest of the population.
     Escape was in all their minds, however, and on 21 January 1919 four men, McGrath, Shouldice, Mellows and Geraghty, went over the wall of Usk jail with a rope ladder. It had been intended that 20 would go on a mass break-out, but the influenza epidemic had laid many low – indeed, Mellows, who did get away successfully, could hardly stand.^[6]
     This escape and the resultant hue-and-cry in England came at a bad time for de Valera. He and two of his comrades, Sean McGarry and Sean Milroy; were co-operating in the process of having their own escape from Lincoln jail engineered. So important was it that de Valera should escape that Michael Collins and Harry Boland went over to England themselves to supervise it. The well-organized escape involved three cakes, three keys, a number of key blanks, files, key-cutting tools, a rope-ladder and a fleet of cars. It says little for the security of the jail that so much was smuggled in and that messages could pass in and out so easily.
     In January 1919 the first Dail assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin and one of its first decisions was to appoint three envoys to the peace conference at Versailles, to claim Ireland's freedom. The men chosen were then internees in English jails: de Valera, Griffith and Plunkett. Hence de Valera's particular desire to escape, and escape he did, in the company of Milroy and McGarry, on 3 February 1919, just eleven days after the Usk escape. They walked through a door in the jail wall, using a skeleton key, and were smuggled away to hideouts in Manchester and Liverpool. On 20 February, disguised as a priest, de Valera was back in Dublin. Never had there been such a hue-and-cry for an escaped prisoner; rarely had there been such a propaganda coup for the Irish.
     Internment was not to last. Embarrassed first by the escapes and then by the death, on 6 March, of Pierce McCann, a Tipperary TD interned at Gloucester (where the Usk prisoners had been moved following the escape), the Government gave in. McCann died of influenza and public opinion in Ireland erupted on hearing the news. Two days later it was announced that the internees were to be released. On 9 March the first batch arrived back in Dublin, led by Arthur Griffith and bearing the remains of McCann. The internment of the 'German plotters' was over – for the time being.
     Some had not been so fortunate in their treatment, however. Padraic Fleming had been arrested in connection with die supposed 'German Plot', but unlike the majority, he was not transported to England. Instead, he was housed in Maryborough (now Portlaoise) jail. He had been there the year before, after being framed (it is alleged) on an arms charge. He bad been refused political treatment, had gone on hunger strike and had been promised political treatment if he would wear prison garb. He refused and went on a naked hunger strike for a further fortnight. Public opinion having been enraged at the death of Torn Ashe from forcible feeding while on hunger strike in Mountjoy in September 1917, the British decided to exercise a new tactic vis-à-vis hunger strikers. This was the so-called 'cat-and-mouse' act. Under it a prisoner would be released while on hunger strike and rearrested when he regained his health. And so, on 20 November 1917, Fleming was let out. Next May, as a 'German plotter', he was back again in Maryborough. There began his one-man crusade for political treatment. It was typical of the determination exerted by internees and sentenced political prisoners to secure 'political treatment'. They did not regard themselves as 'criminals', nor did they intend to allow themselves to be treated as such. That their fight was unsuccessful is attested to by the fact that the same fight was fought in the same jail 25 years later, culminating in the death of Sean McCaughey after 31 days hunger and 12 days thirst strike. He had been naked in his solitary for almost five years.
     Padraic Fleming did not die, but his single-minded fanaticism could easily have led to his death, given "the cold blooded formalised cruelty of officialdom in power", in the words of Piaras Béaslai. Fleming refused to wear prison garb. His own clothes had been taken from him and he was left with only bedclothes, and these were removed each day from 6.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. Fleming was 23 and over six feet tall. It took eight warders to forcibly dress him. He tore the clothes off as soon as they were on and he was alone. The warders put him in iron manacles, with a body-belt which kept his manacled wrists and upper arms tight against his body.^[8] With his hands thus strapped warders had to feed him – a few spoons of soup and half a a pint of coffee a day. He broke out of the manacles. The warders put him in 'muffs', which practically paralyse the body. He broke out of these. He was then strapped so tightly across the stomach that his digestive system was disrupted. Again he went on hunger strike. After eight days the prison doctor said he was dying. Word came from outside that hunger strikes were to be called off; he recovered, but still refused to wear prison garb. The jail authorities tried to have him certified insane, but no doctor would sign. The strait-jacket restraint continued. The authorities built him a special cell supposedly warm enough for a naked man in winter. Despite the jacket he succeeded in tearing up the blankets. He smashed the gas fittings by kicking the rubber chamber pot up at them. He got out of the strait-jacket by repeatedly jumping at the gas jet until the jacket went on fire. He took the radiator apart with the hand-cuffs on his wrists, broke the glass of the window with the rubber chamber pot and with glass fragments between his teeth, he cut the jacket. He was dragged, head first, hands still manacled behind his back, down four flights of iron stairs, to be further punished. Finally, after seven months, in exasperation the authorities gave in. Fleming was granted the 'status' of a political prisoner and taken to Mountjoy. From there he escaped with 19 others on 29 March 1919.
     The thousands who filled the jails of England and Ireland until the truce of 11 July 1921 would call themselves, in many cases, internees. Under DORA there was no need to formally 'intern', when a man could be charged with 'possession of documents' or 'whistling derisively' and receive a lengthy sentence. On 9 August 1920 DORA was extended with the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act which, as Dorothy MacArdle wrote in The Irish Republic, "relieved the military forces in Ireland of almost all the restraints of law". Military authorities were empowered to jail any Irish man or woman without charge or trial under section 3 (6); could have secret courtmartials under section 3 (1-5). Only if the death penalty was involved could a lawyer be present, and he was appointed by the Crown agents. Four-fifths of the population who had given their allegiance to Dail Eireann were offenders against the Act, 14(1&2). Because 33 coroners inquests had indicted military or police for murder, inquests were banned.
     The jails of Mountjoy, Kilmainham (finally abandoned as a jail in 1924), Kilkenny, Derry, Cork (Spike Island), Belfast, Dundalk and Sligo, and military camps at the Curragh, Kilworth, Boyle and Ballykinlar were full, and prisoners escaped from all but a few of them.
     The Rath camp at the Curragh was still the official internment camp, however. Some 1,300 were interned there in 60 wooden army huts in a ten-acre area. The huts were arranged in four symmetrical rows, referred to as 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. The prisoners' compound was rectangular and surrounded by two large barbed-wire fences, ten feet high and four feet wide. Between the two fences was a 20-feet wide corridor which was patrolled day and night. Machine-gun towers with powerful searchlights were situated at each corner and played on the huts. It was regarded as escape-proof. Attempted escapes in laundry vans and refuse carts had failed ignominiously. The guards had orders to shoot anyone approaching the wire and no one doubted that they were quite prepared to shoot – in January 1921 James Sloan and James Tormey, both from Westmeath, were shot down in Ballykinlar camp for "gettig too close to the wire"!
