TWO republican prisoners at the Maze are due to begin legal action challenging the stringent security measures introduced at the Co Antrim jail following the discovery of an IRA escape tunnel.
Martin McCartney and Robert Kerr plan to challenge the British government over visit cancellations for many of the 95 republican prisoners in H Block 7 where the tunnel was dug.
The men's solicitors complain that inmates may not leave their cells to exercise. Sinn Fein demonstrated outside the Maze yesterday in protest.
The party president, Mr Gerry Adams, said "a new punitive, regime in the H Blocks is a return to the folly of past prison regimes". Security has been tightened since the tunnel was found.
Officials have begun a search of the block and say inmates will be locked in their cells at night, counted several times a day and denied home leave. During the search, visits and parcel deliveries have stopped.
Prison authority sources said a few inmates were being deliberately uncooperative. A spokesman said the current policy could be reviewed in certain circumstances. "Applications for compassionate temporary release in the most urgent and compelling cases continue to be considered from all prisoners," he said.
Meanwhile, IRA prisoners at the Maze admit they were forced to abandon their escape attempt before the tunnel was discovered. In a statement yesterday they said their plans were aborted when the tunnel face collapsed. They claimed it was several hours before the authorities found it.
They also alleged that after the find eight prisoners were forcibly stripped, handcuffed and frog marched from their cells. The prisoners would resist an "oppressive regime" which served "only to heighten tension within the jail".