Dirty protest

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The Dirty Protest (German: Schmutziger Protest ), also called No Wash Protest in Ireland , was part of the five year long protest during the Northern Ireland conflict by prisoners of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), held in Long Kesh Prison and Armagh Women's Prison.

The Dirty Protest was preceded by the Blanket Protest , in which prisoners refused to wear prison clothing. When this protest failed, they started the Dirty Protest . Even the Dirty Protest was unsuccessful, and so Republican prisoners began the 1980 Irish hunger strike on October 27, 1980 .

background

Forty prisoners had won a special status on a hunger strike in July 1972 under the leadership of IRA veteran Billy McKee , according to which they no longer had to wear prison clothing or do prison work. In 1976 the British government tried to abolish the special status because it wanted to treat the prisoners like ordinary criminals. Republican prisoners arrested before March 1 were exempt from this measure . The end of the special status was a serious attack on the paramilitary leadership in the prison, which was intended to strengthen the British position in public and demonstrate the ability to act. The withdrawal of the special status also threatened the adequate coexistence of prisoners and prison guards. In this situation, the IRA volunteers in the prison called on the IRA leadership to carry out attacks on prison staff. One message said: “We are prepared to die for political status. Those who try to take it away from us must be fully prepared to pay the same price. "(" We are ready to die for our political status. Those who take it away from us must expect that they will have the same Price to pay ”. Outside the prison, prison guard Patrick Dillon was shot dead in April 1976, the first of 19 prison guards killed in the five-year conflict.

Dirty protest

On September 14, 1976, the Blanket Protest began , initiated by the newly imprisoned Kieran Nugent , in which Republican prisoners no longer dressed in prison uniforms and lay on their cell floor either naked or wrapped in blankets. This protest was unsuccessful.

As a result, in March 1978, some prisoners refused to leave their cells to shower or use the toilet because the prison guards mistreated them on the way there, and the prison authorities had hand basins installed in their cells. The prisoners refused to install the wash basins or smashed them after they had been installed and at the end of April 1978 there was a fight between a prison guard and a prisoner in H-Block 6, whereupon the prisoner was placed in solitary confinement . The news spread throughout the prison block. The prisoners then smashed the furniture in their cells and the prison authorities decided that all furniture should be removed from the cells and that only blankets and mattresses be placed in the cells. The prisoners continued to respond by refusing to leave their cells, and the prison guards could no longer clean the cells. As a result, the Blanket Protest developed into a Dirty Protest , because the prisoners no longer emptied their urine vessels. This was known as "slop out" and the prisoners smeared their excrement on the cell walls.

The conditions were unbearable. On the occasion of a prison visit, a journalist reported: "Having spent the whole of Sunday in the prison, I was shocked at the inhuman conditions prevailing in H-Blocks, three, four and five, where over 300 prisoners were incarcerated. One would hardly allow an animal to remain in such conditions, let alone a human being. [...] The stench and filth in some of the cells, with the remains of rotten food and human excreta scattered around the walls was almost unbearable. In two of them I was unable to speak for fear of vomiting. ”(“ I spent a whole Sunday in prison and was shocked by the inhumane conditions that prevailed in H-Blocks Three, Four and Five, where more than 300 prisoners were held Nobody would let an animal live in these conditions, let alone a human being. […] The stench and rubbish in some cells, with the rest of rotted food and human excrement scattered over the cell walls, was almost unbearable In two of the cells I was unable to speak because I was afraid of vomiting. ")

Initially, this protest outside of the prison received little attention and even the IRA considered it irrelevant, considering its armed campaign to be more important. The strike first received public attention when Tomás Ó Fiaich , the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh & South Tyrone , visited the prisoners and condemned the unbearable conditions in which they were left to vegetate.

