planned in Britain to mark the fourth anniversary abolition of political status for Republican prisoners in North of Ireland.
Here, in a letter originally appeared Derry magazine Seven Stars, is why you should these protests.
NO DOUBT over these past few years and especially in recent months you have all become familiar with the terms 'H Block' and "blanketmen'. Undoubtedly you all know that H Block is the name of the prison in which the "blanketmen' held, but do any of you know of the true living conditions prison and of the treatment meted out to the 'blanketmen'? No? Well, let one here try, in this brief note, to bring to you H Block.
Tomb Firstly, picture in your head a "tomb', a cold grey box of concrete just like the tombs in your own city cemetery. Picture this tomb' with a window. Only on the window have a large metal grille, surrounded by a WOTECH bar-like SLUCIUIC inserted fibre-glass panels.
Mairead Corrigan is embraced by are being WEENID BETS stink of old white body blanket. Lump Furniture old dirty, THE Peace People in happier days at a London rally in November 1976.
US folk singer Joan Baez. Jean Now in your dull 'tomb' look at all of the walls covered in human excreta and rotten food, your floor littered with decaying food, soiled paper and splashed with pools of urine and water. As you picture the cell imagine the smell, the unbearable moulded food, excrement and urine. Along with the stink, feel the cold as it pierces your as you try to cover yourself with a smelly, damp-soaked Have you got this 'tomb-like cell' in your head? Add a blanketman'.
La large damp lump of smelly foam his bed; a ragged piece of coarse cloth which serves as his blanket; a plastic chamber pot and an filthy water gallon from shaggy alongside. which two men have to drink.
With this cell' pictured in your head think now of the young men London demonstration and rally Break the wall of silence on the H Blocks Blanket protests, Fleet St, 6pm assemble outside the Law Courts Rally at 7.30pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square Speakers Arrowsmith, Des Warren, Paul Foot Tariq Ali, Alan Thornett and speakers from the Relatives Action Committee Sinn Fein, Irish Republican Socialist Party.
who languish and rot there, young men, now old men, with long grimy beards, rotten teeth and their bodies aching from hunger, cold and endless beatings, beatings which occur daily during cell searches, wing shifts and coming and going on visits.
Along with the blanketmen' have to undergo the most inhuman which consists of firstly, the naked blanketman' being forced into a spread-eagle position over a large then STS thumped down into Pat position, the mirror is then raised up. to his buttocks, probing fingers prise his buttocks apart and a large torch and meta detector are used in a thorough search of his anal passage. Dragged With this part of complete, he is dragged up hair, and in front of four Ewart-Biggs, wife of assassinated British ambassador in Dublin, walks denied.
beatings, the degrading search the kicked and a squatting SIGNED:
Campbell, McCallion, McCormack Adrian McGowan, Eamon MeDermott, the search Micky by Connolly Brady. H Block there.
1976, Effective SUBSI Catholic The would Back Army. screws his nose, mouth, ears, hair, penis, testicles and pubic hair are We hope that through this short note we've put the true picture of life inside H Block for 360 blanketmen' Could you imagine what it would be like for these men to be able to smoke a cigarette, hear s tune on the radio, read a morning paper, write a letter to either their families or girl friends? Just these, the small natural things of life, have been denied to these men for over three years now and will go on being The endless suffering and beating and inhuman treatment will continue unless you speak out now and tell the world the truth and help stop it all.
"blanketmen', write this letter to you, begging you to help us now before it is too late, before some mother's heart is broken with the news of her son's death in H Block.
Liam Carlin, Kevin Denny Hutton, Eugene Gary McCool, Eugene Kieran Fleming, Callan, Frankie Doherty Patrick McCourt, Joe Rodgers, Peter Raymond McCartney, John Cassidy, Devine. Tony О'Нагя, Corrigan and company could rally Williams told the British ruling class media, which fell over itself to promote the Peace People, that Jim Callaghan supported them. Even the Queen gave them a special mention during her Christmas broadcast in Broader still, the Morning, Star also gave its support, on one occasion approvingly quoting the view of the Communist Party that the Peace People were. 'an effective way to defeat the bombers and assassins.
united all these organisations, groups and individuals was hatred for the Provisional IRA.
But that was never the feeling in the Catholic ghettoes, as is clear from the following report of feelings in the working, class area of Ballymurphy in Belfast:
Army is viewed unconcealed hostility as forces of occupation. the hostility and hatred was unremitting and there was never a chance that the peace movement might gain a foothold there.
The source of this quotation was not a Republican newspaper it wa Visor, a British Army journal.
The British Army was the one source of violence the Peace People never condemn. The odd criticism was made here and there, but the essential message of Williams, McKeown and Corrigan was summed up in an October 1976 headline of the Daily Mirror: *Ulster Peace Brigade