POW DEMANDS
Republican POWs have formulated five demands.
Support the POW's
DEMANDS
-
FREE ASSOCIATION
-
END TO CONTROLLED MOVEMENT
-
RIGHT TO FULL TIME EDUCATION
-
SEPARATE VISITING FACILITY
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RIGHT TO ORGANISE OUR OWN WING
Free Association & End to Controlled Movement These issues can be taken together. POWs are denied any Free Association and security concerns are cited by the Prison Service for enforcing Controlled Movement on the Segregated wing. This policy means that only three prisoners are allowed out of their cells at any one time and the ratio of prison staff to POW required is 4:2 or 3:1. This obviously prevents any Free Association between POWs but also causes a number of practical problems. Canteen facilities are not open to POWs and they are required to eat in their cells, this also restricts the amount of time POWs can spend out of their cells and results in them being locked in their cells for 21hrs on a good day and 23 hrs on a bad day. The regime operates good day bad day on alternate days.
Education Education is available in the segregated wing but this is hampered by the restrictions on movement. Due to the limited time prisoners are allowed out of their cells they must choose between education and exercise. If a prisoners class falls on a bad day where 23hr lockup is imposed they forfeit going outside at all for the education class. In ordinary wings of the prison (that house non-political prisoners) the regime is less restricted and prisoners have access to both education and exercise.
- POWs are denied blackboards/whiteboards etc that would facilitate them teaching each other. This is also prevented by the restrictions on Free Association.
- In terms of handicrafts prisoners are also denied necessary materials. In the other wings of the prison all materials are available and workshops are provided.
Within education the prisoners want a) freedom of movement so that they can engage in both exercise and education, b) Blackboards etc so that they can educate each other, c) full access to handicraft materials including tools and wood etc.
Separate Visiting Facility When segregation was first introduced the Prison Service agreed to build separate accommodation as a visiting facility for segregated prisoners. The head of the prison service has said that this is no longer on the agenda.
For the safety of both visitors and POWs separate facilities are needed. In one case, a visitor to a Republican POW was followed home to Belfast by visitors to a Loyalist prisoner.
In a sinister move the Prison Service have recently blamed Segregated prisoners for the cramped visiting facilities that now exist for non-political prisoners because part of that visiting accommodation is being used at present to facilitate separate visits for Segregated prisoners.
Right to organise wing Last year POWs discussed this with the priest in the gaol. The prison service were aware that this would become necessary but are not moving on this issue.
- Thirty-eight Republican Prisoners currently imprisoned in Maghaberry Gaol.
- "Controlled movement" is imposed on Republican landings with only three prisoners permitted out of their cells on the landing at any one time with each prisoner accompanied by two prison officers. Free Association on landings completely removed.
- Legislation introduced by British government following the Good Friday Agreement removed the right of Republican prisoners to organise themselves on their own landings and removed the right of Republican prisoners to spend their time in prison constructively.
- Prisoners made to chose between daily exercise or education. Prisoners denied educational facilities to enable them to organise their own education.
- Easter lilies banned in the prison. Other Republican handicrafts confiscated and destroyed by prison officers.
- PSNI/RUC approval required before prisoners permitted on Republican landing.
- Republican prisoners? parole entitlement has been reduced to half that of other prisoners.
- Denial of compassionate paroles for family and religious occasions. Parole for funerals of immediate family members often restricted to 6 hours or less.
- Constant use of strip searching to humiliate prisoners contrary to international law. One prisoner received 31 strip searches and 1,135 rub down searches in a six month period.
- Prisoners locked in their cells for alternately 21/23 hours per day.
- Abuse of the sniffer dogs in an attempt to criminalise political prisoners. Families and prisoners are wrongly accused of smuggling drugs into the prison. Familes are forced to have closed family visits which take place through Perspex screen while prisoners returning from parole are placed in solitary confinement for 48 hours.
- Family visitors exposed to Loyalist visitors while visiting prison. Prisoners exposed to Loyalists going to and from legal visits.
- The power of the Governor to punish a prisoner by taking away remission was reintroduced specifically for Republican prisoners after it was banned by the European Court of Human Rights in 2002.
- Access to a doctor available only once a week.
- Interference with correspondence.
- Irish language and cultural items including handicrafts made relating to hunger strikes confiscated or destroyed by prison officers.
REPUBLICAN POWs NEED YOUR SUPPORT
PLEASE PROVIDE ANY SUPPORT YOU CAN TO REPUBLICAN PRISONERS ACTION GROUP OR JOIN YOUR LOCAL PRISONERS ACTION GROUP.
RPAG - Glasgow can be contacted at:
rsfglasgow@yahoo.co.uk & onlyourrivers@yahoo.co.uk
A contact number will be published at a later date.
You supported them then - Support them NOW.
1981 - 2006 Same Struggle - Same Demands
No Irish Republican Prisoner is a Criminal
Political Status NOW
THE RHYTHM OF TIME
There?s an inner thing in every man,
Do you know this thing my friend?
It has withstood the blows of a million years,
And will do so to the end.
It was born when time did not exist,
And it grew up out of life,
It cut down evil?s strangling vines,
Like a slashing searing knife.
It lit fires when fires were not,
And burnt the mind of man,
Tempering leadened hearts to steel,
From the time that time began.
It wept by the waters of Babylon,
And when all men were a loss,
It screeched in writhing agony,
And it hung bleeding from the Cross.
It died in Rome by lion and sword,
And in defiant cruel array,
When the deathly word was ?Spartacus?,
Along the Appian Way.
It marched with Wat the Tyler?s poor,
And frightened lord and king,
And it was emblazoned in their deathly stare,
As e?er a living thing.
It smiled in holy innocence,
Before conquistadors of old,
So meek and tame and unaware,
Of the deathly power of gold.
It burst forth through pitiful Paris streets,
And stormed the old Bastille,
And marched upon the serpent?s head,
And crushed it ?neath its heel.
It died in blood on Buffalo Plains,
And starved by moons of rain,
Its heart was buried in Wounded Knee,
But it will come to rise again.
It screamed aloud by Kerry lakes,
As it was knelt upon the ground,
And it died in great defiance,
As they coldly shot it down.
It is found in every light of hope,
It knows no bounds nor space,
It has risen in red and black and white,
It is there in every race.
It lies in the hearts of heroes dead,
It screams in tyrants? eyes,
It has reached the peak of mountains high,
It comes seating ?cross the skies.
It lights the dark of this prison cell,
It thunders forth its might,
It is ?the undauntable thought?, my friend,
That thought that says ?I?m right!?
? Marcella, H-Block, Long Kesh Prison Camp.
(Bobby Sands 32county T.D )
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