Ireland: Campaign for Political Prisoner Status Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Eric Hayes Patkowski FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 6 MAY 1999 On 5 May 1999, in the broad front spirit, a new prisoner campaign was unveiled to protest the reinstatement of the policy of criminalisation and to work towards bringing back political status, ahead of full release, to all republican prisoners, regardless of political affiliation. The call goes out to all interested sites and activists to join the campaign to end criminalisation and rally around the call for POLITICAL STATUS NOW! From the home page, located at http://larkspirit.com/psn/ POLITICAL STATUS NOW! On 5 May 1981, after sixty-five days on hunger strike, Bobby Sands became the first of ten republican prisoners to die at Long Kesh in their fight against criminalisation. This site is an attempt to keep alive the spirit of that struggle which led ten young men to give their lives for five simple demands -- the right to not wear a prison uniform; the right to not do prison work; the right of free association with other prisoners; the right to organize their own educational and recreational facilities; and the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week. Political status is once again under threat -- republicans arrested after the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement are being labeled criminals based solely on their opposition to the British-engineered "peace process", and the basic rights afforded other republican prisoners of war are being denied to a new batch of republican prisoners. A situation we hoped we'd never see repeated is coming full-cycle again, where republicans are once again viewed by the state as "criminals", setting the stage for a repeat of the tragic events of 1981. The Irish Republican Socialist Party, Republican Sinn Fein, and the 32 County Sovereignty Movement all see their supporters treated in this new yet old fashion, in a blatant attempt to destroy any republican opposition to the flawed and failing GFA. We call on all right-thinking people, be they supporters of the republican struggle or not, to support the reinstatement of political status now and to not allow opposition voices to be muted. Free All Republican Prisoners in Ireland and the UK! No Return to Criminalisation! Political Status Now! mailto:PSN@IRSM.ORG --- Eric Hayes Patkowski ehp@irsm.org P.O. Box 151805, Austin, Texas 78715-1805 http://irsm.org/ (Pairt=ED Poblachtach S=F3isialach na h-=C9ireann) http://www14.pair.com/jcs/ (James Connolly Society) Co-Editor, Working Stiff Journal ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-05.12.99-04:31:53-8657