     Tunnelling was obviously the best chance for an escape, but the authorities at the Curragh were very vigilant and the situation was complicated by the presence of spies and agents provocateur. With as many as 1,300 internees in the camp it was impossible for everyone to be known, and in each hut there were people whom nobody knew. Most of these men were genuine internees but some were undoubtedly stool-pigeons and plants. (To this day it is common practice for the police to plant someone amongst internees. In August 1971 in Crumlin, however, a plant was such an incompetent liar that he was easily unmasked. He was then moved very rapidly for 'his own safety' and released the next day.)
     In April 1921 a tunnel at the Curragh was betrayed. Men of the Kings Own Scottish Borderers made straight for it. As a result, 'privileges' were withdrawn. All tunnelling was suspended. On 11 July the truce became operative, but there was still no release for the internees. Thirty-seven who were TD's were released so that the Dail could consider the British peace terms. In August Sean MacEoin, under sentence of death in Mountjoy, and the only TD still held, was released after the Irish had threatened to break off negotiations unless he was freed. While MacEoin was in Mountjoy, a most ambitious attempt to rescue him almost succeeded. It involved the capture of a British army whippet armoured car which was driven straight into the jail by the IRA. When, in spite of the truce, there were no general releases the Curragh internees began tunnelling again. Two tunnels were started. The 'professional' and ambitious 'Dublin Brigade Tunnel', and the 'amateur' 'Rabbit Burrow'. In the event it was the amateurs who got there first. In the space of only 18 days they reached the outside wire, and, on the night of the 8 September 1921, in a dense fog, 50 men got away. They wandered around in the fog and some even blundered back to the wire, but all eventually escaped. Section Leader Brabazon, who stayed behind, commented, "If we'd waited four more days until a larger tunnel was finished we could have got a thousand out."^[9] Many of the remaining internees were transferred to Kilkenny, where, benefiting from the tactics learnt at the Rath camp, 43 men tunnelled their way out on 23 November (including Michael Burke of Glengoole, who had survived a 90-day hunger strike in Cork jail).
     Just a fortnight later it was over. The Treaty was signed on 6 December. On 8 December all internees were released.
The English can claim that this was their last venture of peace-time internment – but in 1923 over 100 Irish men and women, mostly members of the Irish Self Determination League, were deported from England under Clause 14B of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act and interned upon their arrival in Ireland. This was subsequently shown to be an infringement of British law and those deported were eventually returned to England and received some compensation.
     Camps were subsequently established in Aden, Cyprus, Malaya, and, most infamous of all, Kenya. But liberal British public opinion has always been less squeamish when the rights of black people were infringed. In Kenya men were killed in Aguthe detention camp and the most horrendous climax came on 24 February 1959 when 11 Africans were beaten to death in Hola camp. Leading Conservative Ministers Julian Amery and Alan Lennox-Boyd saw no need for an inquiry after all, over 80,000 men and women had been rounded up with no charges brought against them and 700 men were kept without trial for over seven years (a "certain amount of indiscriminate violence is inevitable"). Even with the news of the horror and murder that came out of Kenya internment camps and the reports of Chief Officer Captain Ernest Law, who resigned in protest, the British Government still looked after its own. The Acting Assistant Commissioner of Prisons, J.B.T. Cowan, was made a MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of June 1959.^[11] With true family solidarity Lennox-Boyd's sister spoke out. "I'm sick hearing about consciences," she said. "What we want is a real Conservative who doesn't keep seeing good in the other side." Lady Huggins, vice-chairman of the Conservative Commonwealth Council, was equally firm. "Too much fuss is being made of the deaths of Mau Mau detainees at Hola camp," she told students at Nottingham University. "These men were certainly beaten to death but they were, in fact, the worst type of criminals themselves and they would not have been accepted back in their home districts."
     It is, of course, totally unfair to blame Britain for any atrocities committed in foreign lands under the control of the British army – "the finest body of fighting men" etc. It is well known that the British Judicial system is the finest in the world and the envy of all: the rights handed down in the bosom of every guardian of the law, from the police and army to the MPs who ably represent us at Westminster. But, though it is not generally well known, in 1939, before the war broke out, Britain again introduced internment; the recipients were, yet again, to be the Irish.
     On Monday 16 January 1939 the farcical IRA bombing campaign in England was begun, after a solemn 'declaration of war', under the command of Sean Russell. Using Jim O'Donovan's 'S' plan the campaign was a short-lived disaster which nonetheless cost the lives of seven innocent English civilians, wounded over 100 and resulted in the execution of Barnes and McCormack (Richards) on 7 February 1940, to say nothing of lengthy jail sentences, up to 20 years, for over 100 Irish prisoners (23 men and women got 20 years penal servitude, 34 got 10-20 years, 25 got 5-10, and 14 received less than 5 years).
     Even before the tragic accident in Coventry, on 25 August 1939, the British Government had acted. Generally it is a lengthy process getting legislation passed through Westminster. A series of 'Checks and Balances' ensure that legislation is usually a time-consuming business. On 28 July, however, something of a record was set up when the Prevention of Violence Bill took five minutes to get through the first and second reading in the Lords. The third stage was waived and so by the next day it had passed into law. Its provisions allowed deportation for Irishmen and, that old standby, internment, as well as the registration of all Irishmen living in Britain. By 5 August 48 expulsion orders and five prohibition orders had been issued. Many hundreds of Irishmen did not wait for the midnight raids but took the Holyhead boat home – only to discover the Free State Government had just banned prisoners' dependants meetings and had put into force the Offences Against the State Act.
     The declaration of war saved the British the embarrassment of 'peacetime' internment. Those men they wanted were lifted for the duration of the war and kept with other 'aliens' and 'suspected persons' in camps – the best-known one being on the Isle of Man. In 1940 there were 1,400 interned. Only 50 were still interned when, in May 1945, Herbert Morrison announced that the order had been revoked. The Government had considered interning communists but desisted, fearing unrest in the Clyde. Most of those interned were German nationals. One of the most unfortunate was the gentleman who found a pocketbook containing £9 and took it to a local police station in Middlesex. He was thanked, asked his name and address and then interned. Three thousand aliens had been rounded up in May 1940 due to panic created by newspapers such as the Express and Herald. The conditions of internment varied from 'inconvenient' to 'atrocious'. Successive British Governments have denounced internment as 'a despicable weapon' – and used it. Ex-internees Makarios, Banda, Nehru, Gandhi and de Valera would presumably agree. But they all became respectable statesmen. Britain would do well to remember that in the Long Kesh Class of 1972 may languish a man of similar stature.

