APRIL 17th:solidarity With Political Prisoners

derry | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Friday April 25, 2008 17:42 by KALERA FREEDOM

Protesters gathered in the city cantre of Derry to mark International Day in Solidarity with Political Prisoners.

Supporters of several Basque, Catalan and Palestine political prisoner/support groups gathered as well as representatives of the Irish Republican Socialist Party, 32 County Sovereignty Movement and other non-aligned republican activists to highlight concerns of Political Prisoners in Ireland and across the world. Following the city centre protest, those in attendance gathered at a near by mural of 1981 Hunger Striker Patsy O'Hara for a solidarity photograph.

During the Days events several hundred information leaflets were also distributed during the event which stated:

April 17th has been marked for several years now as the day of International Solidarity with Political Prisoners to highlight the rights of political prisoners throughout the world.

International Day in Solidarity with Political Prisoners is a day when relatives and friends, individuals and organizations draw attention to issues affecting political prisoners as a gesture of solidarity on the outside.

Today we are still confronted in various places of our world with governments implementing further repressive measures that limit more and more the rights and freedoms of the population. An extension and the justification of practices such as harassment, internment, torture, isolation, and even the physical elimination of any political opposition, are carried out on a daily basis.

The creation of radical measures confronting basic international legislation and the respect to the sovereignty of third countries conducted by the United States of America and the establishment of new spaces outside the law, such as Guantanamo or the secret flights with detainees exempt of any rights.

It is a clearly documented fact, supported by many non-governmental bodies, that there’s a serious deterioration of the living conditions of people who suffer retaliation in different detention and penitentiary arrangements.

This has also caused greater criminalization, each time more acute, of those organizations which work to document the repression and that show solidarity with those who suffer retaliation.

April 17th is a day to give a voice to these concerns, complaints and claims; to create a common space for shared strategy, a retaining wall against these measures that limit our rights and freedoms.

They suffer the global repression; let us globalize the willingness and the hope by raising the flag of solidarity with all political prisoners.

Free All Political Prisoners Now!

International Initiative for Political Prisoners