Press Release:
Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association.
23/06/2006
Contact: Martin Mulholland/Marian Price
Phone 07801729412 or e-mail irpwa@hotmail.com

IRPWA Stands Shoulder to Shoulder with Protesting Prisoners.

The IRPWA wish to pledge our support to those Republican Prisoners currently on protest in Maghaberry Gaol. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with the prisoners, their families and all other groups working towards a speedy resolution of the prisons issue. Following protests by the Republican prisoners in the summer of 2003, segregation from Loyalists and criminals was secured and in negotiations with the Steele Commission, NIO and NIPS it was understood that the Republican POW’s would soon avail of modern facilities and a humane and liberal prison regime would be put in place. To date this has not happened. In fact the conditions under which Republican prisoners are being held have steadily declined since they were moved into their accommodation in Roe house. The ‘teething problems’ that senior NIPS officials promised us would be temporary have now become standard practice. The IRPWA are convinced that the regime in place in Maghaberry is a sop to the Prison Officers Association who were hostile to segregation from the beginning and is also a form of punishment for republicans opting to leave the general prison population.
There is no doubt that if the NIO, prison authorities, the constitutional parties and the media are able to keep the prisons issue from the public then all protests will be in vain. As in 2003 we must ensure that protest on the outside highlights and compliments that on the inside. It has become clear that in 2003 the prisoners and their representatives were hoodwinked into accepting segregation at the expense of political status, this is understandable given that republicans were heavily outnumbered in a hostile prison population. We must learn the lessons from 2003, one of which is that verbal assurances and ambiguous recommendations are unacceptable. We urge all republicans to stand with the protesting prisoners and not to let their plight slip back into obscurity.
Political Status Now.