Prisoners issue raised in Longford
A public meeting in Longford on Thursday 28 August on the theme,
``Obstacles for Irish Prisoners in English Jails'' heard from a
wide range of speakers.
The meeting, organised by the ``Friends of Patrick Kelly Support
Group'', was chaired by Majella McCarron, a human rights
campaigner from the Justice Desk of the Irish Missionary Union.
She said that she had spent years monitoring conflicts across the
world and she thought it was now time that people looked at the
conflict here at home in order to help bring it to an end.
Edel Kelly, wife of Longford man Patrick Kelly who is on remand
in Belmarsh Jail, in England then told the meeting that her
husband has been held in a special Secure Unit (SSU) in Belmarsh
for 13 months and has been ill-treated by prison staff on a
number of occasions and restricted to closed family and legal
visits. Following the announcement by the British government last
week of the decatagorisation of prisoners in Belmarsh from
``exceptional high risk'' to ``high risk category A'', she intends
visiting her husband next week where she believes they will have,
for the first time, an ``open visit''.
Labour Senator Joe Costello, a founder member of the ``Prisoners
Rights Organisation'' and who has been on a number of delegations
to England to visit the prisoners, said that we must keep on
pressurising the British government, not only to have these SSU's
closed but because there are a number of these prisoners who are
certainly innocent.
Newly elected Sinn Féin TD for Cavan/Monaghan, Caoimhghín
O'Caoláin paid tribute to the politicians from other parties who
visited the republican prisoners at a time when the British would
not allow Sinn Féin representatives to do so. He said that on his
visit over to England a couple of weeks ago, he had met with the
prisoners in a small annex room adjacent to their SSU's. He said
he was very impressed with the high spirits of all the prisoners,
including Patrick Kelly. O'Caoláin said that he felt the new
British minister responsible for prisons, Jack Straw, was of new
thinking and that he now had an opportunity to make significant
changes to the regime.
The final speaker of the night was Councillor Peter Kelly, Fianna
Fail. He called on all the people of Longford to support both
Edel Kelly, her family and her campaign to have her husband
repatriated to a jail in Ireland.