‘Internment’ by John McGuffin 

MI5 Sockpuppets PROVO Sinn Fein on John Downey & Martin Corey ?

provisional Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, said action was required on disputed issues arising from the troubles, more particularly he has since said on several occasions, the UK government has refused to honour commitments to the Good Friday, Weston Park and St Andrew’s Agreements. He further said on several occasions, “Mr Kenny needs to tell David Cameron that this is unacceptable.”

Adams gave several examples of commitments reneged on by the British, including inquiries into the murder of lawyer Pat Finucane, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the 1971 Ballymurphy Massacre, in which 11 people were massacred by British soldiers in Belfast.

Gerry Adams has further claimed that Prime Minister Cameron had stepped away from the peace process since coming into power, a very polite way of saying the British reneged on the Peace Agreement, an extremely serious political matter with regard to an International Peace Agreement of such significance, where the Americans are meant to be guarantors.

Gerry Adams has further stated “Since the election of the Tory/Lib Dem coalition the British prime minister has detached himself from the continuing promotion and development of the peace and political processes.” That is now more than three years ago and Mr Adams and his party have demonstrated considerable weakness by allowing this to run, permitting the internment and the arrest of several of its volunteers, meant to be protected under the agreement.



In 2001, the British agreed to give IRA fugitive volunteers an amnesty, so they could return to British Occupied Ireland without fear of arrest and prosecution, but the British government later reneged on its promises, citing lawmaker refusal to back the deal thus in reality violating all of the Peace Process.


Now all competent negotiators know, the devil is in the detail and you negotiate up not down, something obviously the experienced British are aware of but which the leadership of the Provisionals have seriously neglected. Now this is no small matter in such an Agreement





Last month British prosecutors charged a 61-year-old Irishman with the 1982 IRA attack on the queen's cavalry in Hyde Park that left four soldiers and seven horses dead. The surprise arraignment of John Downey in a London court, came on the 15th anniversary of the supposed ratification of the Good Friday Peace Agreement for British Occupied Ireland, which has tried to end four decades of bloodshed, in the British Occupied Irish territory. The British have failed to explain why they arrested John Downey at this particular time, after he arrived at London's Gatwick Airport, almost 31 years after the attack.

Provisional Sinn Fein naturally demanded Downey's immediate release, that is the least they could do for one of their own. The Irish nationalist party and former republicans, accuse Britain once again of violating an agreement to not pursue John Downey, who had been on a list of IRA suspects "on the run" from the British for years. Gerry Kelly called Downey's arrest "vindictive, unnecessary and unhelpful" and an act of "bad faith" by the British government to be still pursuing Irish Republican Army volunteers, in keeping with the spirit, if not the letter, of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

These continuous arrests of IRA veterans, with Sinn Fein connections, have raised tension in the peace process, which is still incomplete all these years later which local Councillor Murray for Mr Downey said he "should never have been arrested"."In 2007, he received a letter from the British Government, informing him that he was not wanted by any British police force. He then traveled to Britain numerous times without any problems.

"John has been a long time supporter of the peace process and as a peace worker he regularly engaged with unionists. He always put his head above the mark in promoting a new republic. I don't think the British government is going to wake up tomorrow and say Donegal County Council has told us what to do, but it was Donegal County Council laying out quite clearly that the Good Friday Agreement should be defended."

Mr Downey has been remanded at a preliminary hearing at the Old Bailey. A motion calling for his release was passed at a meeting of Donegal County Council. Mr Downey is being held in London's Belmarsh prison. This case along with the internment without trial of several other Irish republicans, including 63 old Martin Corey, who has been interned more than 3 years without trial, clearly demonstrates bad faith by the Tories, since their election three years ago and considerable secret service input from MI5, who have much money and power to lose, with a successful peace process in British Occupied Ireland.

