Josephine Hayden's speech at the VII. International Symposium for Political Prisoners on Dec. 20th in Vienna/Austria. Hayden is General Secretary of Republican Sinn Féin, chairperson of the RSF POW-Department an former political prisoner in Ireland.A German translation of the speech will be publish on this homepage within the next few days.
Political prisoners and the struggle for humanity
Hunger strike as the last weapon to secure rights for political prisoners has been used in Ireland for many years. Political prisoners by their very nature are perceived by the state as a threat to the status quo of the ruling class. So naturally – according to the state - any action of resistance or dissent against the state will be put down in “the most effective manner possible” according to themselves, and from our perspective, in the most brutal way.
Ireland has a long history of resistance to occupation – in particular to British occupation since the 12th century. (British brutality in Ireland is well recorded). Resistance had been a constant since then, culminating in the imprisonment of many political prisoners still in Ireland today.
Tomas Ashe was the first Irishman to die on hunger strike for political status for political prisoners. He died in Mountjail jail, Dublin in 1917 from forced feeding. Another POW was to die in the same manner later - in 1974 Michael Gaughan was force fed in Parkhurst jail on the Isle of Whyte. Two other men were to die on hunger strike in British prisons, the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence McSwiney died in Brixton prison in 1920 and Frank Stagg died in Wakefield prison 1976. In all 22 men have died on hunger strike for political status since 1917.
The most recent are the 10 men in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh in 1981. These men were arrested and imprisoned by the British diplock courts on Irish soil and died in a British prison on Irish soil.
When the hunger strikes began in the H-Blocks in 1980-81 it was after several years of prison protest on the inside and on the outside. British policy under Margaret Thatcher was the criminalization of Irish freedom fighters. The men refused to be criminalized, refused to wear prison uniform and so wore blankets around themselves for six years. Several of them did not accept visits from their families – if the men wanted a visit they had to wear prison uniform. Also they were searched externally and internally on their way to and coming from visits. They refused to ‘slop out’(no sanitation in the cells) and so smeared their excrement on the walls of the cells. Every few weeks the men were dragged to the baths by the screws (prison officers) and scrubbed with deckscrubs (hard brushes for scrubbing floors) while their cells were hosed down. Often the cells were hosed with the men in them, so their blanket and mattress (which was on the floor) were soaked.
The five demands of the men were:
1. the right not to wear a prison uniform;
2. the right not to do prison work;
3. the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;
4. the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;
5. full restoration of remission lost through the protest.
In March 1981 Bobby Sands began the second hunger strike. Nothing but water. On August 20 Michael Devine died and in between eight Irish Republican soldiers died on hunger strike. The effect of Bobby Sand’s death at home and abroad was electrifying. Protests naturally took place in Ireland but also in France, Italy, Switzerland and Portugal, Athens, Belgium, Australia, the USA, England, Wales. Fidel Castro paid tribute to him and a memorial is erected to him in Cuba. In Iran a street is names after him, and a member of the Iranian embassy in London attended the funeral while a telegram was sent from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Such support from the international community was very much appreciated in Ireland. At the time we believed that the pressure would make a difference to the British government but we were sadly and badly mistaken.
Unfortunately the lives of 10 men was the price paid on that occasion for political status. How easily it was sold just 17 years later by the very people that stood beside Bobby Sands and his comrades in the H-Blocks. The Stormont Agreement was signed in April 1998 which ended political status. That was the price paid by my former comrades for entry into the sectarian halls of Stormont and the British Establishment. My former comrades now implement British rule in Ireland and are paid handsomely to criminalize the current POWs (political prisoners) in Maghaberry Jail outside Belfast. Republican Sinn Fein supports the Continuity IRA prisoners in Maghaberry and Portlaoise prisons who share our aims and ideals for a 32 County Socialist Republic. The men in Portlaoise in the 26 Counties (the Free State) have political status to a certain extent now, but are still guarded by the Free State soldiers who are positioned on the roof and around the prison and the prison is surrounded by barbed wire. But the conditions in Portlaoise were hard fought for. For many years there was a double wire mesh from floor to ceiling separating the visitors from the prisoner. My daughter was eight years old when her father touched her for the first time. She was born after he was sentenced.
The Republican prisoners in Maghaberry now are demanding:
FREE ASSOCIATION
END TO CONTROLLED MOVEMENT
RIGHT TO FULL TIME EDUCATION
SEPARATE VISITING FACILITY
RIGHT TO ORGANISE OUR OWN WING
POW’s are denied any Free Association and security concerns are cited by the Prison Service This policy means that only three prisoners are allowed out of their cells at any one time. POW’s can be locked in their cells for up to 22 hours per day.
Due to the limited time prisoners are allowed out of their cells they must choose between education and exercise.
For the safety of both visitors and POW’s separate facilities are needed. In one case, a visitor to a Republican POW was followed home to Belfast by visitors to a Loyalist prisoner.
