The torture of Marian Price

Posted by Jim on May 31, 2012

  by Sandy Boyer (for Counterpunch)

 Marian Price has been imprisoned in Northern Ireland for more than a  year on the basis of secret evidence neither she nor her lawyers have  been allowed to see. She is effectively interned without a trial,  sentence, or release date.  Unless the courts intervene, she will only  be released by order of a British Cabinet Minister, Owen Paterson, the  Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

 Overruling the Courts

 Twice she has been arrested and brought before a non-jury Diplock Court.

 Twice a judge ordered her released on bail.

 Each time Owen Paterson overruled the judge and ordered her back to  prison. He said that he was revoking her license (parole in American

 terms) because he had “confidential information” against her. This  “information” could only have come from MI5.

 In May 2011, she was charged with “encouraging support for an illegal  organization” after she held up a piece of paper from which a masked man  read a statement.  Northern Ireland must be one of the very few places  where holding up a piece of paper can constitute a crime.

  On May 11, 2012, almost exactly a year after these charges were filed,  they were dismissed because the British government hadn’t produced any  evidence. But Marian Price remains in prison.

 In July 2011 she was charged with “providing property for the purposes of  terrorism”. She was accused of giving a cell phone to someone who  participated in the killing of two British soldiers. She had been  questioned about this and released 18 months before being charged. Her  solicitor, Peter Corrigan, told the BBC that there was no new evidence  against her.

  Once again she was released on bail, and, again, Owen Paterson said he  was revoking her license and ordered her back to prison.

 The Vanishing Pardon

 But Marian Price and her legal team insist that she was never actually  on license. They say that after being convicted of IRA bombings in  Britain, she received a full royal pardon (the “Royal Prerogative of

 Mercy”) when she was freed in 1980 after she appeared to be on the brink  of death from severe anorexia nervosa.

 The British Government now says the pardon “cannot be located” – that it  has been lost or shredded and that no copy exists.  Peter Corrigan told  a public meeting in Belfast that this is the only time in the entire  history of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy that a pardon has gone  missing. The veteran Irish human rights campaigner Mgr. Raymond Murray  said that “You can draw your own conclusions.”

 There is good reason to be concerned about Marian Price’s health and  well being. She was unable to appear in court on May11th, even by video  link. Prison doctors have said that she should either be in a hospital  or home with her family.

 She was held in solitary confinement for more than a year. The UN  Special Rapporteur on Torture has called for a ban solitary confinement  of more than 15 days.

 Marian Price’s Health

 Marian Price’s health was permanently damaged when she was force fed  over 400 times while on hunger strike in a British prison. She described  the force feeding in an interview with the Dublin magazine The Village.

 ”Four male prison officers tie you into the chair so tightly with sheets  you can’t struggle. You clench your teeth to try to keep your mouth  closed but they push a metal spring device around your jaw to prise it  open. They force a wooden clamp with a hole in the middle into your  mouth. Then, they insert a big rubber tube down that. They hold your  head back. You can’t speak or move. You’re frightened you’ll choke to  death.”

 Marian Price’s husband, Jerry McGlinchey, said in an interview with  “Radio Free Eireann” on WBAI, the New York Pacifica station, that he is  “very, very worried” about her health. He says she never recovered from  the force feeding which caused tuberculosis that had to be treated as  recently as 2010. The anorexia has returned and she suffers from such  severe arthritis that she can’t even open her hand.

  McGlinchey believes that her health will get steadily worse as long as  she is in prison. He said that “My fear is that Marian will slip into a  deep depression that it would take her years to come out of. I believe  that is what the government intends.”

 Her prison conditions have contributed to the decline in Marian Price’s  health. Male prison guards shine a flashlight in her eyes throughout the  night. Protestant prisoners in nearby cells sing anti-Catholic songs at  the top of their lungs all night long, making it impossible for her to  sleep.

 Support for Marian Price

 Very few people agree with Marian Price’s politics. She is a “dissident”

 Irish republican who believes in the necessity of an armed struggle to  end British rule. Nevertheless the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and  the two major nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein and the  Social Democratic and Labor Party, have all called for her release.

 But what is at stake is more than Marian Price or her politics. The  Irish civil rights leader Bernadette Devlin McAliskey has said that her  treatmenrt, “Is a clear signal to everybody who is not “on board”  and  who is not of the same mind as the government: that no dissent will be  tolerated. No dissent will be tolerated and you challenge the status quo  at your peril.”