INTERNMENT 1971 | 40th ANNIVERSARY

Legal action is launched on behalf of internees

Legal action launched against British Government for torture

THE 40th anniversary of the launch of internment without charge or trial by the Stormont unionist regime on 9th August 1971 was chosen to lodge a legal action with Secretary of State Owen Paterson on behalf of six former internees against the British Government for torture.
Just under 2,000 people were interned between 1971 and 1975. The initial internment order was issue by the unionist regime at Stormont under Brian Faulkner and arrests were carried out by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British Army but the policy was continued by the British Government at Westminster when it suspended the Stormont parliament and took over the reins of power.
Internees suffered torture at the hands of the British Army, including  beatings, sensory deprivation and the denial of sleep, food and drink.
One internee recounted having barbed wire wrapped around his wrists before he was hooded and beaten by troops; a woman internee recalled the trauma of having to sign her two children into care.
The internees’ action — against the Ministry of Defence, the Secretary of State, the police and the estate of the late Brian Faulkner — is being brought by former internees Evelyn Gilroy, Geraldine McCann, Kevin Donnelly, Brian Ward, Joseph Curly and Thomas Doyle on behalf of his father, also named Thomas.
Conservative Party MP Patrick Mercer, who was a British Army officer in the North during the 1970s, admitted to the BBC that internment was a political and security disaster.
“To quote my company commander at the time when I arrived in 1975, he said, ‘If we hadn’t have introduced internment three or four years ago I reckon we’d have gone home a long time ago.’”
Former internee and now Sinn Féin MLA Fra McCann welcomed the decision to take a court case against their unlawful arrest and detention:
“As a former internee, I have first-hand experience of what the men and women who were arrested went through.
“Many people were badly beaten and tortured by the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary during the arrest operation for internment. I would call on all former detainees to come forward so that other cases can be lodged.”