Peace body says 80 NI people face fatwas

The British-Irish Peace Movement has opened a campaign "to alert public opinion to the fate of 80 citizens (from Northern Ireland) who are the victims of loyalist and republican terrorist fatwas."

The movement, which includes New Dialogue, the Peace Train Organisation and Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT), said "these citizens have been excluded, under pain of death, from Northern Ireland - since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in April. Hundreds of UK and Irish citizens were illegitimately purged by paramilitary gangs in the years before this."

Noting that both the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, and Northern Ireland's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, are attending the British Labour Party conference in Blackpool, they urge them "to express their solidarity with our efforts to end the misery of the exiled and their families."

The group sent its heartfelt congratulations to writer Salman Rushdie and his many supporters on the lifting of "the outrageous fatwa."

It also warmly congratulated the British government "for their principled persistence in successfully seeking the liberty of Salman Rushdie from enforced exile under threat of death from terrorist forces."

Mr Rushdie had to wait nearly 10 years for his freedoms, the group said, but it hoped "that the hidden victims of terrorism in Northern Ireland will not have to wait so long.

"We urge anyone with influence to redouble their efforts to secure their liberty."