Statement
from Republican former Political Prisoners
Belfast,
5th June 2001
In the year that
marks the twentieth anniversary of the 1981 hunger strikes it is ironic
that despite the lessons the British reluctantly but ultimately came
to learn, other governments seem determined to repeat the disastrous
mistakes of the past when it comes to dealing with prison issues.
The penal policy
of the Turkish Government which has left over 50 prisoners and their
relatives dead, including many hunger strikers, is in effect an extension
of that government's approach to Turkish society; an approach now seen
in the eyes of many as indistinguishable from fascism.
Members of a recent
delegation to Ireland in support of the protesting prisoners and their
families - a number of whom have also died on solidarity fasts - drew
comparisons not only between the ongoing Turkish hunger strike and our
own experience in Ireland, but also between the type of conditions that
produced the prison protests.
In
Turkey prisoners were being forced out of their collective accommodation
and into isolationist cellular type confinement known to the prisoners
as F-Blocks.
During the 1981
era we in the H-Blocks received much support from solidarity groups
in Turkey. Now that the baton of resistance to repression has been passed
on to those in Turkish prisons we who came through the H-Blocks shall
not be found wanting in voicing our concern and offering all practical
support.
Irish republican
prisoners have historically occupied a honourable tradition of resistance
to repression. Throughout our time in prison we identified with those
groups in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Argentina and Chile who opposed repression
and sought freedom. We supported the people of South Africa in their
struggle against apartheid. Although released that tradition still continues.
The silence of the media has been deafening on the plight of the Turkish
prisoners. In large part this may be explained by British and USA support
for and sponsorship the Turkish state in its bid to play a full part
in the EEC and NATO club.
As former republican
prisoners with experience of a repressive and brutal prison system we
shall, in the coming weeks and months, be organising a series of events
and protests aimed at highlighting the situation in Turkey. We call
on all ex-prisoners and interested parties to throw their weight behind
the campaign to halt the ongoing state murders of political prisoners
and their families there.
SUPPORT THE TURKISH
HUNGER STRIKE!
Alex McCrory, Joe
Austin, Micky Vallely, Robert Russell, Jim Crane, Jim Torney, Paul Finnegan,
Robert Campbell, Rab Fryers, Sean Adams, Liam Stone, Paddy McCotter,
Micky Fitzsimons, Rab Jackson, Martin Livingstone.
TURKEY IS NO HOLIDAY SPOT
Letter in Andersonstown News
Belfast,
20th August 2001
The current exchange rate between the British pound and the Turkish lira is approximately 18 million lira to the pound. Turkey needs all the British pounds that it can lay its hands on. Exchanging punts for Turkish lira is just as desirable because the Turkish government is at war with its own people and their demands for democracy. We can understand the desire of the Turkish people, we also recognise the depths that the Turkish government are gong to to cash in on that desire.
The Turkish government’s record inhuman rights abuses over many decades stands up there with the best of them, the British in Ireland, apartheid in South Africa, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Pinochet in Chile and all the other countries who, in an effort to show the world bank just how democratic they are, systematically attempt to destroy their own peoples’ ideas on democracy.
By imprisonment, torture and the murder of human beings in their own countries, they replace the real democratic wishes of their people with the democratic requirements of the world bank.
Turkey is one of the poorest countries in the world, with one of the largest armies and they are not afraid to use it against their own people.
They ignore the demands of their own people and all the international human rights organisations with regard to their record on human rights.
They are compounding the brutality by building H-Block style prisons that they call F-Type prisons.
This enables them to take their political prisoners out of the mainstream prisons, and put them in one-person-cells.
In this way they can go about breaking the prisoners one at a time. This system is used in conjunction with regular attacks on the prisoners, on one occasion leaving 28 prisoners brutally murdered.
As a result of this the prisoners embarked on a hunger strike involving almost 1000 protesters.
So far 30 have died and unfortunately many more may follow.
We need to support this hunger strike, we need to highlight the brutality of the Turkish government.
But most importantly we need to stop supplying the Turkish Government with 18 million lira per pound/punt with which they build the F-Type prisons.
Some people will say what's the difference in holidaying in Turkey and all the other countries with poor human rights records?
Well there isn’t one but let’s start somewhere.
The Turkish government historically have no respect for their own people or what the rest of the world thinks about them, but they do need money.
Stop building prisons for Turkey, holiday somewhere else.
Jim McCann & Joe Barnes
Ballymurphy ex-prisoners’ Association
Irish ex-Political Prisoner speaks in Turkey click here
New Website of Ballymurphy Ex-Prisoners in Support of Turkish Hunger Strikers
Click Here