With systematic dismantling of the process over more than three years now, the obvious question is why would the provisional leadership give up their armed struggle and their tons of armaments without having a serious input into power sharing in these essential matters. The agreement was sold to everyone on the basis of power sharing. Which takes us to the next obvious question of why the Provisionals are not exercising their considerable political empowerment under the process, to protect former comrades and volunteers, who helped put them in power in the first instance?

Which takes us to an even more fundamental and basic question, which is on the minds of most genuine Irish republicans. It is a very uncomfortable question, but after three years of political internment without trial of aging brave volunteers, there is no diplomatic way of phrasing it, other than in a blunt manner. Is the majority of the Provo leadership compromised to the British secret services. In other words are MI5 who have always traditionally blackmailed anyone of influence in their former colonies, to politically control them, pulling all of the Provo strings, within the political leadership of provisional Sinn Fein.

The last time I raised this subject, I was physically threatened not by Sinn Fein I might add but in the absence of ACTION rather than weasel words and with senior figures having gone AWOL on the subject, it is an obvious and basic question to ask. As someone who has come to reluctantly accept, that the peace process has been a reality for some time and that successful armed struggle is not realistic in the long term within such a small population, there are however, plenty of other options for Irish republicans.

The most obvious one starting with Provo withdrawal from Stormont along with a properly organized peaceful campaign of civil disobedience, like the non-republican SDLP last time. It is long overdue, it is time to call these Supremacist Tories in London to account, along with their sectarian Orange Order friends. The Provos did have commendable input in the release of the long suffering Marian Price and that is the sort of Republican Movement unity that will bring these warmongering Tory racists and Orange fascists to account.

POLITICAL INTERNMENT IRELAND EXPERIENCE

In the wake of the internment of Marian Price, which I believe over the last two years, can generally be agreed, to have been a form of internment because it lacked a proper, transparent trial, in a timely manner. I also believe it can be generally agreed by reasonable informed people, to have been a major setback, to what is known as the peace process in Ireland. I personally have neither been a proponent of this process or have believed it will achieve traditional Irish republican aspirations but I accept very reluctantly, it is a reality, delivered by a leadership with elements of competency, without wholesale fratricidal, blood letting.




There is an old expression, that the three long term curses of the Irish, are the English, drink and religion. From bitter personal experience I would agree, that recovery is not an overnight process, no more than a lasting peace based on justice is. The main problem accompanying the above three curses, are that to live or survive in such an environment, requires a lot of secrecy lies and generally many unhealthy, dishonest, subservient habits.




The current British occupation in Ireland, requires a considerable amount of draconian secrecy, under their Official Secrets Act and all the variations that ensues, with secret internment without trial, secret courts, and a feral secret service. This form of repression in Ireland has always been met with resistance, including physical force. To sustain resistance over any given time also requires considerable secrecy, 'rough justice,' along with violence to oppose the British Imperial violence of invasion, None of this is compatible with the necessary basic justice, that is a critical requirement of peace. Those who call for peace without this basic justice, are disingenuous and often do so from a vested interest, class based privilege. However equally, it must be also said, that after 800 years of traditional struggle, we have made little progress with our methods towars our goals.




It has been stated by experienced genuine revolutionaries, that we have a moral responsibility, to try every possible means of resistance, before the last resort of armed struggle. It is my own experience, reluctant opinion and conclusion, from bitter personal experience, that a long term campaign of guerrilla warfare, is not sustainable, successfully, in the culture of the small island of often socially incestuous, contemporary, Ireland. There are a myriad of reasons which at this point in time, would to take too long to explain this peoperly.It does however merit, considerable honest debate and discussion by genuine people, particularly of no property in Ireland.




Experience is the best teacher, but a fool will learn from no other. - Benjamin Franklin




This appears to be a very harsh statement but again from I personal experience, I have to agree. So what then is a serious alternative, to physical force politics, state terrorism and reactionary violence. I personally believe that in this age of the internet, in the absence of overbearing malign censorship,we have a tool to win our aspirations, albeit slowly and with considerable patience. Patience is for me, the best definition of the often abused word of love. Love is patient. There are many examples is Irish history, of heroic love for our island expressed by our sons and daughters. Probably the most famous recent, well known example being the death of twelve Irish hunger strikers in the present phase of struggle, there being a total of twenty two altogether. Our success depends on coming from love rather than hate, again easier said than done in an outside, mentored political environment of tit for tat divide and conquer.




It is difficult to refuse to rise to the bait of provocation and infuriating for me personally at times, as someone who sees religion, as a big part of the problem, to recognize that certain truths expressed in the Good Book, correspond perfectly with my own experience of baby steps towards the solution. The Book states, that no greater love had anyone, than to lay down their life for their friend. It also states that the truth will set us free. I believe personally, that under present circumstances, despite draconian censorship and repression, we have responsibility to try the truth rather than live by the sword. Many say the truth is is the most powerful thing on the face of this planet and personally from my own experience, I would have to agree.




Many will say on a class basis, that all of thsi it is easy to say, for someone relatively comfortable, than to have such patience, in the face of murderous imperialism and dire poverty on their doorstep. From personal experience I agree but we do have an alternative and I believe a moral responsibility, for those with potential leadership qualities, to seriously try, before resorting to armed struggle. Contemporary experience demonstrates, that terrorism begets terrorism, be it British state terrorism or reactionary violence. Having stated all of this, I believe there is a tipping point in any mass movement, with a mandate of overwhelming mass support, where there a responsibility lies with the leadership, to take the levers of power for the people, with as little bloodshed as possible.




The Truth will Set us Free in a Society as Sick as its Secrets




For those of you out there who disagree, and wish to demonstrate to me the errors of my ways, you are very welcome to do so. In the meantime I will do my best with these attempts on the internet to walk the talk. I believe every element of traditional Irish republicanism, even the Gerry Adams' flock can teach me something, so I will be quoting you. I have to say, as a non-member of Republican Sinn Fein that their traditional document, 'Eire Nua' is the best blueprint I have found, as a democratic way forward to the solution.




