The 7 hunger-strikers of H-Block are now in the sixth week of their 'fast until death'. According to the Tory government, of course, they are nothing more than 'common criminals' whose suffering is "self-inflicted'.
Such comments reveal - with startling clarity - the Tory hatred of these Irish freedom fighters whose sole crime has been to fight against the military occupation of their country.
They - like the hundreds of other prisoners languishing in N. Ireland's goals - were seized by British troops, taken to 'interrogation centres where the! car be held incommunicado for seven days, and then convicted of terrorism by juryless courts on the basis of statements extracted out of them by force.
HUNGER STRIKE Their decision to launch a hunger strike on October 10 was an act of final desperation. Having rounded them up and imprisoned them for fighting against the occupation of their country, they were then deprived of political status and treated as convicts.
For refusal to wear the 'convict uniforms', they were allowed no other clothes except a blanket. As violators of the rules, they were then locked up constantly in special "isolation cells' without toilets.
SOCIALIST ACTION PO Box No 65, London SW16 INN Typeset by Bread in Roses (TU) 01-485 4432 & SENTENCES DOUBLED Their furniture was taken away, all but a piece of foam rubber lying on the floor to serve as a mattress. They were denied any reading material, a chance even to study or play chess, and deprived of almost all contact with relatives or friends. Every day that they refused to accept convict status, their sentences were doubled.
They were given only a few minutes to wash and empty their chamber pots in the morning They were beaten on the way & had excrement and urine dumped over them. So, they had to refuse to go to the toilets.
The guards would not empty, the chamber pots. They pushed the filth back into the cells when the pots overflowed. They threw it back when the prisoners dumped it out of the windows. Finally the only way the prisoners could get it off the floor of their tiny cells was to smear it on the walls.
BEATINGS Most vicious of all, however, they were systematically beaten & humiliated. As one H-Block prisoner describes it: "One man at a time was taken from his cell and the warders ran him from the Bwing to the circle. Each man was pulled about by the hair & beard and a thorough search was made of his mouth with a flash lamp.
The victim was then forcibly 6 ISSUES - £1.50 12 ISSUES - £3.0,0 Printed by Spider Web Offset (TU) 9 Rosemont Rd.,. VW3. ror, placed on the ground, and beaten by six baton-wielding im was then subjected to the a flash lamp was shone up his back passage, a thin metal detector or another probe was inserted up his back passage..
When the search procedure was finished, each man was run into the C wing through a gauntlet of 12 warders who punched him on the head and beat him on his back and his shoulders with batons. Anyone his new cell"
STRIKE Unable to bear such physical and psychological torment any ed to launch a hunger-strike. 7 prisoners took the initiative on them dies, another will take his place on criminals but they - and the thousands of Irish people who have mobilised in their support over the past weeks - know the truth.
als' are. The British government harassed their communities and of four leaders of the campaign in solidarity with the hunger.
a bitter taste in the mouth.
SOLIDARITY determined to crush the hungerwill not allow their comrades to struggle alone.
Already, over the past weeks, mass demonstrations have swept have begun to extend into the South.
In Britain too, Charter 80 has the Tory butchers. That support has to be extended and built on possible layers in the labour movement must be mobilised to stop the Thatcher government committing murder. spread-eagled over the usual mirwarders until he fell. Each vict.
latest obscene search and, while recreation.
who fell was kicked and dragged by the hair, ankles & testicles to longer, on October 10 they decidthe understanding that, as any of Eyewitness Report "Having spent the whole of Sunday in the prison, I was shocked by the inhuman conditions prevailing in H Blocks 3, 4 and 5, where over 300 prisoners are incarcerated. One would hardly allow an animal to remain in such conditions, let alone a human being.
The nearest approach to it I have seen was the spectacle of hundreds of homeless people living in the slums of Calcutta. The stench and filth of the cells, with the remains of rotten food and human excreta scattered around the walls, was almost unbearable. In two of them I was unable to speak for fear of vomiting.
BLANKETS The prisoners' cells are without beds, chairs or tables. They sleep on mattresses on the floor and in some cases I have noticed that these were quite wet. They have no covering except a towel or blanket, no books, newspapers or reading material except the Bible, no pens or writing material, no TV or radio, no hobblies or handicrafts, no exercises or They are locked in their cells for almost the whole of every day and some of them have been in this condition for more than half a year. The fact that a man refuses to wear prison uniform or do prison work should not entail the loss of physical exercCardinal O'Fiaich ise, association with his fell ow prisoners, or contact with the outside world. These are basic human needs for physical and mental health, not privileges to be granted or withheld as rewards or punishments.
DIGNITY The human dignity of every prisoner must be respected regardless of his creed, colour or political viewpoint, and regardless of what crimes he has been chargeu with....
Several prisoners complained to me of beatings, of verbal abuse, additional punishments for making complaints, and of degrading searches carried out on the most intimate parts of their naked bodies. Of course, I have no way of verifying these allegations. but they were numerous."
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Protests Sweep Northern Ireland of Blocks