Maltreatment of POWs Will Not Be Tolerated

PRESS RELEASE: 32 COUNTY SOVEREIGNTY MOVEMENT 26/03/2008 32 CSM warn ill treatment of republican POW's will not be tolerated. The 32 County Sovereignty Movement, the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association and the wider republican family will not tolerate any further attacks on republican prisoners such as that carried out by the prison riot squad against republican remand prisoner Anton Craig. Anton, 23 from the Short Strand area of Belfast was returning from the canteen with his food when he was told to remove an Easter Lilly which the prison officer told him was a 'sectarian emblem'. As a republican Anton obviously refused and was then informed that he was on a charge and would face punishment for refusing an order. Anton proceeded to his cell where he staged a token protest by wrecking up certain items such as table, chairs and other furniture. At around 4.30-5.00 pm, eight members of the prison's riot squad entered Anton's cell and seriously assaulted him leaving him black and blue. They rammed his face into the cell floor asking him who ordered him to protest and calling him 'nothing but a provie bastard'. The riot squad also trashed the sink, toilet and electrics in his cell. As a consequence of the actions of the prison staff, Anton Craig has been sitting in a cell with out electric, washing facilities and a toilet that will not flush since Easter Sunday, there is nothing in his cell but a bed. A number of other prisoners were charged with wearing lilies and were charged, adjudicated on and sent to the punishment block the next day for 48 hours, all are back on the republican wing whereas Anton has yet to be adjudicated on and is facing up to seven days solitary confinement on top of the punishment he is already enduring. The republican movement urge all republicans to resist this criminalisation and to support republican prisoners in their battle for political status. The attitude of the prison staff against republicans is nothing but the attitude of the British to Irish republican separatists in microcosm. The republican base can no longer and will no longer endure attacks on republicanism either within the prisons or outside their walls.