Support anti-internment marchers

As former internees and Hooded Men we call on people to support and attend this Sunday’s anti-internment march in Ardoyne, Belfast. 

In particular, we call on all former prisoners, ex-internees, those sentenced in non-jury Diplock courts and all of those who are now at the mercy of the suspension of license for voicing an opinion or criticising the status quo to come and join the demonstration.

Last year, many former prisoners, internees, and license hostages, including many of the surviving Hooded Men from Derry, Belfast, Lurgan and Armagh, who were tortured in August 1971, at the reintroduction of internment, along with families of our now deceased comrades, attended the march. We met lots of old friends and made many new ones, and the brilliant atmosphere added to everyone’s determination to see a final end to internment in Ireland on both sides of the border.

This year, we will all be marching again and seizing this important opportunity to be heard and seen to stand together in opposition to the incarceration of Irish political prisoners.

In August 1971, we were subjected to torture and then imprisoned without trial under internment... Today, internment is imposed under different guises, and while it now goes under other labels, it remains within the power of the secretary of state, Theresa Villiers, to imprison on her own whim anyone she chooses.

This march has been called not just to commemorate past internments: it will be a protest against the ongoing use of internment in Ireland and we will demand that it be brought to an end forever...

Seamus Kearney, who was interned in a Diplock court as a warning to other republicans to keep their heads down, is another example of this injustice, as are Marion Price, Martin Corey, Gerry McGeough and the late John Brady from Strabane, who endured years of internment by other means. These are only several examples of the many cases throughout the six counties where internment has been applied, and for anyone currently on licence it remains a constant threat and hindrance.

While this march is focussing on internment in Ireland there is also a vital international element to our protest, and we will also be marching in solidarity with those across the world who continue to suffer arbitrary, indiscriminate and unjust imprisonment. In particular, we will be thinking of the 800 Palestinian political hostages who were dragged from their homes by the Israeli military in the weeks preceding the attack on Gaza.

Internment remains as arbitrary, unjust, and illegitimate today as it was when we were abducted and tortured in 1971.

There has not been a word or gesture of opposition from the so-called nationalist representation in Stormont but the popular opposition to internment continues to grow. The only way to bring this injustice to an end is to join the march, and we ask that all former prisoners stand with us in support of present-day internees behind the Smash Internment banner, which donated by the Bogside Artists.

Michael Donnelly, Derry Francie McGuigan, Belfast Kevin Hannaway, Belfast Gerry McKerr, Lurgan Brian Turley, Armagh Packie McNally, Armagh