Despite these inhumane conditions, the prisoners' morale was high, the Archbishop said: “In isolation and perpetual boredom they maintain their sanity by studying Irish. It was an indication of the triumph of the human spirit over adverse material conditions to notice Irish words, phrases and songs being shouted from cell to cell and then written on each cell wall with the remnants of toothpaste tubes. "(" In isolation and lasting In boredom, they [the prisoners] keep their sanity by learning the Irish language, which was an indication that the human spirit was rising above the hostile material environment by shouting Irish words, phrases and songs from cell to cell and to each Cell wall with remnants from toothpaste tubes are written. ")

The aim of these protests was to restore the special status as political prisoners according to their five demands, the so-called "Five Demands". These goods:

  • The right not to wear prison uniforms
  • The right to refuse prison labor
  • The right to freely communicate with other prisoners and to organize educational and recreational events
  • The right to one visit, one letter and one package per week
  • Complete remission of those involved in the strike

In February 1980, Mairéad Farrell , who was shot dead by the SAS Special Forces unit during Operation Flavius in Gibraltar in 1988 , and over thirty other prisoners at Armagh Women Prison joined the Dirty Protest , leading to a series of arguments with the prison authorities and allegations, that the women captured were treated badly by the prison guards. They did not join the Blanket protest as women prisoners in Northern Ireland had the right to wear their own clothing; but they smeared menstrual blood on their walls in protest of the prevailing conditions and refused to leave their prison cells.

In June 1980 four prisoners, including Kieran Nugent, appealed against the British government to the European Court of Human Rights for their "inhumane" (inhumane) detention. The court judged the situation for "self-inflicted" ("self-inflicted") and "designed to enlist sympathy for the prisoners political aims" ("aimed at generating sympathy for the political goals of the prisoners").

Hunger strike

On October 27, 1980 IRA volunteers Brendan Hughes , Tommy McKearney , Raymond McCartney , Tom McFeeley, Sean McKenna, Leo Green and INLA member John Nixon began a hunger strike to enforce their "Five Demands". This hunger strike ended with a concession from the British government.

However, when it became clear in January 1981 that the Five Demands were not being implemented in full, prisoners went on hunger strike on February 4, 1981 and the Dirty Protest ended the following day. That hunger strike ended on October 3, 1981, and ten men died, including Bobby Sands . James Prior , the new Northern Ireland Secretary , then accepted demands from the prisoners, including irrevocable permission to wear their own clothing.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Melanie McFadyean: The legacy of the hunger strikes . The Guardian . March 4, 2006. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
  2. ↑ a b Ten men dead. The story of the 1981 Irish hunger strike . Atlantic Monthly Press, New York 1907, ISBN 0-87113-702-X , pp. 13-16 .
  3. ↑ a b A Chronology of the Conflict - 1976 . CAIN. Retrieved September 1, 2007.
  4. ^ Patrick Bishop, Eamonn Mallie: The Provisional IRA . Corgi Books, 1987, ISBN 0-552-13337-X , pp. 350 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e Patrick Bishop, Eamonn Mallie: The Provisional IRA . Corgi Books, 1987, ISBN 0-552-13337-X , pp. 351 .
  6. ↑ Peter Taylor: Brits. The war against the IRA . Bloomsbury, London 2001, ISBN 0-7475-5806-X , pp. 229 .
  7. ^ Patrick Bishop, Eamonn Mallie: The Provisional IRA . Corgi Books, 1987, ISBN 0-552-13337-X , pp. 351-352 .
  8. ↑ Peter Taylor: Provos The IRA & Sinn Féin . Bloomsbury, London 1998, ISBN 0-7475-3818-2 , pp. 221-222 .
  9. ^ Provos The IRA & Sinn Féin. P. 217.
  10. ↑ Jack Holland, Henry McDonald: INLA Deadly Divisions . Poolbeg, 1996, ISBN 1-85371-263-9 , pp. 261 .
  11. ↑ The deaths that gave new life to an IRA legend . In: The Guardian . October 5, 1981 ( theguardian.com ).
  12. ^ Patrick Bishop, Eamonn Mallie: The Provisional IRA . Corgi Books, 1987, ISBN 0-552-13337-X , pp. 353 .
  13. ↑ a b c Provos The IRA & Sinn Féin. Pp. 229-234.
  14. ↑ Tim Pat Coogan: The IRA . Harper Collins, London 2000, ISBN 0-00-653155-5 , pp. 490 (first edition: 1995).
  15. ^ Richard O'Rawe: Blanketmen. An untold story of the H-block hunger strike . New Island Books, Dublin 2005, ISBN 1-84840-555-3 , pp. 103-104 .
  16. ↑ Ten Men Dead. P. 55.
  17. ^ The Hunger Strike of 1981 - A Chronology of Main Events . CAIN . Retrieved May 26, 2007.
  18. ^ Patrick Bishop, Eamonn Mallie: The Provisional IRA . Corgi Books, 1987, ISBN 0-552-13337-X , pp. 375 .