FIONNUALA O Connor consigns internment to the dustbin of history, as something that happened "a long time ago" (August 12). While she captures some of the oppression and trauma unleashed by the introduction of internment in August 1971, she ignores completely the form of internment in practice today.
The stated purpose of the internment march in Belfast, organised by the Anti-Internment League, was not just to mark the historical injustices of internment but to highlight the persistent human rights abuses that continue to see republicans arbitrarily interned.
She mentions the organisers of the march only to belittle them, as people who seem "fairly focused on holding today's mainstream republicans up to ridicule". Her description is a gross misrepresentation of the purpose of the march and the aims of its organisers.
As the march shows, there remains widespread concern with the current system of detention, variously called "internment by remand," "internment by licence," and "administrative internment". This concern has been consistently raised in different quarters, not just from dissenting or mainstream republicans. Raymond Murray used the term 'internment' to describe the incarceration of Marian Price, as did former SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie in the case of Martin Corey. The press has widely reported on the controversial circumstances of the detention of Stephen Murney, Gerry McGeough, Gerry Adams, Alec McCrory, Colin Duffy, Harry Fitzsimons, Damien McLaughlin, and Sean McVeigh.
O Connor's attempt to relegate internment to history is misguided. Certainly, internment is not on the same scale today as in the 1970s but it has the same political purpose. It was an abuse of justice then, as now, and should be resisted.
MIKE BURKE
Toronto, Canada
