Flares Let Off As Derry Socialist Republicans Protest Internment
On the 27th of June 2026, a socialist republican protest took place in Derry outside Strand Road Police Station calling for the release of Niall Sheerin and against the Multi-Agency Review Assessment (MARA) process, which is a form of modern-day internment.
On the 27th of June 2026, a socialist republican protest took place in Derry outside Strand Road Police Station calling for the release of Niall Sheerin and against the Multi-Agency Review Assessment (MARA) process, which is a form of modern-day internment against working class republican political opposition to British presence in the occupied 6 counties.
Séamus Fitzsimons from the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA) described Sheerin as a "Republican prisoner" and said he "has fully served the custodial sentence imposed upon him" but remains imprisoned.
The MARA process is "directed by the hand of MI5 and British intelligence" and "operates as a shadowy body designed to ensure that Republican prisoners face sentence extensions based on secret, unchallengeable assessments, " he said, adding that that sentences were being turned into "rolling, open-ended detention" and called for "an immediate end to the policy, an end to the weaponisation of the parole system and the immediate unconditional release of Niall Sheerin".
It is a “calculated attempt to break the spirit of political prisoners and inflict collective punishment on their families" and called on "Republicans, anti-imperialists, human rights advocates and the wider community" to oppose what they termed a "resurgence of executive internment, " he said.
Protestors then marched and went on to denounce the presence of the HMS Biter (P270), a Royal Navy patrol vessel participating in the Foyle Maritime Festival, at the Derry Quay.