Going back again to the Marian Price saga, I believe Gerry Adams made a very rational remark, in the wake of Marian's release from internment. “The logic of today’s release is that Martin Corey should also befreed," Provisional Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. In the interest of not inflaming passions further and making a serious effort to underpin a serious Peace Process with justice, the onus is on all of us, not to just pay lip service a superficial peace. This will require serious commitment, patience, tenacity and many volunteers.


To remain honest with you, it is my belief , that the status of British Occupied Ireland, cannot sustain itself in the contest of the small island of Ireland, without supremacist outsiders, engineering the cancer of sectarianism heaped on top of their class based system of inherited privilege and monarchy. I challenge them to prove me wrong. In the meantime I will try to walk the talk by quoting below an article from Wikipedia about the experience of internment being used in Ireland, in the context of trying to learn with Martin Corey's current internment without a proper trial. - Brian Clarke

Operation Demetrius

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Operation Demetrius
Part of The Troubles and Operation Banner

The entrance to Compound 19, one of the sections of Long Kesh internment camp
Location Northern Ireland

Objective Arrest of suspected Irish republicanparamilitaries
Date 9–10 August 1971
04:00 – ? (UTC+01:00)
Executed by British Army
Royal Ulster Constabulary
Outcome 342 people arrested and interned
7,000 civilians displaced
Casualties (see below)


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The Troubles



Operation Demetrius was a British Army operation in Northern Ireland on 9–10 August 1971, during The Troubles. It involved the mass arrest andinternment (without trial) of 342 people suspected of being involved with Irish republican paramilitaries (the Provisional IRA and Official IRA). Armed soldiers launched dawn raids throughout Northern Ireland, sparking four days of rioting that killed 20 civilians, two Provisional IRA members and two British soldiers. About 7,000 people fled their homes, of which roughly 2,500 fled south of the border. No loyalist paramilitaries were included in the sweep and many of those who were arrested had no links with republican paramilitaries, which caused much anger. The policy of internment was to last until December 1975 and during that time 1,981 people were interned.[1] Its introduction, and the abuse of those interned, led to numerous protests and a sharp increase in violence. The interrogation techniques used on the internees were described by the European Commission of Human Rights in 1976 as "torture", but theEuropean Court of Human Rights ruled on appeal in 1978 that while the techniques were "inhuman and degrading", they did not constitute torture.[2]


Contents [hide]
1 Planning
2 Legal basis
3 The operation and its immediate aftermath
4 Long-term effects
5 Effects on domestic and international law
5.1 Parker Report
5.2 European Commission of Human Rights
5.3 European Court of Human Rights
6 References

Planning [edit]

Internment was re-introduced on the orders of the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Brian Faulkner. The policy of internment had been used a number of times during Northern Ireland's (and the Republic of Ireland's) history.

In the case brought to the European Commission of Human Rights by the Irish Government against the United Kingdom, it was conceded that Operation Demetrius was planned and implemented from the highest levels of the British Government and that specially trained personnel were sent to Northern Ireland to familiarize the local forces in what became known as the 'five techniques', described by opponents as "a euphemism for torture".[3]

On the initial list of those to be arrested, which was drawn up by RUC Special Branch and MI5, there were 450 names, but only 350 of these were able to be arrested. Key figures on the lists, and many who never appeared on them, were warned before the swoop began. It included leaders of the non-violent civil rights movement such as Ivan Barr and Michael Farrell. But, as Tim Pat Coogan noted,


What they did not include was a single Loyalist. Although the UVF had begun the killing and bombing, this organisation was left untouched, as were other violent Loyalist satellite organisations such as Tara, the Shankill Defence Associationand the Ulster Protestant Volunteers. It is known that Faulkner was urged by the British to include a few Protestants in the trawl but he refused.[4]

It was agreed to introduce internment at a meeting between Faulkner and UK Prime Minister Edward Heath in August 5, 1971. The British cabinet recommended, “balancing action”, such as the arrest of loyalist militants, the calling in of weapons held by (generally unionist) rifle clubs in Northern Ireland and the indefinite ban on parades, particularly those by the Orange Order. However Faulkner argued that a ban on parades was unworkable, the gun clubs posed no security risk and there was no evidence of loyalist terrorism. It was eventually agreed that there would be a six-month ban on parades but no targeting of loyalists and that internment would go ahead on August 9, in an operation carried out by the Army.[5]
Legal basis [edit]

The internments were initially carried out under Regulations 11 and 12 of 1956 and Regulation 10 of 1957 (the Special Powers Regulations), made under the authority of the Special Powers Act. The Detention of Terrorists Order of 7 November 1972, made under the authority of the Temporary Provisions Act, was used after direct rule was instituted.
The operation and its immediate aftermath [edit]

The HMS Maidstone, a prison ship docked at Belfast where many internees were sent

Operation Demetrius began on Monday 9 August at about 4AM.

