Prisoners to heighten dirty protest action

The spectre of republican hunger strikes today loomed over Northern Ireland’s prison regime as inmates on a “dirty protest” planned new action.

Inmates linked to the Real IRA and other dissident terror organisations who are staging their protest by smearing excrement over cell walls in Maghaberry prison were prepared to die, supporters insisted.

Fears have also been raised that a prison officer could be murdered as the crisis deepens.

It is understood the campaign – the republicans want to be separated loyalists at the high-security complex near Lisburn, County Antrim – is set to intensify and spread to Magilligan Prison, Co Derry.

Even though the authorities are confident the segregation bid does not have widespread backing, inmates at the second jail are plotting wrecking sprees or even temporary fasts in a show of solidarity, sources said.

Nearly three weeks into the protest, there was also a growing threat of a first full-blown hunger strike in more than 20 years.

Marian Price, chair of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association, said the protesters were determined.

“They told me they will take it as far as they need to. I didn’t pursue that because I knew what they meant,” she said.

In 1981 IRA men inside the Maze Prison went on a fast to gain political status. 10 of them died.

Ms Price, a former Provisional activist who was jailed for her part in the 1973 IRA bomb attacks on London, went on hunger strike herself in protest at being kept in an English jail.

She was released in 1980.

Ms Price warned: “If one of these young men dies in prison there are going to be consequences and it doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Lives will not be lost on just one side.”

A rally planned for west Belfast tomorrow will show just how much support there is among republicans on the outside for inmates demanding segregation for supposed safety reasons.

Magilligan houses about 700 Category A prisoners, including some of the most dangerous criminals and paramilitaries in Northern Ireland.

The protesters say that being forced to share cells and wings with loyalist foes sent there on remand has put republicans’ lives in danger.

But prison chiefs have accused the dissidents of manufacturing a crisis in a bid to gain control of part of the jail.

Nevertheless Finlay Spratt, chairman of the Northern Ireland Prison Officers’ Association, criticised the jail’s management for forcing some inmates to share cells.

“Doubling-up triggered off the protest in Maghaberry.

“They thought putting ordinary prisoners in with paramilitaries would influence the terrorists, but it’s the complete opposite – all prisoners align themselves with one side or another, depending on their religion.”