ULSTER INTERNMENT Britons call for end to policy

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32860, 8 March 1972, Page 18

ULSTER INTERNMENT Britons call for end to policy

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright >

LONDON, March 7.

The novelist, Graham Greene, and more than 20 other British writers and artists have called for an end to the internment-without-trial policy in Ulster.

In a letter published in “The Times,” they said: “Detention without trial has lasted six months in Northern Ireland. Whatever its initial purpose, it now seems to be the main obstacle to that negotiation between the two communities which alone can bring peace to both.

“Feeling that any glove which might end the continuing dehumanisation of life in that stricken area is worthy of consideration, we, the undersigned, with this purpose, and only this purpose, in mind, appeal to the British Government to promote the release of all prisoners against whom no charges can be brought, and to bring the rest to trial without delay. “We believe this would break the present impasse of silence by enabling the elected representatives of the minority to come to the negotiating table without loss of principle or pride.” Besides Mr Greene, the signatories ate: the art historian, Sir Kenneth Clark; the Poet Laureate, C. Day Lewis; the historian, Lady Antonia Fraser; the novelists, Pamela Hansford Johnson (Lady Snow) and Iris Murdoch; the sculptor, Henry Moore; the novelist, Brian Moore; Mrs Sonia Orwell, widow of George Orwell; the critic, V. S. Pritchett; the poet, Kathleen Raine; the novelist, Muriel Spark; the poet, Stephen Spender; the novelist, C. P. (Lord) Snow; and the historian, A. J. P. Taylor.