The operation was in two parts:
(1) Arrest and movement of the detainees to one of three regional holding centers: Girdwood in Belfast, Ballykinler in County Down, or Magilligan in County Londonderry.
(2) The process of identification and questioning, leading either to release of the detainee or movement into detention at Crumlin Road prison or aboard the HMS Maidstone, aprison ship in Belfast Harbor.[6]

In the first wave of raids across Northern Ireland, 342 people were arrested.[7] Many of those arrested reported that they and their families were assaulted, verbally abused and threatened by the soldiers. There were claims of soldiers smashing their way into houses without warning and firing rubber bullets through doors and windows. Many of those arrested also reported being ill-treated during their detention. They complained of being beaten, verbally abused, threatened, harassed by dogs, denied sleep, and starved. Specific humiliations included being forced to run a gauntlet of baton-wielding soldiers, having their heads forcefully shaved, being kept naked, being burnt with cigarettes, having a sack placed over their heads for long periods, having a rope kept around their necks, having the barrel of a gun pressed against their heads, being dragged by the hair, being trailed behind armored vehicles while barefoot, and being tied to armored trucks as a human shield.[8][9]

The operation sparked an immediate upsurge of violence, which was said to be the worst since the August 1969 riots.[7] The British Army came under sustained attack from Irish nationalist/republican rioters and gunmen, especially in Belfast. According to journalistKevin Myers: "Insanity seized the city. Hundreds of vehicles were hijacked and factories were burnt. Loyalist and IRA gunmen were everywhere".[10] People blocked roads and streets with burning barricades to stop the British Army entering their neighborhoods. InDerry, barricades were again erected around Free Derry and "for the next 11 months these areas effectively seceded from British control".[11] Between 9 and 11 August, 24 people were killed or fatally wounded: 20 civilians (14 Irish Catholics, 6 Protestants), two members of the Provisional IRA, shot dead by the British Army, and two members of the British Army, shot dead by the Provisional IRA.[12]

A mural commemorating those killed in theBallymurphy Massacre during Operation Demetrius

Of the civilians killed, 17 were killed by the British Army and the other three were killed by unknown attackers.[12] In West Belfast's Ballymurphy housing estate, 11 Irish Catholic civilians were killed by the British Army between 9 and 11 August in an episode that has become known as the Ballymurphy Massacre. Another flashpoint was Ardoyne in North Belfast, where soldiers shot dead three people on 9 August.[12] Many Protestant families fled Ardoyne and about 200 burnt their homes as they left, lest they "fall into Catholic hands".[13] Protestant and Catholic families fled "to either side of a dividing line, which would provide the foundation for the permanent peaceline later built in the area".[10] Catholic homes were burnt in Ardoyne and elsewhere too.[13] About 7000 people, most of them Catholic, were left homeless.[13] About 2500 Catholic refugees fled south of the border, where newrefugee camps were set up.[13]

By 13 August, media reports indicated that the violence had begun to wane, seemingly due to exhaustion on the part of the IRA and security forces.[14]

On 15 August, the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) announced that it was starting a campaign of civil disobedience in response to the introduction of internment. By 17 October, it was estimated that about 16,000 households were withholding rent and rates for council houses as part of the campaign of civil disobedience.[7]

On 16 August, over 8000 workers went on strike in Derry in protest at internment. Joe Cahill, then Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA, held a press conference during which he claimed that only 30 Provisional IRA members had been interned.[7]

On 22 August, in protest against internment, about 130 non-Unionist councillors announced that they would no longer sit on district councils. The SDLP also withdrew its representatives from a number of public bodies.[7] On 19 October, five Northern Ireland Members of Parliament (MPs) began a 48-hour hunger strike against internment. The protest took place near 10 Downing Street in London. Among those taking part were John Hume, Austin Currie, and Bernadette Devlin.[7] Protests would continue until internment was ended in December 1975.
Long-term effects [edit]

Anti-internment mural in the Bogside area of Derry

The backlash against internment contributed to the decision of the British Government under Prime Minister Edward Heath to suspend the Northern Ireland Government and replace it with direct rule from Westminster, under the authority of a British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Following the resignation of the Government of Northern Ireland and the prorogation of theParliament of Northern Ireland in 1972, internment was continued by the direct ruleadministration until 5 December 1975. During this time a total of 1,981 people were interned: 1,874 were from a Catholic or Irish nationalist background, while 107 were from a Protestant or Ulster loyalist background.[15]

Historians generally view the period of internment as inflaming sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland, while failing in its goal of arresting key members of the IRA. Many of the nationalists arrested had no links whatsoever with the IRA, but their names appeared on the list of those to be arrested through bungling and incompetence. The list's lack of reliability and the arrests that followed, complemented by reports of internees being abused, led to more people identifying with the IRA in the nationalist community and losing hope in other methods. After Operation Demetrius, recruits came forward in huge numbers to join the Provisional and Official wings of the IRA.[13] Internment also led to a sharp increase in violence. In the eight months before the operation, there were 34 conflict-related deaths in Northern Ireland. In the four months following it, 140 were killed.[13] A serving officer of the British Royal Marines declared:


It (internment) has, in fact, increased terrorist activity, perhaps boosted IRA recruitment, polarised further the Catholic and Protestant communities and reduced the ranks of the much needed Catholic moderates.[16]

In terms of loss of life, 1972 was the most violent of the Troubles. The fatal march on Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972) in Derry, when 14 unarmed civil rights protesters were shot dead by British paratroopers, was an anti-internment march.
Effects on domestic and international law [edit]
Parker Report [edit]

When the interrogation techniques used on the internees became known to the public, there was outrage at the Government, especially from the Irish nationalist community. In answer to the anger from the public and Members of Parliament, on 16 November 1971 (just over a month after the start of the operation), the British Government commissioned a committee of inquiry chaired by Lord Parker (theLord Chief Justice of England) to look into the legal and moral aspects of the 'five techniques'.

The "Parker Report"[17] was published on 2 March 1972 and found the five techniques to be illegal under domestic law:


10. Domestic Law ...(c) We have received both written and oral representations from many legal bodies and individual lawyers from both England and Northern Ireland. There has been no dissent from the view that the procedures are illegal alike by the law of England and the law of Northern Ireland. ... (d) This being so, no Army Directive and no Minister could lawfully or validly have authorized the use of the procedures. Only Parliament can alter the law. The procedures were and are illegal.

