THE London branch of Saoirse, the republican prisoners' group, has blocked an attempt by Sinn Fein to disband it. The party had long been unhappy with the group's militant activities.
A letter from the Sinn Fein leadership in Dublin, ordering dissolution, was read by a leading republican to a Saoirse meeting in Camden Irish Centre last month.
He said that, following the resumption of the IRA campaign, the party's POW department would be taking overall responsibility for prisoners' issues.
However, Saoirse members voiced strong opposition to the request and called their own meeting last week. They voted by 48 votes to seven not to disband, according to one source. Those voting against included the relatives of IRA prisoners in England.
Branches of Saoirse were formed in Britain and Ireland after the IRA ceasefire to campaign for the release of prisoners. There are contradictory reports as to whether other branches have also been dissolved.
The group sought to present itself as non party political, but one London member said, while "most people in Saoirse" were knot members of Sinn Fein, they did take direction from Sinn Fein.
The London branch had a high profile over the past year, but some of its activities had irritated the Sinn Fein leadership, according to the spokeswoman.
"We wanted to picket the Labour Party's headquarters, but they thought that was too extreme. Other things were discouraged, like holding a picket outside Belmarsh Prison. And they ordered us to abandon our activities while President Clinton was in Ireland."
She said that Sinn Fein had deliberately refused to pass on news from Belmarsh Prison to the group. "The conditions there are very bad. Prisoners are locked up for 23 hours a day and are being denied visits. Relatives of these men were in the group, but Sinn Fein didn't relay information about what was happening in the jail to them.
She said that Sinn Fein could have been wary of the branch because several activists were very critical of the peace process.
A Sinn Fein spokesman yesterday said that the party had not discouraged any activities of Saoirse in London. He said that its campaign had been overtaken by political circumstances. A new group, the Irish Peace Initiative, had been set up to deal with the prisoners issue in a wider context, he added.