Rees firm on I.R.A. jail rows

Press, 18 February 1977, Page 5

Rees firm on I.R.A. jail rows

NZPA-Reuter London Irish Republican Army guerrillas jailed for murders and bombings on Britain’s streets are staging a campaign of violence and demonstrations in their prisons, the British Home Secretary (Mr Merlyn Rees) said yesterday. Mr Rees stressed that there would be no amnesty for the 93 prisoners with Irish Republican sympathies imprisoned in England and Wales. They are claiming special privileges and political status. “Many of the terrorists have committed offences against prison discipline, including mutiny and assaults on prison staff for which they have been punished. Some of them have sought to gain their own ends by going on hunger strike, by rooftop demonstrations, and by causing disturbances at visits,” Mr Rees said. Some had even tried to provoke prison staff by throwing buckets of urine over them, he said. “The Provisional I.R.A. is deliberately setting about a campaign in our prisons to gather support for its argument that its adherents are different from other prisoners and that their acts of terrorism are justified because they are politically motivated,” the Minister said in a written House of Commons reply. •

“The view of the Government is clear. These men and women have been convicted and sentenced by the courts for criminal offences, and they will serve their sentences in accordance with the law,” he said.