On the same day (2 March 1972), United Kingdom Prime Minister Edward Heath stated in the House of Commons:


[The] Government, having reviewed the whole matter with great care and with reference to any future operations, have decided that the techniques ... will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation... The statement that I have made covers all future circumstances.[18]

As foreshadowed in the Prime Minister's statement, directives expressly forbidding the use of the techniques, whether alone or together, were then issued to the security forces by the Government.[18] These are still in force and the use of such methods by UK security forces would not be condoned by the Government.
European Commission of Human Rights [edit]

The Irish Government, on behalf of the men who had been subject to the five techniques, took a case to the European Commission on Human Rights (Ireland v. United Kingdom, 1976 Y.B. Eur. Conv. on Hum. Rts. 512, 748, 788-94 (Eur. Comm’n of Hum. Rts.)). The Commission stated that it


...unanimously considered the combined use of the five methods to amount to torture, on the grounds that (1) the intensity of the stress caused by techniques creating sensory deprivation "directly affects the personality physically and mentally"; and (2) "the systematic application of the techniques for the purpose of inducing a person to give information shows a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages...a modern system of torture falling into the same category as those systems applied in previous times as a means of obtaining information and confessions.[19][20]
European Court of Human Rights [edit]

The Commissions findings were appealed. In 1978, in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) trial Ireland v. the United Kingdom(Case No. 5310/71),[21] the facts were not in dispute and the judges court published the following in their judgement:


These methods, sometimes termed "disorientation" or "sensory deprivation" techniques, were not used in any cases other than the fourteen so indicated above. It emerges from the Commission's establishment of the facts that the techniques consisted of:
(a) wall-standing: forcing the detainees to remain for periods of some hours in a "stress position", described by those who underwent it as being "spreadeagled against the wall, with their fingers put high above the head against the wall, the legs spread apart and the feet back, causing them to stand on their toes with the weight of the body mainly on the fingers";
(b) hooding: putting a black or navy coloured bag over the detainees' heads and, at least initially, keeping it there all the time except during interrogation;
(c) subjection to noise: pending their interrogations, holding the detainees in a room where there was a continuous loud and hissing noise;
(d) deprivation of sleep: pending their interrogations, depriving the detainees of sleep;
(e) deprivation of food and drink: subjecting the detainees to a reduced diet during their stay at the centre and pending interrogations.

These (a to e) were the 'five techniques' referred to above. The court ruled:


167. ... Although the five techniques, as applied in combination, undoubtedly amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, although their object was the extraction of confessions, the naming of others and/or information and although they were used systematically, they did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture as so understood. ... 168. The Court concludes that recourse to the five techniques amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment, which practice was in breach of [the European Convention on Human Rights] Article 3 (art. 3).

On 8 February 1977, in proceedings before the ECHR, and in line with the findings of the Parker Report and UK Government policy, the Attorney-General of the United Kingdom stated:


The Government of the United Kingdom have considered the question of the use of the 'five techniques' with very great care and with particular regard to Article 3 (art. 3) of the Convention. They now give this unqualified undertaking, that the 'five techniques' will not in any circumstances be reintroduced as an aid to interrogation.
References [edit]

^ Joint Committee on Human Rights, Parliament of the United Kingdom (2005). Counter-Terrorism Policy And Human Rights: Terrorism Bill and related matters: Oral and Written Evidence. Counter-Terrorism Policy And Human Rights: Terrorism Bill and related matters 2. The Stationery Office. p. 110.
^ http://www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1978/1.html
^ Parker, Tom. Frontline: "Is torture ever justified?". PBS.
^ Coogan, Tim Pat. The Troubles: Ireland's ordeal 1966-1996 and the search for peace. London: Hutchinson. p.126Internment - Summary of Main Events
^ The Irish Story - Internment is introduced in Northern Ireland
^ The Compton Report, November 1971. Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
^ a b c d e f Internment: A chronology of the main events.Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
^ Danny Kennally and Eric Preston. Belfast August 1971: A Case to be Answered. Independent Labour Party, 1971.Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN).
^ Danny Kennally and Eric Preston. Belfast August 1971: A Case to be Answered. Chapter: Treatment of Arrested. Independent Labour Party, 1971. Conflict Archive on the Internet(CAIN).
^ a b McKittrick, David. Lost Lives: The stories of the men, women and children who died through the Northern Ireland Troubles. Mainstream, 1999. p.80
^ "Blunt weapon of internment fails to cru

1. sh nationalist resistance". An Phoblacht. 9 August 2007.
2. ^ ^a b c Malcolm Sutton's Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland: 1971. Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Coogan, Tim Pat. The Troubles: Ireland's ordeal 1966-1996 and the search for peace. Palgrave, 2002. p.152
4. ^ "Violence ebbing in Northern Ireland". The Milwaukee Journal, 13 August 1971.
5. ^ Internment - Summary of Main Events. Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
6. ^ Hamill, D. Pig in the Middle: The Army in Northern Ireland. London, Methuen, 1985.
7. ^ The Parker Report, March 1972. Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
8. ^ ^a b Ireland v. the United Kingdom Paragraph 101 and 135
9. ^ Security Detainees/Enemy Combatants: U.S. Law Prohibits Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Footnote 16
10. ^ Weissbrodt, David. Materials on torture and other ill-treatment: 3. European Court of Human Rights (doc) html: Ireland v. United Kingdom, 1976 Y.B. Eur. Conv. on Hum. Rts. 512, 748, 788-94 (Eur. Comm’n of Hum. Rts.)
11. ^ IRELAND v. THE UNITED KINGDOM - 5310/71 (1978) ECHR 1 (18 January 1978)

British Political Internment Madness to Induce Suicide of Marian Price

 international | crime and justice | news report  Thursday October 04, 2012 08:39 by BrianClarkeNUJ 

Secret Trials and Experiments

Issues of mental health and insanity due to solitary confinement and other extreme forms of Sensory Deprivation date back to the 19th century and were widely researched by a variety of academics and scholars at that time.Some of these early prison experiments indicated that many prisoners preferred the lash over solitary confinement, because it did not induce permanent damage and would not incite madness like solitary confinement. Mental instability has been linked to solitary confinement since the 1860s. Prison records of the Danish institute of 1870-1920 demonstrate, that inmates showed signs of mental illnesses in isolation, revealing that knowledge of this has been around for more than a hundred years before the British started serious experiment on Irish political internees, who later became known as "The Guineapigs" after an internee John McGuffuin, wrote a book about it by that title .

