The report found that successive British governments approved the treatment.
A Significant New report released today has concluded that protesting prisoners in the H-Blocks and HMP Armagh were subjected to systemic inhuman and degrading treatment.
The study by the Independent Panel of Inquiry into the conditions at the prisons between 1976 to 1981 is the first review of the experiences of men and women prisoners held at the prisons following the withdrawal of Special Category Status on 1st March 1976.
This status had effectively made inmates prisoners of war and they were allowed certain concessions, including the wearing of their own clothes. They also did not have to do prison work and were allowed additional visits by family and access to more food parcels.
The report identified forty-seven findings which the independent group says reflect the abuses of power endured by the men and women held in the H-Blocks and Armagh, and the long term impact on the lives of former prisoners and their families.
A Significant New report released today has concluded that protesting prisoners in the H-Blocks and HMP Armagh were subjected to systemic inhuman and degrading treatment.
The study by the Independent Panel of Inquiry into the conditions at the prisons between 1976 to 1981 is the first review of the experiences of men and women prisoners held at the prisons following the withdrawal of Special Category Status on 1st March 1976.
This status had effectively made inmates prisoners of war and they were allowed certain concessions, including the wearing of their own clothes. They also did not have to do prison work and were allowed additional visits by family and access to more food parcels.
The report identified forty-seven findings which the independent group says reflect the abuses of power endured by the men and women held in the H-Blocks and Armagh, and the long term impact on the lives of former prisoners and their families.
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It is a pity that this report was not published much earlier. Appalling saga of ill treatment of prisoners who no matter what cause they represented did not deserve to be deprived of their humanity woth the slamming of the prison gates behind them.
ReplyDeleteThe prisoners were brutalised
ReplyDeleteThey were humiliated & debased
By extension a significant section of the community were humiliated and debased also