End the torture Free Gary Donnelly NOW

Maghaberry Prison Protest
32 County Sovereignty Movement


Once again the veneer of normalisation is shattered by London’s policy of criminalisation against republicans. As much as such a policy victimises republican activists and republican prisoners it also highlights the utter impotence of those claiming to be ‘Irish Ministers’ in Stormont. The British Government is now utilising the entire spectrum of its criminal justice system in Ireland in its dirty war against Irish separatists irrespective of devolution. The police, judiciary and prison authorities are at one in the implementation of this policy.

There has been a concerted effort in recent times to smear individual republicans as agents and informers to ferment mistrust and division within republican ranks. Coupled with this have been bogus RUC/PSNI claims of death threats against named individuals purportedly from republican organisations. These are not random or localised occurrences but form part of a centrally controlled strategy. Undoubtedly the spectre of republican unity prompted this strategy at this time.

32CSM activist Gary Donnelly was recently imprisoned after being assaulted by members of the RUC/PSNI in Derry. Shortly into his incarceration Gary was placed on ‘lockdown’ and removed from the republican wing on the spurious grounds that his life was ‘under threat from the Real IRA’. He was placed in a wing housing criminal and sex offenders. As a consequence of this action Gary has refused food pending his return to the republican wing.

This development marks a deliberate intrusion of this dirty war strategy into the prison system. Like all previous attempts to do so it will fail in the face of determined republican resistance both within and without of that system. We call on all republicans to see through this nefarious British tactic and act in unison against it. Criminalisation is directed against all republicans and ostensibly what republicans struggle for. To those who chose to become part of the British establishment under the delusional belief that such an act could remove that establishment from Ireland you now face another choice, your British paymasters expect no less from you.