COGÚS: The
name "Cogús," meaning Conscience, has been adopted by the RNU POW
Department. It is from here that we aim
to highlight the injustice suffered by POW's incarcerated within oppressive
Gaols.
On 1st July 2011, Cogús POWs in Maghaberry embarked upon a ‘dirty
protest’. They did so after months of
watching the Prison service and David Ford eroding the hard fought for 12th
August Agreement 2010. The crux of our angst is the deliberate
misrepresentation of the 12th August agreement by the Northern
Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) and the failure of the Dept of Justice and its
head, David Ford to face down the naysayers, who are reluctant to penal reform
and change simply because republican prisoners are the lightening rods of that
proposed change. Republican POWs
believed that strip searching and controlled movement was fully addressed in
the August 2010 agreement.
“Over a year into the ‘dirty
protest’ has seen our health suffer badly as our protest continues. Our cells have lost all natural light as the
walls and ceilings are covered in excretement.
We are on 23 hour lock up and have to sleep in our own waste. We suffer infections and some men have needed
hospital treatment. Our cells are hosed
down every 6 weeks and we are returned to our cells. The process starts all over again. Our long hair and beards are a public
testament to Maghaberry visitors that all isn’t well in the ‘North’s most
modern and secure prison’.
After ten months protest, David Ford finally accepted what we and
others had been saying all along. That
technology existed that made strip searching for the most part, redundant in
prisons. He accepted a recommendation
from Dame Ann Owers to explore alternative to ‘full body searching’. Over 1.5 million pounds has been spent by the
NIPS managing the republican prisoners protest with months of hardship and
relationships destroyed in the short to medium term that could have been
avoided with common sense and a desire to have a harmonised regime in Roe
House.
We have been attacked and degraded by thugs in
uniforms for over a year now and we will
not allow ourselves to be criminalised nor will we allow ourselves to be
humiliated with their ‘latest offer’ – it was flatly rejected. No one can say that republican prisoners
haven’t shown pragmatism or vision. We
have no desire to be on protest for protest sake however as we have shown in
this communication, NIPS intransigence is fully to blame for the situation that
prevails in Maghaberry today.”
IF YOU WANT
TO HELP RNU’S CAMPAIGN TO END HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE IN MAGHABERRY, PLEASE CONTACT
US ON 028 90312339 or 089 4687923
OR EMAIL RNUSECRETARY@HUSHMAIL.COM