The right to organize their own wings is fundamental to political status. They appoint a spokesperson who liaises with the prison authorities.
Other areas of contention include: difficulty in accessing a doctor, long lock-up - prisoners locked in their cells for up to 23 hours per day, constant use of strip searching; the use of sniffer dogs to search visitors, prisoners and their cells; The Easter Lily (a symbol of Irish Republicanism) is banned in the prison though the Poppy is allowed (the poppy is a symbol of British imperialism). New laws ensure that visitors have to be named in advance and on arrival at the prison they have to give a fingerprint.
I was a political prisoner myself in Limerick prison for four and a half years. I was released in 2000. The conditions there were one of the worst in Ireland. The building was almost 200 years old and was condemned but it housed women prisoners. I was the only political prisoner at the time but I got good support from the non-political prisoners. I was tried in the special non-jury courts just as all political trials are. I refused to speak as did three of my comrades. In the prison after three years I got a heart attack and it took the ambulance one hour to get into the prison and because I had to have an escort of armed police to the hospital it too another 30 minutes to get put of the prison! At the hospital for the week I was under armed guard and then returned to the very same conditions. But I survived!! Many former political prisoners are denied entry to countries like the USA and Canada. We even had people banned from entering England and indeed part of their own country – the occupied six counties.!
The special courts were set up to deal with political trials but now many non-political trials take place there. It is not so difficult for the state to get a conviction because there is no jury only three judges. It is impossible to get justice, The police perjure themselves regularly to secure convictions. Membership of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is illegal and for those charged with membership, the word of senior policemen will see them convicted. There is also special legislation, The Offences Against the State Act, which has been updated and expanded over the years, which applies to political trials but again it is being used more and more by in criminal trials. It has some comparisons to 129 and 278 that were mentioned here yesterday. Also a new law was passed just a few weeks ago that allows police to covertly go into your home and place of work to plant surveillance and the information gathered can be used in court.
Just a quick mention – several people have died in police custody over the last few years, one of them a 14 year old boy.
I have to mention the many Irishmen who served long sentences in jails in England for their political activities. They suffered badly, they were beaten and tortured, held in solitary confinement for long periods at a time, were ghosted from prison to prison without warning – when their visitors went from Ireland to see them many times they would not be in that jail but sent to the other end of the country. The medical treatment was not good and one man Guisseppi Conlon died in 1980 from neglect.
A friend of mine wrote for me one time:
“By their stance against tyranny the political prisoners assert the humanity of the oppressed. By our active support for them we elevate ourselves and the world above inhumanity”.
Visit this link for Dr. Mariam Abu-Daqa's speech at the conference. Abu-Daqa is chairperson of the Palestinian Develpomental Women Studies Association (PDWSA, Gaza)...
Ireland has a long history of resistance to occupation – in particular to British occupation since the 12th century. (British brutality in Ireland is well recorded). Resistance had been a constant since then, culminating in the imprisonment of many political prisoners still in Ireland today.
Tomas Ashe was the first Irishman to die on hunger strike for political status for political prisoners. He died in Mountjail jail, Dublin in 1917 from forced feeding. Another POW was to die in the same manner later - in 1974 Michael Gaughan was force fed in Parkhurst jail on the Isle of Whyte. Two other men were to die on hunger strike in British prisons, the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence McSwiney died in Brixton prison in 1920 and Frank Stagg died in Wakefield prison 1976. In all 22 men have died on hunger strike for political status since 1917.
The most recent are the 10 men in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh in 1981. These men were arrested and imprisoned by the British diplock courts on Irish soil and died in a British prison on Irish soil.
When the hunger strikes began in the H-Blocks in 1980-81 it was after several years of prison protest on the inside and on the outside. British policy under Margaret Thatcher was the criminalization of Irish freedom fighters. The men refused to be criminalized, refused to wear prison uniform and so wore blankets around themselves for six years. Several of them did not accept visits from their families – if the men wanted a visit they had to wear prison uniform. Also they were searched externally and internally on their way to and coming from visits. They refused to ‘slop out’(no sanitation in the cells) and so smeared their excrement on the walls of the cells. Every few weeks the men were dragged to the baths by the screws (prison officers) and scrubbed with deckscrubs (hard brushes for scrubbing floors) while their cells were hosed down. Often the cells were hosed with the men in them, so their blanket and mattress (which was on the floor) were soaked.
The five demands of the men were:
1. the right not to wear a prison uniform;
2. the right not to do prison work;
3. the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;
4. the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;
5. full restoration of remission lost through the protest.
