Prisoners' supporters must broaden campaign

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…

Liam

July 20, 2010

2–3 minutes

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.

10 responses to “Prisoners' supporters must broaden campaign”

andy newman

July 20, 2010 at 1:15 pm

I am at a loss to understand why you tink it is helpful to reprint mischevious an factually incorrect statements about Tolpuddle.

Unfortunately the event was clouded by the NI POA having a Loyalist flag flying from their bit of the campsite,

WHICH IS A COMPLETELY UNTRUE LIE

NI POA singing sectarian songs late into Friday night.

WHICH IS ALSO A COMPLETELY UNTRUE LIE

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Darren C

July 20, 2010 at 2:35 pm

Andy – I think you miss the point of Liam’s post. The POA are the front line of a prison regime inflicting regular beatings on Republican prisoners in Maghaberry Gaol and subjecting them to 23-hour lock up. As McCann points out, you don’t need to support the current strategy of ‘dissident’ Republicans to recognise these conditions are a direct violation of their human rights. The prisoners have two basic, fair and equitable demands – free association and an end to needless and degrading strip searches. You cannot separate the POA from the systematic and routine abuse of political prisoners, as Andy tries to do.

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Liam

July 20, 2010 at 5:24 pm

Andy -you may not have heard them singing but other people on your site say otherwise. I was not there. However the Norn Iron flag is absolutely definitely positively a loyalist emblem. The fact that they were flying it was not an assertion of “national identity” it is a sectarian, reactionary provocation. It’s not displayed for any other reason. Even police stations fly the union jack in the north.

On the more substantive point the Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group is problematic. Lots of people do not think Al Qaida suspects should be tortured or illegally detained. Call it liberal squeamishness on my part but I would not be first in the queue to join the Al Qaida Prisoners Support Group. By apparently combining protest against their conditions with explicit support for their politics they begin by narrowing the spectrum of support.

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RobM

July 20, 2010 at 7:08 pm

Hm, Andy is being a bit clever in what he confirms, denies and calls a LIE here! He cannot deny the flag was present, just that it wasn’t being flown by POA members. I have no way of knowing how true this is. Furthermore, it is hardly in dispute that sectarian, loyalist songs and chants were in evidence, nor the part of the field they emanated from (the family area nearest to the car parking area) – coincidentally the area where the aforementioned flag was flown. However, there is no proven link between the two and no evidence that the flag flyers and loyalist loudmouths were in anyway connected to each other or that either group were screws!
I smell a smokescreen.

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Darren C

July 20, 2010 at 10:56 pm

In fairness Liam, the IRPSG don’t advocate ‘explicit support for their [nationalist] politics’. From what I’ve heard so far, they want to build a campaign that can draw in socialists, republicans and others against the repression at Maghaberry and calling for the restoration of political status. There are groups in Ireland, like the IRPWA, that are closely linked to this or that republican faction that fetishise a guerilla strategy but there are also newer, broader formations such as the Republican Prisoners Support Group in Derry that don’t support any group, but instead want to draw awareness solely to the inhumane conditions in Maghaberry and build support for the prisoners’ demands. Hopefully socialist groups in Britain and Ireland can do the same.

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shug

July 21, 2010 at 4:09 am

Imprisonment is a defined aspect of what tolpuddle is about,the responce of control, over that what threatens.Userp or otherwise is the choice of those who define the history.

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andy newman

July 21, 2010 at 8:36 pm

So basically you are sticking wth these lies, which are suppositions based upon stereotypes. And which cast aspirtions on the organisers from SW TUC.

there was no “singing sectarian songs late into the night.”

there was only a few minutes of sectarian heckling in the wee small hours of the morning by two drunks, provenance unknown.

The NI flag, (regarded as their national flag by some million people), was not flown by POA members, but by some other people one of whom came from Norn Iron.

The implication that there was some sort of bachanalia of orangeism tolerated by the Tolpuddle organisers is simply untrue.

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red snapper

July 22, 2010 at 12:52 am

Spot the difference. NI Prison Service pipe band leading the Tolpuddle march:

And an Orange pipe band on the 12th July hatefest:

http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1991327

Come to your own conclusions comrades. I stand by what I said. Whether those who flew the flag and sung those songs were POA members or not haven’t been proved either way.

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David Ellis

July 22, 2010 at 9:59 am

`The NI flag, (regarded as their national flag by some million people), was not flown by POA members, but by some other people one of whom came from Norn Iron.’

Last I heard the space known as N.I. includes at least 700,000 people who do not regard this flag as anything to do with them (and perhaps a goodly portion of the protestant Irish in the north don’t either). Surely if you actually think N.I. is a nation in its own right you would want it to be symbolised by something inclusive rather than something exclusive?

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Ciarán

July 24, 2010 at 1:00 am

I’ve attended a number of events called by the Families, Friends and ex-POWs group and I think that McCann is absolutely right in what he says. They’ve done a great job in bringing together hundreds of republicans in different parts of the Six Counties on this issue, but if they want to bring it to the next level then they’re going to need to broaden that support.

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