Ex-internees to meet for legal and welfare updates after Belfast court ruling

» Peadar Whelan

Coiste na nIarchimí, the republican ex-prisoners’ group, urges all former internees to come to a briefing meeting in An Cultúrlann MacAdhaim/Ó Fiaich on Thursday 27 October at 7pm

EFFORTS by republican former internees to sue the British Government over their imprisonment without trial in the early 1970s have been boosted by a Belfast High Court ruling.

A judge has ordered the British Government to disclose documents relating to the arrest, detention and internment of west Belfast woman Evelyn Gilroy in 1974.

On the back of this ruling, Coiste na nIarchimí, the republican ex-prisoners’ group, urges all former internees to come to a briefing meeting in An Cultúrlann MacAdhaim/Ó Fiaich on Thursday 27 October at 7pm.

Evelyn Gilroy’s legal representative, Pádraig Ó Muirigh, will give an outline on the legal situation following the Belfast High Court outcome on 8 October. The British state was given 16 weeks to hand over documents relating to Evelyn’s case.

Coiste Director Michael Culbert said:

“We are hosting this event to ensure that all those subjected to arrest and imprisonment without due legal process are involved in this case.

“We want to make them aware of what is happening with the current judicial proceedings.

“We would also like anyone who has not come forward to Coiste to come to the meeting and speak with the legal team there.”

Evelyn Gilroy is accusing the British Government of subjecting her to inhuman conditions when she was held for three days by the RUC in May 1974 before being moved to Armagh women’s prison, where she was interned until Christmas that year.

She is one of six ex-internees – with Geraldine McCann, Kevin Donnelly, Brian Ward, Joseph Curly and Thomas Doyle (on behalf of his father, also named Thomas) – who initiated legal proceedings against the British Government, the PSNI and the British Ministry of Defence in August 2011 on the 40th anniversary of ‘Operation Demetrius’. This was the British military codename for the internment operation that led to nearly 350 nationalists being imprisoned without trial.

Upwards of 2,000 men, women, boys and girls from the nationalist community were interned between 1971 and 1975, when the discredited strategy was ended.

The treatment of ‘The Hooded Men’, 14 prisoners taken away for “deep interrogation” – beatings, sensory deprivation and the denial of sleep, food and drink – resulted in the British Government finding itself in the European Court of Human Rights accused of torture.

◼︎ Agnes Fraser, Welfare Rights Adviser with north Belfast ex-POW group Tar Isteach, will also provide information on changes to welfare benefits, particularly in relation to DLA/PIP. She will specifically focus on how the process in relation to these benefits have been rolled out since June and how medical assessments might impact on people.