In March 1981 Bobby Sands began the second hunger strike. Nothing but water. On August 20 Michael Devine died and in between eight Irish Republican soldiers died on hunger strike. The effect of Bobby Sand’s death at home and abroad was electrifying. Protests naturally took place in Ireland but also in France, Italy, Switzerland and Portugal, Athens, Belgium, Australia, the USA, England, Wales. Fidel Castro paid tribute to him and a memorial is erected to him in Cuba. In Iran a street is names after him, and a member of the Iranian embassy in London attended the funeral while a telegram was sent from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Such support from the international community was very much appreciated in Ireland. At the time we believed that the pressure would make a difference to the British government but we were sadly and badly mistaken.
Unfortunately the lives of 10 men was the price paid on that occasion for political status. How easily it was sold just 17 years later by the very people that stood beside Bobby Sands and his comrades in the H-Blocks. The Stormont Agreement was signed in April 1998 which ended political status. That was the price paid by my former comrades for entry into the sectarian halls of Stormont and the British Establishment. My former comrades now implement British rule in Ireland and are paid handsomely to criminalize the current POWs (political prisoners) in Maghaberry Jail outside Belfast. Republican Sinn Fein supports the Continuity IRA prisoners in Maghaberry and Portlaoise prisons who share our aims and ideals for a 32 County Socialist Republic. The men in Portlaoise in the 26 Counties (the Free State) have political status to a certain extent now, but are still guarded by the Free State soldiers who are positioned on the roof and around the prison and the prison is surrounded by barbed wire. But the conditions in Portlaoise were hard fought for. For many years there was a double wire mesh from floor to ceiling separating the visitors from the prisoner. My daughter was eight years old when her father touched her for the first time. She was born after he was sentenced.
The Republican prisoners in Maghaberry now are demanding:
FREE ASSOCIATION
END TO CONTROLLED MOVEMENT
RIGHT TO FULL TIME EDUCATION
SEPARATE VISITING FACILITY
RIGHT TO ORGANISE OUR OWN WING
POW’s are denied any Free Association and security concerns are cited by the Prison Service This policy means that only three prisoners are allowed out of their cells at any one time. POW’s can be locked in their cells for up to 22 hours per day.
Due to the limited time prisoners are allowed out of their cells they must choose between education and exercise.
For the safety of both visitors and POW’s separate facilities are needed. In one case, a visitor to a Republican POW was followed home to Belfast by visitors to a Loyalist prisoner.
The right to organize their own wings is fundamental to political status. They appoint a spokesperson who liaises with the prison authorities.
Other areas of contention include: difficulty in accessing a doctor, long lock-up - prisoners locked in their cells for up to 23 hours per day, constant use of strip searching; the use of sniffer dogs to search visitors, prisoners and their cells; The Easter Lily (a symbol of Irish Republicanism) is banned in the prison though the Poppy is allowed (the poppy is a symbol of British imperialism). New laws ensure that visitors have to be named in advance and on arrival at the prison they have to give a fingerprint.
I was a political prisoner myself in Limerick prison for four and a half years. I was released in 2000. The conditions there were one of the worst in Ireland. The building was almost 200 years old and was condemned but it housed women prisoners. I was the only political prisoner at the time but I got good support from the non-political prisoners. I was tried in the special non-jury courts just as all political trials are. I refused to speak as did three of my comrades. In the prison after three years I got a heart attack and it took the ambulance one hour to get into the prison and because I had to have an escort of armed police to the hospital it too another 30 minutes to get put of the prison! At the hospital for the week I was under armed guard and then returned to the very same conditions. But I survived!! Many former political prisoners are denied entry to countries like the USA and Canada. We even had people banned from entering England and indeed part of their own country – the occupied six counties.!
The special courts were set up to deal with political trials but now many non-political trials take place there. It is not so difficult for the state to get a conviction because there is no jury only three judges. It is impossible to get justice, The police perjure themselves regularly to secure convictions. Membership of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is illegal and for those charged with membership, the word of senior policemen will see them convicted. There is also special legislation, The Offences Against the State Act, which has been updated and expanded over the years, which applies to political trials but again it is being used more and more by in criminal trials. It has some comparisons to 129 and 278 that were mentioned here yesterday. Also a new law was passed just a few weeks ago that allows police to covertly go into your home and place of work to plant surveillance and the information gathered can be used in court.
Just a quick mention – several people have died in police custody over the last few years, one of them a 14 year old boy.
I have to mention the many Irishmen who served long sentences in jails in England for their political activities. They suffered badly, they were beaten and tortured, held in solitary confinement for long periods at a time, were ghosted from prison to prison without warning – when their visitors went from Ireland to see them many times they would not be in that jail but sent to the other end of the country. The medical treatment was not good and one man Guisseppi Conlon died in 1980 from neglect.
A friend of mine wrote for me one time:
“By their stance against tyranny the political prisoners assert the humanity of the oppressed. By our active support for them we elevate ourselves and the world above inhumanity”.
Visit this link for Dr. Mariam Abu-Daqa's speech at the conference. Abu-Daqa is chairperson of the Palestinian Develpomental Women Studies Association (PDWSA, Gaza)...
Posts
