Rúnaí ginearálta éirígí Breandán Mac Cionnaith has said the move by the British government to revoke the release license of Belfast republican Marian Price is indicative of the perilous position many republican ex-prisoners are living under.
Despite being granted bail in a Derry court earlier today [Monday], Price was detained after British secretary of state Owen Patterson revoked her release licence. She will now appear in court via video link on June 9.
Mac Cionnaith said: “The deplorable decision to incarcerate Marian Price under a decades’ old licence is evidence of the Damocles’ sword the British government continues to hold over the heads of republican ex-prisoners.
“In effect, what the British government is saying is that, if you don’t toe the line, or at the very least stay silent, it has the power to make you stay silent. This is akin to the Defence of the Realm Act which the British government used to habitually incarcerate Irish republicans in the aftermath of the Easter Rising.
“Those republican ex-prisoners living under licence would never have been imprisoned in the first place had it not been for Britain’s interference in Ireland’s affairs and its creation of an armed conflict here. Threatening to return these people to prison if they are deemed to have spoken out of turn is simply heaping injustice upon massive injustice.”
Mac Cionnaith added: “The legislation which allows for the repeated incarceration of republican ex-prisoners, without trial or conviction, should be repealed immediately and the people concerned allowed to get on with their lives.
“The first step in this process should be the immediate release of Marian Price and Martin Corey from Lurgan, who is being interned under the same legislation.”
http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest160511_2.html
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