- Real facts on Irish prisoners Next week, the jury will go out to decide their verdict on the first six of the Shrewsbury 24. They are being asked to give a political judgement in a political trial. They are being asked LO say that the act of organising pickets for struggle where physical confrontations occur can be called conspiracy. The Shrewsbury trials are the most serious attack on the right to organise and to picket since the passage of the Industrial Relations Act.
The first leg of the trial has been timed to finish just before Christmas, making it difficult to achieve a big reply in terms of industrial action to any conviction which may result. Some firms may already be taking their holidays when the jury returns its verdict. Nevertheless, there must be immediate industrial action on a massive scale if any conviction occurs, irrespective of whether the six are fined or imprisoned.
The purpose of this action must be to lay me basis tor a sustained camorin or : pardon (if they are convicted), a campaign to run into the New Year when the other 18 will be facing the next round of trials If any of the six are convicted, strikers in every area should demonstrate locally, and flying pickets should be sent out to hold factory gate and site meetings with Confused and contradictory reports have appeared in the press about the hunger strike of the Republican prisoners sentenced at Winchester recently. The Provisional Republican Movement has issued the following statement which makes the question clear. 'Since the trial ended in Winchester on November 15 last, many statements reported in the media regarding the "Winchester Prisoners" are not in accordance with the facts. These are the facts: *Seven of the nine who were sentenced-not all nine as has been in variably stated-announced at the end of the trial that they demanded political status and the right to serve their sentences in Northern Ireland. They also said that they would go on hunger strike until their demands had been conceded. All seven are continuing to press for these demands for themselves and for all Republican prisoners in British jails who regard themselves as prisoners of war and wish to be repatriated for the duraThe fine recently imposed on the Transport the aim of bringing home once again the need to defend the Shrewsbury 24 and to fight for action on the scale that greeted the jailing of the Pentonville 5.
The movement of opposition to the trials has had to be built by rank and file initiative. The trade union bureaucracy have ignored the question and sabotaged workers' attempts to take it up by threatening them with all sorts of penalties. Yet at the time of going to press, none of the central rank and file bodies have put out any call to prepare the movement for strike action which other groups of wor kers could take up and organise around. It is precisely because the trade union bureaucracy, even its left. wing, are utterly opposed to defending the Shrewsbury 24, that the Communist Party is now playing Shrewsbury in a low key just at the time when the campaign needs stepping up Liverpool Conference in October, which the Communist Party dominated produced no plan of campaign for defending the 24, despite all the militancy and promises. The national Shrewsbury Defence Committee has so far made no national call, nor has the Liverpool Trades Council in whose hands responsibility for the campaign was placed. The London Joint Sites Committee, although known to be preparing for some strike actior before Christmas, has made no definite public call either.
Meanwhile the Morning Star has remained strangely silent on future perspectives for tion of their sentences. Four of the seven are still refusing food and are now being forcibly fed. They are the Price sisters, Dolours and Marion, Gerald Kelly and Hugh Feeney. The Republican Movement asks the public to treat with the deepest scepticism the statements made by the Prison Authorities that Paul Holmes and Roy Walsh voluntarily agreed to don the convict garb and abandon their hunger protest. When Pau] Holmes was visited by his brother in Parkhurst Prison, Isle of Wight, on Saturday last he appeared to be deeply drugged. 'Roy Walsh has been held almost incommunicado since the trial and is seriously ill from the effects of forcefeeding and from a severe beating received in the prison when he allegedly refused to co-operate with the prison authorities. *Dolours Price (aged 21) and her sister Marion (aged 19) were forcibly fed for the first time on Wednesday. last (December 5th). They had been the campaign, and the CP-sponsored Liaison Committee for the Defence of the Trade Unions has been no more forthcoming.
The attitude of the Conmunist Party towards Shrewsbury is the result of certain considerations.
It is perfectly clear that the preparations necessary for a serious struggle against Phase 3 must involve coordinating and synchronising the existing struggles from below. It is also clear that when the ruling class are preparing their special anti-picket squads, and even calling for the creation of special "tactical reserves' trained in riot control, that it is vital that militants take measures in each locality to defend any pickets from attacks by police or scabs. This can best be done by the creation of picketing pools and 'alert systems. Yet out of such practical steps to unite the working class movement locally, might arise the beginnings of cross-union alliances against Phase 3, support for which would shatter the relationship the CP cultivates with the left trade union burcaucracy.
Yet these are precisely the lines along which the defence of the Shrewsbury 24 and the actions for which they are on trial must proceed. In several areas local conferences are being organised to discuss and prepare in an integrated manner, the local defence of picketing, the struggle against Phase 3, and the defence of the Shrewsbury 24.
on hunger strike for 22 days and were drinking water only. 'A lawyer acting for the Price sisters is seeking permission from the Home Office to apply to the High Court in London for an injunction restraining the authorities from force-feeding prisoners. *Early developments are expected in an assault action by Gerald Kelly and Hugh Feeney and Roy Walsh against those responsible for force-feeding them." Support action Over 70 supporters of the Irish Political Hostages Committee marched to the High Barnet home of the Home Secretary Robert Carr, last Saturday to hand in a letter calling for political treatment for the nine Irish Republicans sentenced to imprisonment at Winchester last month. "A 'women's vigil' will take place outside Brixton Prison (where the Price sisters are being held) from 8 pm this Saturday even ing (15 December) to 8 am the next mor ing in support of the prisoners' demands.