On March 1976 the Provisional IRA issued the following statement, responding to the British government’s withdrawal Special Category Status (SCS) for paramilitary volunteers serving prison time:

“In an address to the House of Commons on Thursday March 25th 1976 the Secretary of State, Merlyn Rees, declared that one of the main reasons for the decision to end political status for prisoners was to make it easier for the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) to operate in Northern Ireland. This is probably the clearest declaration of intent ever to emerge from the lips of the Secretary of State. It is as we long suspected… It would appear now that there is no intention to reverse that decision and the British government are determined to push this new scheme through, regardless of the consequences…

Volunteers [of the Provisional IRA] have been instructed that they are not to engage in any institutional schemes under the control of the prison administration. They are further instructed that they are not to wear any clothing provided by the prison administration, even if such clothes of a civilian type. They will respond only to the commands and directives of their superior officers, regardless of the consequences. They are political prisoners and any other imaginary label tagged onto them by the British government will not make the slightest difference to that very basic fact.

We have no doubt that there will now be a hysterical campaign… which will claim that all prisoners are thugs and criminals. So be it. We are confident that the people to whom that propaganda is directed are capable of recognising just who the real thugs are. The present actions of the British Army in working class areas of the North will be the yardstick by which the people will judge [this] propaganda…

It is not the paramilitaries who are in a state of disarray, as recently claimed by Merlyn Rees. The only disarray is in the carefully fostered plans of the NIO (Northern Ireland Office) and the British government. We are prepared to die for the right to retain political status. Those who try to take it away must be fully prepared to pay the same price.”