No compassion
On 20 August terminally-ill Libyan prisoner Abdel Baset Al Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland. Al Megrahi, convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of a Pan-Am jet in which 270 people died, has always maintained his innocence and was disgracefully forced to drop his appeal in order to be released. Two weeks earlier, 79-year-old Ronnie Biggs, convicted of participating in the 1964 ‘Great Train Robbery’, who is also terminally ill, was released from prison in England, after his lawyers successfully contested an earlier refusal to free him. Furore has surrounded both releases but Al Megrahi and Biggs are being afforded a basic dignity which most seriously sick prisoners are denied in the final months of their lives. FRFI remembers many examples, such as framed Irish prisoner Guiseppe Conlon, who died in Wormwood Scrubs in 1980, and Chris Tierney, who was released from his life sentence in 2005 with a brain tumour only to be accused of swearing at a nurse in a hospice (an action clearly associated with his condition) and recalled to prison to die. Only recently we heard of the death of FRFI reader and thorn-in-the-side of the prison system, Dorent Francis, who died in Frankland prison of heart and renal failure on 10 July, following months of being shuttled between prison and hospital.
No care
On 23 September a coroner condemned the ‘appalling and unacceptable conditions’ at privately-run Rye Hill prison where Alexsey Baranovsky bled to death in 2006. While medical care in state prisons is provided by the local NHS, private prisons subcontract to private ‘health providers’, such as Primecare, which provided the woefully inadequate service that contributed to Alexsey’s death. He was the third Rye Hill prisoner to die in a 15-month period. The suicide of Michael Bailey in the segregation unit in 2005 led to charges of manslaughter by negligence against three members of staff – the first time prison staff had ever been charged with this offence. The officers were acquitted – their defence being that the whole prison administration was so bad and they had been so poorly trained that they could not be held individually responsible. So why is the private company that is responsible for this disgusting prison not being brought to trial?
No legal advice
In July the Legal Services Commission announced the impending introduction of ‘fixed fees’ (ie big cuts) for legal representation at Parole Board and disciplinary hearings. Immediately these changes were finalised, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) published a consultation paper, proposing further cuts. Legal Aid: Refocusing on Priority Cases suggests, among other measures, ending virtually all civil legal aid for anyone who is not a UK citizen. In relation to prisoners it proposes wholesale abolition of funded legal advice and assistance for ‘Treatment Matters’, which it describes as ‘relatively trivial’ and lists as including ‘mail, visits, food, property, healthcare and telephones’; prison lawyers say the cut will also end funded advice on: prison work, pay, education, segregation, exercise, sanitation, data protection and the Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme. Anyone can respond to the consultation which is open until 8 October. Write to Mandy Banks, Ministry of Justice Legal Aid Strategy, 4th floor 102 Petty France, London SW1H 9AJ; fax: 020 3334 4296; email: mandy. [email protected]. Copies of the consultation document can be obtained from the same address or at www.justice.gov.uk/index.htm.
No to censorship of FRFI!
Over the last few months we have had reports of subscribers in prison being refused FRFI; in particular we have had repeated calls and letters from Wakefield and Woodhill high security prisons. We therefore wrote to both prisons and the Prison Service, reminding them that in 2005, following threatened legal action by prisoners in Belmarsh, the Prison Service accepted that prisoners have a legal right to receive FRFI. We received this response from Wakefield:
Dear Sir/Madam
I can confirm that at present HMP Wakefield does not issue the publication Fight Racism, Fight Imperialism; this is due to concerns over the content of some articles within the paper.
I am aware that other establishments within the High Security Estate have, on occasion, decided not to allow offenders copies of particular issues due to their content.
As an example of our concerns, issue 208 has been reviewed by our Operations Department and it contains an article about the Close Supervision Centres in prisons which is clearly inaccurate and misleading. It reinforces negative stereotypes and suggests that staff use excessive force as a matter of course. Nothing could be further from the truth, staff strive to build up relationships with offenders in the CSC and actively encourage them to achieve behavioural targets that are set.
As such, I do not want to commit to censoring each issue for suitability; in essence a publication should either be suitable or not. Given the concerns I have raised, HMP Wakefield does not consider this publication to be appropriate for issue to offenders.
Yours faithfully
S HOWARD, Governor
Ironically, the FRFI article cited as ‘an example of our concerns’ was also published in the widely distributed prisoners’ newspaper Inside Time and will therefore have been read throughout the system. The editor of Inside Time has confirmed to FRFI that the Prison Service did not complain about that article and that, as far as he is aware, no prison banned that issue of Inside Time for any reason. Wakefield’s refusal to let prisoners receive FRFI on this basis is therefore irrational and its only effect is to prevent access to the political material in FRFI on subjects other than prison, which are not covered by Inside Time.
FRFI is strongly committed to maintaining a readership within prisons and takes all instances of censorship very seriously. We have replied to the Wakefield governor, stating that we consider the decision to ban FRFI to be irrational and unlawful, and making it clear we will take legal action if needed. We encourage prisoners who have the paper stopped to submit complaints to the Prison Service and Prisons Ombudsman (who has found in our favour in the past). Readers outside prison can also complain to the Directorate of High Security Briefing and Casework Unit, Room 618, Cleland House, Page Street, London SW1P 4LN.
FRFI 211 October / November 2009
