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(Editorial, Irelandclick.com)

The campaign to free Sean Kelly is gathering pace and it is to be hoped that the British government will see sense and return him to his family.

The decision to return Mr Kelly was a cynical and inflammatory move, designed to give the British a better hand in their ongoing negotiations with republicans and also to placate unionists who conducted a lengthy media campaign to put the leading republican back behind bars.

Even those who are not republicans and who hold no brief for Sean Kelly admit that his role on the front line at Ardoyne has been a positive one – indeed, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has even said as much, although he has not yet received a satisfactory answer to the question of exactly why Kelly was returned to jail.

It is to the great credit of Belfast republicans that, despite the hugely provocative rearrest of Sean Kelly, they returned to Ardoyne on July 12th and did their best to hold the line and the violence that did take place would certainly have been much worse if they hadn't been there.

Pictures of Sean Kelly on the front line at Ardoyne, doing nothing except trying to keep the peace, were splashed all over the press in an attempt to connect him with the flashpoint violence. That the same fate could befall other republicans is entirely possible, and reason enough for them to stay in their homes. That they did not is evidence of their commitment to keep the peace in spite of the actions of the British.

It is vital that we do not stand idly by and allow a precedent to be set whereby prisoners can be put back in prison as and when the British decide.

This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web site on July 18, 2005.