|
Today
in Maghaberry gaol, prison officers and the Northern
Ireland Prison Service were involved in their very
own form of abusing POW's. The abuse started when
the prison officers refused to unlock the men this
morning. The men were also denied breakfast and lunch
and were kept in their cells until well into the afternoon.
At this stage the men were unlocked for recreation.
While
the men were in the recreation area, a heavily protected
search team was sent onto the wing and proceeded to
verbally abuse the POW's. The men were instructed
by their Officer Commanding to co-operate with the
searches as it was felt that the Search team on duty
were engaged in an effort to antagonise the men and
provoke some sort of confrontation. A number of cells
were wrecked by the search team and covered in dirt
and dog hairs. Many of the republicans were subjected
to inhuman and degrading strip searches with one POW
describing the search as a form of rape and definite
sexual assault.
This
prisoner intends to contact the rape crisis centre
in Belfast for counselling so extreme was his strip
search. Immediately prior to searching this man, three
members of the search team insulted him and offered
to fight him saying that he thought he was a "hard
man" and that they would show him how "hard
he really was".
All
the prisoners had their Human Right violated today
by the prison service with even the basic rights to
association and food being denied for a long period
of the day. On a day when Hugh Orde has labelled sectarianism
as a hate crime the IRPWA fully expect him to take
action against the NIPS for the sustained tirade of
sectarian abuse that the prisoners have had to endure.
In one instance when a prisoner returned to the recreation
area a prison officer had spelt out REPUBLICAN SCUM
on the scrabble board. This area is covered by 3 surveillance
cameras; it will not surprise any republican if the
tapes suddenly disappear.
This
bully boy attitude of the prison officers toward the
republican prisoners is a constant feature of prison
life for POW's in Maghaberry Gaol but the criminal
behaviour of the prison officers involved in sexual
assault and hate crime today is an escalation in this
policy. Republicans will not tolerate the brutalisation
of our prisoners or their families and we call on
human rights agencies and political parties to ensure
that they are not as quiet in the future as the have
been in the past.
We
also ask the Irish Government to take the British
to task over their treatment of Irish Citizens. The
British authorities in Ireland are expecting to get
away with the same behaviour as they and their allies
get away with in Iraq, we must all ensure that this
doesn't happen.
Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews +
Letters + Archives
|
