This piece by Eamonn McCann is from the Derry Journal. Apparently some of the gaolers mentioned were at Tolpuddle this year.
“Unfortunately the event was clouded by the NI POA having a Loyalist flag flying from their bit of the campsite, they also had Union Jack deck chairs and were singing sectarian songs late into Friday night. Complaints have been made and noted by various people who saw and heard this and I’m going to put a motion to my union branch condemning their presence and lumpen behaviour and that they are divisive and reactionary presence at a major labour movement event. Their pipe band also led the march, it felt like being led by a bunch of Orangemen complete with uniform and Loyalist regalia.”
If the Maghaberry prisoners weren’t "dissident Republicans" there might be a louder outcry about the prison regime they are being subjected to.
There has been no denial of the claim by the 32 County Sovereignty Committee that prisoners are locked in their cells 23 – sometimes 24 – hours a day, having to eat, sleep and go to the toilet in the same tiny space.
They face strip searches every time they have visitors. It is claimed that some visitors, too, are strip searched.
The prisoners say that they are strip-searched when going for video-link court appearances – when they are not in physical contact with anyone other than prison officers. What purpose can this have other than to humiliate the prisoners?
It is unfortunate that almost all protests about Maghaberry seem to be organised by the "dissident" groups themselves. Maybe they should look at how the Provisionals went about the task when their members in Long Kesh and Armagh were resisting the same sort of treatment.
The Provos set out diligently, systematically to win support from people who might have had no time for their politics but who could be counted on to stand up for basic rights irrespective of disagreement with those being denied their rights.
The prisoners’ support groups need urgently to broaden out their campaign. The way things are headed, this story could end very badly indeed.
In a related development here is news of an event in London . My own view is that it misses the point Eamonn makes in his article but is a start.
The Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group met to discuss what actions we can undertake to support the Irish Republican Prisoners. We decided to mount a picket of the Home Office in solidarity with the RSF POW Department’s Belfast march in support of Republican P.O.Ws on August 7th. We have set a time of 2 pm for the picket at Ministry of Justice, 102 Petty France, Westminster, London (nearest tube St James’s Park on the District line).
We are in the process of contacting all potential supporters of the picket and we would be grateful if you would inform any supporters or contacts you may have in the London area of the event. We intend to bring placards and to hand in a letter of protest. We feel that even a small turnout will begin the task of rallying support for the republican prisoners and exposing the brutality of the British machinery of oppression in the treatment of these prisoners, now surely as bad as it was from 1977 up to the Hunger Strikes.
Liam redux 
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