Marian Price-Political hostage

Marian Price- political hostage

A number of weeks ago a relatively politically aware acquaintance of mine asked me who Marian Price was. I was wearing a Free Marian Price badge and it sparked a conversation about her internment. I explained the background to her case which will be familiar to most reading this. To those who aren’t it is simple. Marian price has spent over a year interned in isolation because the British Secretary of State Owen Patterson decided that she should be. There is no crime that she has been convicted of, no charge against her that explains her internment.

Following the conversation two things struck my attention. The first was that my friend seemed shocked at the fact that he hadn’t heard anything about the case, the second was his barely concealed suspicion that Marian had in fact brought this internment upon herself. There has been plenty of protests about Marian’s internment, north and south. The media attention however has been negligible. The human rights groups have utterly failed to rally behind Marian. So we must ask ourselves, what kind of attitude prevails towards Republicans when it is deemed acceptable for one of us to be taken from our family, tortured, isolated and left to suffer. It is simply not newsworthy it would seem apparent. Those liberal critics of despotic regimes around the globe have fallen awkwardly silent at the prospect of a woman being psychologically broken down daily, unfit to attend a show trial in a courtroom where she has no right to see the evidence supposedly held against her nor the right to have a jury hear it.

The so called Socialist groupings have run and hid from the campaign to free Marian. Aside from the contributions of Eamon McCann who has stood effectively alone as a voice of opposition ,the Socialist party and the Socialist Workers Party are guilty of utter moral cowardice. Being Republican today is not only grounds to be interned it also precludes you from solidarity with those who claim to stand for human rights.

There have been many who have come from outside a Republican political standpoint to support Marian. There contributions have meant that finally there has been some media attention directed towards the campaign. The message this sends out is clear. If Pat Ramsey and the SDLP say that Marian Price is being unjustly interned it is credible. If a Republican states that Marian is being held unjust, that Martin Corey is being interned, that the system is rotten and unjust then we are to be ignored.

The primary focus of all our efforts will and must be the release of Marian before her health is allowed to deteriorate even further. However for those who have stood side by side with us calling for her release we must ask them what does Marian’s case tell you about the nature of the six county state today. Marian is not the only internee nor is she the first in recent years. If you are ready to stand and say publicly that this is wrong, morally and politically then what do you say about the system which implements it?

Marian is a political hostage. There is no other way to express the reasoning behind the decision to intern her. She is being used as an example, a threat to all who stand in defiance of the status quo. So for those who support Marian today ask yourselves will you have the moral courage to go a step further. To ask the British government why it uses internment and torture and to question why if indeed power has been “devolved” then why it is one man who can place Irish men and women in prison at his command?

Unless those sitting in Stormont, in the media and elsewhere who rightly condemn Marian’s internment place her case in its political context then there will be nothing learned from it. For as long as there is British rule in Ireland there will be more cases like Marians.