The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, has called on the British government to consider the pace of prisoner releases in view of the continuing punishment beatings. He was speaking at a press conference in Stormont yesterday after meeting the group, Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT).
The group launched a briefing on paramilitary violence, disclosing that hundreds of terrorist incidents, including shootings and beatings, have taken place since the Belfast Agreement was signed in April.
Mr Trimble said: "The FAIT report details 282 terrorist incidents since the agreement was endorsed - including details of the 66 paramilitary beatings, the 34 paramilitary shootings, the 64 cases of intimidation and the 80 cases of expulsions. These are horrendous figures. The figures also show that the loyalist violence is running ahead of republican incidents. None of this violence should be happening at all, and it must stop." The British government could no longer ignore the figures, he said; "282 incidents cannot be swept under the carpet".
Mr Trimble added: "There is an explicit linkage in the legislation, it is there in the legislation, that the Secretary of State considering whether to include certain paramilitary organisations in the release programme has to take into account a number of factors, and one of the factors are these so-called punishment beatings. She [Dr Mowlam] is duty bound to take this into account. At the very least, she must be making it clear to paramilitary organisations that they cannot continue to benefit from releases if the beatings continue." He said everyone had "hoped the agreement would bring about peace", adding: "We had hoped that it would bring about a cessation of paramilitary activity, indeed that was the whole essence of the agreement, and those parties associated with paramilitary groups who endorse the agreement are under an obligation to deliver the peace that everyone hoped for." FAIT's spokesman, Mr Glyn Roberts, called on the governments to stop prisoner releases for groups which continued "punishment attacks". Mr Roberts said the majority of incidents since the Belfast Agreement was signed were carried out by mainstream paramilitary groups which had declared a ceasefire.
"It is absolutely vital that the governments make it clear that continued paramilitary beatings, shootings, and intimidation, will result in a halt to the paramilitary prisoner release scheme programme. If the governments don't do this, these violent attacks will continue," he added.
"It is the mainstream paramilitary groups that have carried out the vast majority of these acts. The government must act on this. It seems the governments have accepted the definition of a paramilitary ceasefire which only covers an absence of political violence."
A 49-year-old man is recovering in hospital with broken ankles and a broken arm after a masked gang attacked him in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, on Tuesday night.