Hunger strikers won mass support last year.
CLP)
launched their second hunger-strike The decision to protest their inhuman treatment at the hands of the British government came after the latter reneged on the deal it made last December.
On December 19 - three months after the strike began - Tory minisON March 1, the H-Block prisoners ter Humphrey Atkins conceded most of the prisoners' demands. It was agreed to treat them, in all respects, as political prisoners and not common criminals subject to constant degradation and harassment.
Clearly, the Tory back-down was the result of the mass movement oners' treatment.
RENEGED According to Bernadette H-Block/Armagh Committee -the prisoners and they were to be clothes.
were forced to make.
civilian clothes to the prison were turned away.
be moved to clean cells.
REPLY ous action that on February 5 the hunger strike. building up in both the North and South of Ireland where, on December 6, over 40,000 marched on the British Embassy to protest the prisTionally.
McAliskey - leader of the National clean cells were to be prepared for allowed to wear their own (civilian)
Having defused the mass movement, however, the Tories are now clearly going back on the deal they The first signs of this was when relatives bringing Since then, prisoners have been told that they will have to abide by "prison regulations" before they are allowed to wear their own clothes or It is in response to this treacher- their own clothes.
prisoners decided to re-launch their Plans are also afoot to re-launch the mass movement that was so key The Sein Fein newspaper, An Phoblacht, has called for the resetting up of H-Block committees throughout Ireland and internatThey see this as central in expos ing the Tory government's treachery "ON December 18 and 19, 1980, the hunger strikers in the H-Blocks and Armagh prison were ended.
When this happened we were expecting that within a few days all protests would begin to be de-escalated and that the first hurdle, the blanketmen receiving their own clothes, could be got over in the sequence described by Atkins in his December 19 statement.
"Obstacle after obstacle was placed in our way, but we felt morally bound to explore every avenue betore giving in to exasperation and anger. The pettiness of the British administration was wel demonstrated on January 23 when the prison goveror, acting under orders, refused a number of men "The twenty men had taken part in successful wing-shifts from dirty lo ciean cels ana naa degan stopping out, then washed and shaved and had their hair cut before applying prisoners, whose sole crime has been fighting to rid their country of foreign oppression.
Such a call has to be answered. Building mass support will not only be key in Ireland but also in Britain in the months ahead if the prisoners' demand for human rights is to be won.
for their own clothes.
"It is a fact that ordinary prisoners in conforming blocks are generally wearing their own clothes unchallenged, and we were angered that the Brits were more intent on humiliating us than on settling the corson Cr "We, the blanket men and women prisoners of Armagh, have had enough of British deceit and of broken promises. Hunger strikes, to the death if necessary, will begin, commencing March 1, 1981, the fifth anniversary of the withdrawal of political status in the H-Blocks and Armagh jail.
"We are demanding to be treated as political prisoners, which everyone recognises we are. We call on all those who supported us during the last hunger strike to again rally to our cause, and we call upon those who sat on the fence to now see the intransigence of the Britis! and the justice of our cause".
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Smasl. The Death locK
and winning wide support for the Prisoners' statement