Stop human rights abuse in Northern Ireland

I WAS surprised and delighted to see the publication of Brian Loder's letter on Northern Ireland (Catholic Herald, May 22).
It marks a welcome departure from the apparent unwillingness of the Catholic press in Britain to face up to and discuss the facts of the Irish situation.
The injustice of denying republican nationalists any form of "unbiased publicity on the mainland" and "the opportunity to take part in talks about the province" is the visible peak of a mountain of injustice and misery which has been suffered by the Catholic community of Northern Ireland at the hands of their British "protectors" for over twenty years.
Even the most dispassionate Ireland-watcher must have noticed by now that public statements of British security operations in Northern Ireland do not tally with reports coming from the nationalists.
Fr Murray and Fr Denis Faul, eminent Irish human rights campaigners, were left alone for far too long to speak out for justice towards Catholics in Ireland.
They need our support when they were tirelessly engaged in ferreting out the truth about the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four. the Maguires, the Winchester Three and others brutally treated and unjustly sentenced in Britain.
They did not receive it. English Catholics were busy keeping their heads down or refusing to believe the sinister nature of the Irish operation.
I should be grateful for space in your columns to state that as a Catholic I deplore and condemn the violence perpetrated by the three sides of this conflict, the IRA, the security forces and the Protestant paramilitaries.
I am horrified at the thousands of deaths over the last 20 years and the shooting by the security forces of 345 civilians, half of whom were unjustly killed.
I wish the British Government to know that I am aware of the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights condemning the"inhuman and degrading treatment" of detainees in the interrogation centres of Northern Ireland, and wish to have confirmed that this has been stopped.
Irish Catholic friends tell me beatings still continue.
I am aware of the five Amnesty International reports of 1972, 1978, 1988, 1990 and 1991 on the wholescale human rights abuse in Northern Ireland.
In the 1991 report United Kingdom Human Rights Concerns, Amnesty International repeats its call for an independent judicial inquiry into disputed killings by the security forces.
As one who has been proud to be British I wish to retain faith in the probity of British institutions but despair of the corruption of law in Northern Ireland and state complicity with injustice and brutality towards the Catholic community. There can be no peace without justice.
I therefore call upon the Government to name a date for withdrawal from Ireland and to co-operate with the Irish people. north and south, to restore political unity to their country after 400 years of injustice and suffering.
Moya Frenz St Leger Dusseldorf Germany