Anthony McIntyre, who served 17 years in the Maze prison, said he was going to move out of the republican stronghold of Ballymurphy because he feared the IRA would try to kill him for speaking out against the Sinn Fein leadership. He has lived in the area since he came out of jail eight years ago. 

McIntyre, a member of the dissident Irish Republican Writers Group, said he had to consider the safety of his partner and their new daughter. Last week the RUC visited McIntyre's home and told him to step up his security. 

He has incurred the wrath of the Provisional IRA's leadership for condemning the Good Friday Agreement as a sell-out of republican principles. He said: 'The Sinn Fein leadership has created an atmosphere in which I could be killed, in which someone could take it into their heads that they are doing the right thing by attacking me. They might not sanction it themselves, but the atmosphere is there for someone to do some thing against me and make a name for himself. They have been spreading propaganda linking myself and the Writers Group to the Real IRA, even though I have said consistently that there is no justification for their violence.' 

Protesters, who included Sinn Fein candidates in the coming local government elections, have twice picketed McIntyre's home. He has also been beaten up outside his house and told that the IRA would 'put one in his head' if he continued to criticise the Provisionals' leadership. 

He described the atmosphere in the Ballymurphy area as akin to that in the H-blocks during the blanket protests of the late Seventies and early Eighties. 'It is the same tension, the same feeling that I may be kicked or beaten up at any time.' 

He points to the killing of Real IRA member Joe O'Connor by the Provisionals last October as evidence that his former comrades would be prepared to kill him to silence dissent. Though they oppose the Real IRA, McIntyre and fellow ex-IRA veteran Tommy Gorman have called for a public, independent inquiry into O'Connor's murder. McIntyre, who has contributed a chapter to a book on the Good Friday Agreement to be published by Oxford University Press this Easter, rejected Sinn Fein charges that he is paranoid. 

'If only it was just paranoia,' he said. 'Recently a leaflet was distributed around the area, which was a mock Real IRA newsheet. It was actually handed out by the Provisionals and made references to myself being a sponsor of the Real IRA. The campaign of demonisation against myself and my family has intensified and the fact the RUC paid me a visit underlines that the threat is serious.' 

Carrie Twomey, McIntyre's partner, accused the Provisionals of denying him and the other republican writers free speech. Pointing to her five-week-old daughter, Twomey said: 'I want us to move out because I want my daughter to grow up knowing her father.' 

McIntyre's chapter in Aspects of the Belfast Agreement is entitled 'The defeat of the Provisional IRA', which will no doubt infuriate republican leaders.