British Political Internment Experiments

Issues of mental health and insanity due to solitary confinement and other extreme forms of Sensory Deprivation date back to the 19th century and were widely researched by a variety of academics and scholars at that time.Some of these early prison experiments indicated that many prisoners preferred the lash over solitary confinement, because it did not induce permanent damage and would not incite madness like solitary confinement. Mental instability has been linked to solitary confinement since the 1860s. Prison records of the Danish institute of 1870-1920 demonstrate, that inmates showed signs of mental illnesses in isolation, revealing that knowledge of this has been around for more than a hundred years before the British started serious experiment on Irish political internees, who later became known as "The Guineapigs" after an internee John McGuffuin, wrote a book about it by that title .

The British as result of these Sensory Deprivation torture experiments, became the world's leading experts on the matter and refined it down to their sick art. The British are very aware as result of these experiments, on how to induce various forms of specific psychosis and are still perfecting their dark arts, on their latest internees of political conscience, which includes Marian Price. The experiments are also used to induce a psychotic state, to later discredit political prisoners, such as the Price sisters when eventually they are released. The British experiments are often supplemented with different drugs, secretly administered in the food of Irish political prisoners. On other occasions the British use the induced psychotic state to induce the suicide of political dissidents.

Solitary internment without trial in British Occupied Ireland, which Marian Price has endured now, for more than one year on this occasion, coupled with more than six months of force feeding previously, has left Marian Price permanently, distraught and physically damaged and in seriously bad health. The Irish internees of this special form of torture in which political dissident internees are isolated from any human contact, is sometimes used as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for Irish political prisoners, as well as conducting further experiments in their dark sadistic British art. Some previous interned Irish political prisoners or the original Guineapigs of Sensory Deprivation, prior to the latest form of selective internment, suffered subsequent seriously bad health, death and suicide.

On June 5, 1975 Sean McKenna died. On his death certificate the cause of death was 'heart attack'. At the funeral oration Ruari O'Bradaigh, President of Sinn Fein said: "Before 1971 Sean McKenna was a strong, healthy man, but after suffering at the hands of the enemy, the great tortures to which he was subjected, his time was marked. He started to die for Ireland at 4 am. on August 9, 1971 when he was interned and tortured." At the time of his internment Sean McKenna, at 42 was the oldest of the Guineapigs. He was also one of those worst-affected. Following the experiment he was kept interned at Long Kesh, in a very bad state, for two years before being transferred to various psychiatric hospitals and finally released, only to die a year later.

Professor Robert J. Daly of Cork University, who carried out a five year study of many of the Guineapigs, examined McKenna four months before his death reporting him physically fit. "He had a feeling of impending fatal illness and had gross symptoms of anxiety." Professor Daly also spoke of three of the other Guineapigs. "One 29 year old hooded man has developed Hodgkin's disease, of which there was no evidence prior to his arrest.Hodgkin's disease is a rare form of cancer. It is still not curable but can be treated. Another man has had surgical treatment for carcinoma of the skin which developed on one of his scars which he received on his leg while being 'interrogated in depth'. A fourth man has had colonic resection for suspected Chron's disease. He developed intense and chronic diarrhoea some three months after the 'interrogation in depth'. All the hooded men report disability to a greater or lesser extent and this has included outpatient and inpatient psychiatric treatment as well as treatment for medical illness."

British Army training in 'psyops' or psychological operations, torture and sensory deprivation has continued with Marian Price, despite the British Government giving an 'assurance' that such methods would never be used again, when they were found guilty of torture in Ireland, at the International Court of Human rights in Strasbourg. The end result of the 'Guineapigs' experiment, like so many other experiment being conducted in British Occupied Ireland, is that the British are now regarded as experts at this form of torture and are regularly invited to give demonstrations and seminars, at places such as Fort Bragg, Carolina, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona and Bad Tolz in West Germany.They also instructed the fascist P.I.D.E. Portuguese secret police until they discovered to their disgust and embarrassment after an Army coup, they had unbeknownst to themselves, been giving lessons of Kitsonian counter-insurgency techniques and torture, to guerrillas in Latin American, who had infiltrated the Portugese Army and the British torture courses.

Besides the psychological harm the British have inflicted on Marian Price the sensory deprivation will have a severe negative impact on her mental state and may lead to mental illnesses such as depression, permanent change in her brain physiology, along with an induced existential crisis, that will probably lead to her premature death. Women are more far more likely to become depressed because of paranoid feelings of and imagined lack of support by their families outside prison. The extreme form of solitary confinement, Sensory Deprivation and isolation suffered by Marian will be felt by the larger Irish community as a whole. The unreasonable amount of time Marian has spent in solitary confinement will probably mean that Marian will suffer from serious mental illnesses even if the British ever release her.

The British plan as result of their experiments on Irish political guineapigs, with new legislation this Autumn and more secret courts in England to place prisoners in solitary confinement based on sexual orientation, race and religion. This form of psychological torture and its negative psychological effects were described by one leading judge to rule that “Solitary confinement or Sensory deprivation units are virtual incubators of psychoses seeding illness in otherwise healthy inmates.” This author has received uncorroborated evidence more than one year ago, that the British plan with regard to the torture of Marian Price, is to induce her suicide, with the use of Sensory Deprivation. This has already been achieved with other prisoners of political conscience. 

Related Link: http://irishblog-brianclarkenuj.blogspot.com/