20.07.1995

Inla POWs dirty protest

IRSP says prisoners will not be used as hostages

A MEETING of the national executive of the Irish Republican Socialist Party expressed its concern at the deterioration in conditions of Irish political prisoners held in English jails.

A message of support was issued to the protest of republican socialist POW, Martin McMonigle, who is in his second month of solitary confinement in Whitemoor Jail.

His protest is against deteriorating conditions and the continued refusal by Michael Howard to repatriate six POWs, who were guaranteed transfer over three months ago.

The action was enhanced on Monday when three other republican socialist POWs - Liam Heffernan (Whitemoor), Eamon O’Donnell and Sean Cruikshank (Full Sutton) - joined the protest.

IRSP prison spokesperson Gino Gallagher said,

“Let no one be under any illusion about the gravity of the situation or the potential for escalation.

“The present demand from protesting republican socialist prisoners is for the restoration of proper conditions and medical care, followed by arrangements for their immediate transfer to prisons in the Six Counties.

“The IRSP demand this as a right and reject our POWs being linked as political hostages to decommissioning or any other redherring thrown up by the British as further obstacles to peace.”

Statement

The Manchester Martyrs Commemoration Committee issued the following statement:

THE RESPONSIBILITY for the ‘dirty protests’ by republican socialist POWs lies with the Home Office, which has forced them into this action.

We are led to believe by the British media that the peace process ‘is moving on’. However since the ceasefire little has changed for POWs in England. Indeed conditions (which were inhumane to begin with) have deteriorated.

Visiting conditions continue to be more restrictive and are designed to humiliate both the prisoner and his visitors. Prisoners are being threatened with and subjected to searches before and after visits.

Some POWs are being held for long periods in special units (prisons within a prison) which cause lasting psychological and physical damage.

In May 1995 a number of IRA/Inla POWs were told that they would be transferred to prisons in the Six Counties. These unfulfilled promises and intolerable prison conditions, together with the glaring injustice of Private Clegg walking free while political prisoners remain incarcerated in English jails, has led to frustration for Irish republican and Irish republican socialist prisoners who have been given no option but to embark on prison protests.

The Manchester Martyrs Commemoration Committee feels that a hostage situation remains in English jails - that the British government is cynically trying to use the prisoners and their families as part of a ‘prisoners for arms’ deal. We believe that this prevailing hostage and criminalisation strategy toward political prisoners is unhelpful to the peace process and in fact is a declaration by the British Establishment of its contempt toward bringing about a just political settlement in Ireland.

The MMCC demands that Michael Howard acts now to resolve the deteriorating situation in Whitemoor jail.

If the British government is genuinely seeking a peaceful settlement in Ireland, only a no-strings-attached amnesty of all political prisoners can forward the ongoing process.