Call for Dialogue with Basque Hunger Strikers

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Friday March 18, 2005 20:10 by Dublin IRSP - Irish Republican Socialist Party dublinirsp at hotmail dot com PO Box 10081, Dublin 1, Ireland 0876 320 323

Following an announcement on the 16th March 2005, that 720 Basque political prisoners had begun an indefinite hunger strike, the International Department of the Irish Republican Socialist Party issued a statement of solidarity.

IRSP: Call for Dialogue with Basque Hunger Strikers
16 March 2005

Following an announcement on the 16th March 2005, that 720 Basque political prisoners had begun an indefinite hunger strike, the International Department of the Irish Republican Socialist Party issued a statement of solidarity. The hunger strike launched by the Basque Political Prisoners' Group (EPPK), a group coordinating efforts by Basque political prisoners around the world, is an effort to win political status. It is the first time that the EPPK has brought all of its prisoners on hunger strike at one time.

In January of this year, prisoners associated with the EPPK began holding a series of sit-in protests. Yesterday the seventh such protest this year concluded, with no response other than an increase in repressive measures within the prisons. As a consequence, the Basque political prisoners initiated their hunger strike.

A spokesperson for the IRSP's International Department said of the hunger strike:

"We were deeply moved when we heard from Coistí na maBascach Éireannach (the Irish Basque Committees) today that Basque political prisoners had begun a hunger strike; moved by sympathy with their struggle for political recognition and angered by the reactionary posture of the French and Spanish governments which has made this action necessary.

"In circumstances that are painfully familiar to the IRSP, the Basque prisoners' hunger strike has its roots in earlier prison protests against both the Spanish and French states. We understand that when the prisoners protested through sit-ins, the response was to end their rights to visits and locking them down in punishment cells," the spokesperson said.

"The Basque political prisoners are demanding nothing more than the recognition that they are incarcerated for political activities and that their people be given a voice within the political arena with which to make their case," the spokesperson continued.

"The IRSP denounces the torture and punishment meted out by these governments against Basque political prisoners, their lack of respect for the human rights of the prisoners, and their failure to engage in open communication with the prisoners representatives. Further, the IRSP call upon the French and Spanish governments to immediately open direct dialogue with the representatives the EPPK has put forward and not let the situation escalate further.

The IRSP spokesperson concluded:

"The EPPK prisoners have demonstrated their resolve and their preparedness to remain firm in the face of adversity imposed by the state authorities. We ask that the French and Spanish governments not repeat the mistakes of the British government in dealing with the just demands of Irish National Liberation Army and Irish Republican Army prisoners in the past, which led to the tragedy of the deaths of ten heroic young men on hunger strike in 1981."

STATEMENTS ENDS