ON NOV. 20 Roisin McAliskey, 25 years old and three months into a difficult pregnancy, was arrested in Northern Ireland and held for questioning without charge. A week later this seemingly obscure teacher and community activist was transferred to London pending extradition to Germany for her alleged participation in an attempted IRA mortar attack on a British army base in Osnabruck. 

Now, six months into her pregnancy, McAliskey continues to be held by British authorities without bail and in solitary confinement. According to human rights reports, her health is failing, and the pregnancy is at grave risk. She has been strip-searched more than 120 times since her arrest, even though she has no physical contact with other prisoners or with visitors. 

Although McAliskey was virtually unknown before her detention, her mother, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, has for three decades been a lightning rod for the Irish Republican cause. At 21, she was the youngest person ever to be elected to the British parliament. Now nearly 50, Devlin McAliskey says her eldest daughter is being punished for her mother's unrelenting resistance to British home rule. 

A staunch advocate of ending the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland, Devlin McAliskey has been one of the few to oppose the British peace process. She says it does not address issues of social justice, which would guarantee a lasting peace. She also may have earned the enmity of U.S. officials when in 1995 she came to San Francisco to testify on behalf of former H-block prisoner Jimmy Smyth, who was later extradited to Northern Ireland. 

"Roisin is suffering under the prejudice, bigotry, and contempt with which the state holds me," Devlin McAliskey told Flashpoints, the radio news magazine, over a scratchy overseas phone line. "The vindictiveness with which she is being punished is simply because of who she is: the daughter of Devlin McAliskey, who has given [the British] so much grief on human rights issues." 

So far, the German government has provided little direct evidence linking McAliskey to the attempted attack in Osnabruck. The only eye-witness account of who allegedly was involved came from a landlord, who described a woman different from McAliskey in age, build, height, and coloring. Only after he saw a photograph of her taken in detention did he identify McAliskey as the person he described. 

Devlin McAliskey believes that Germany is requesting extradition because the British government is pressuring it to, and that charges may be dropped before McAliskey ever stands trial. She may, however, remain in prison for up to two years before her case goes to trial. 
No place for a mother
International human rights monitors have strongly condemned the mistreatment of Roisin McAliskey. According to Human Rights Watch-Helsinki, British prison officials' handling of McAliskey -- which has included subjecting her to a weeklong incarceration in the all-male prison at Bellmarsh, where she was jeered by other prisoners -- "violated every basic minimum standard for the treatment of people in detention" and "seriously compromised" her pregnancy, said Human Rights Watch researcher Julia Hall. 

"[At Bellmarsh] Roisin was terrified to move from her bed," Hall added. 

During a December bail hearing, McAliskey's attorney stated that her client was in a state of "advanced starvation due to repeated vomiting, had no access to natural light, and was in danger of losing her baby ... while in the custody of British officials." 

Now entering her third trimester, McAliskey is suffering from repeated bouts of stress-related asthma and rheumatoid arthritis. The fetus is severely underweight. According to a Jan. 31 letter from the rights group to the German attorney general urging him to support McAliskey's release on bail, McAliskey still "undergoes nightly strip searches [and] is forced to sleep with the lights on." 

And, according to the letter, McAliskey's status under antiterrorism law as a high-risk prisoner has "prohibited [her] from access to the prison's obstetric facilities." Both British and German authorities have staunchly opposed releasing her on bail. 

"We're looking at an abuse of legislation ... simply to punish my daughter," Devlin McAliskey said. 

The situation is "both outrageous and insane," said Hall, adding that pretrial release for pregnant women with health complications is the international norm. 

"We are urging the British government to grant Ms. McAliskey bail on humanitarian grounds pending her extradition hearing," the Jan. 31 letter reads. The human rights group informed British and German officials that "there is a significant danger of a premature delivery due to the strain under which [McAliskey] has been placed." 

Roisin McAliskey did not choose to follow her mother into the spotlight. Her activism has taken a much quieter form, focusing on domestic violence and job training for unemployed women. Yet, despite her low-key path, she has suffered deeply as a result of the ongoing hostilities in the North. 

By the time she was 19, a dozen of McAliskey's friends had been killed in violence related to the civil war. Her traumatic asthma was triggered by a 1981 attack on her family's home, in which masked gunmen riddled her parents with bullets and left them for dead, while nearby British soldiers reportedly turned their backs. Nine years old at the time of the attack, McAliskey was held at gunpoint while the assailants entered her parents' bedroom. Following the attack, when her parents were rushed to the hospital, she took charge of her two younger siblings, refusing to turn them over to police. 

"Her reaction was to protect me and my [then two-year-old] brother," recalled McAliskey's younger sister, Deirdre, who was five at the time. "And I remember when the police came to take us away. Roisin was very calm and told them she was unable to leave the house. She said someone would have to stay and look after things. There's no doubt that it has affected us all. It's not something you forget, and it's not something Roisin has been allowed to forget, as we saw during her recent interrogation." 

When McAliskey was initially held for interrogation last November in Northern Ireland, authorities produced the officer who arrived on the scene after the 1981 assassination attempt in an effort to intimidate her, the family feels. 

"Because my very frail daughter," Devlin McAliskey said, "did not break under interrogation, did not agree to work for the police, did not sign confessions to things she was not guilty of, and was not prepared to swear evidence against other people for things they were not guilty of, she is being made an example of." 

"I think she is very conscious that if the Northern Ireland police are allowed to do this to her, they will crucify every vulnerable young woman in the Republican community." 

It is a bitter irony for Devlin McAliskey that her imprisoned daughter is 25, the same age she was when she gave birth to her. And her daughter Deirdre is now 21, the age she was when she was first elected to Parliament. The family represents three generations in struggle, the third having to struggle just to be born. The pregnancy itself is apparently such a threat to the British government, one person familiar with the case said, "that the state might want to see it terminated." 

Meanwhile, Roisin McAliskey has recently begun turning away family visits to avoid the humiliation of the continuing strip searches. 

Deirdre McAliskey told the Bay Guardian that the arrest of her sister appears to be part of a stepped-up attack on the family for their political beliefs. British security forces have raided Devlin McAliskey's house several times since Roisin's arrest and have seized many of her files and papers, according to Deirdre. 

"Basically they came and took everything, including her daughter," Deirdre McAliskey said.