In June this year over 70 prisoners at Saughton prison in Edinburgh went on hunger strike over the disgusting quality of the prison food and increased repression at the gaol, which recently opened a massive new ‘superwing’, purpose-built to hold long-term prisoners.
This was the latest manifestation of unrest at Saughton since the appointment 18 months ago of David Croft as governor. Croft, an ex-Saughton screw, was at Shotts prison in Lanarkshire at the time of the uprising five years ago and is still remembered by prisoners there with bitterness. Since taking over at Saughton he has systematically screwed down the regime and encouraged his staff to harass prisoners, especially lifers and long-termers.
In June Croft hurried up the completion of a new purpose-built top security wing, Ingliston House, officially intended as a long term facility for freshly sentenced prisoners. He decided, however that the first group to move into the new fortress-type wing would be 60 life-sentence prisoners approaching the end of their sentences and normally eligible for semi-open or open prisons. Saughton had previously held such lifers in a relaxed and semi-open facility, from where they were allowed to go out each day to work in the outside community as a crucial part of their reintroduction into society. Croft now moved them en masse to the new wing and shut them behind steel gates, electronic doors and reinforced cells, constantly observed by CCTV cameras. Men who, in some cases, had served decades in prison and were approaching freedom were now arbitrarily returned to maximum security conditions, in clear breach of the Scottish Prison Service’s official position on rehabilitation.
Ingliston House itself is a massive complex of separate self-contained wings or units, all operating ‘incentive-based’ regimes of varying severity, based on crude behaviour modification principles and straightforward blackmail. Costing tens of millions of pounds to construct and equip, it is an architectural blueprint for prison repression in the future, and is clearly inspired by US methods of control and containment.
The second group of prisoners moved into Ingliston House were freshly sentenced long-termers, who previously would have been transferred to proper long-term prisons (Saughton remains essentially a local remand jail) with more appropriate regimes. Now they are expected to serve the whole of their sentences in the austere and virtual lockdown conditions prevailing in Ingliston House; in some cases this will be for 10, 15 or 20 years. Inevitably, it was this group of prisoners who began challenging the regime early on and within a week the screws trying to enforce it began to lose control. As always, when confronted by the spectre of prisoner solidarity, the administration began increasing lockdown periods and strictly segregating groups of prisoners during exercise periods. Initially all prisoners in the facility had shared exercise periods, although they were confined to separate pens or cages; however two days after arriving at Ingliston House, prisoners pushed their way as one mass group into a single cage and defied the screws to separate or remove them. Containment of resistance, as opposed to futile attempts to break it, now characterises the regime, and inevitably the tension continues to rise.
Tony Cameron, the head of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), toured Ingliston House in the week that it opened and responded to prisoners’ complaints with indifference and sarcasm. This speaks volumes about his lack of concern for either the psychological health of prisoners or the well-being of his staff should the place erupt into riot. Cameron’s department has spent millions on creating what is in effect a huge high-tech control unit at Saughton, yet he resisted vigorously the court ruling ordering them to comply with human rights law by providing in-cell sanitation at prisons such as Barlinnie. Cameron’s priorities are obvious.
There will be significant unrest at Saughton unless David Croft is reined in by the SPS and long-term prisoners are treated with proper regard for their human rights. Unfortunately the official mentality is probably best summed up by the remark of one screw at Saughton who, when confronted with a warning of trouble from a prisoner, said ‘At the end of the day, we’re the biggest gang in here so we will always win.’
How many times will the lesson have to be learnt by those who attempt to crush and subdue us that when prisoners rise up collectively in defence of our rights, no amount of violence and repression is capable of halting us?
John Bowden, HMP Saughton
Solidarity with political prisoners
On 8 August, Marcos Martin Ponce, a political prisoner and member of the GRAPO (First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups) organisation was brutally beaten in Fleury Merogis Prison for refusing to comply with his degrading treatment by the French guards. This occurred as he was being taken to a court hearing in which the Spanish government were applying for his extradition. Four officers pounced on him, and proceeded to kick and punch him until he fell to the ground. Then they kicked him in his legs and ribs.
This type of treatment is common towards political prisoners from GRAPO, ETA (revolutionary Basque nationalists), and EGPGC (Galician independence movement). Marcos Martin Ponce says: ‘I want the world to know that although they humiliate us, we are still here and standing firm, resisting. My revolutionary dignity is still intact, even stronger.’
Political prisoners are being dispersed away from their families and communities and can only communicate through letters, which often do not reach their destinations. Isolation is commonplace with 23-hour lockdown and no contact with other prisoners. If the extraditions of GRAPO prisoners from France to Spain are approved, they can expect even harsher, more brutal treatment from the Spanish authorities.
Political prisoners in Spain have been routinely tortured by police officers and guards. This obviously has physical and mental consequences but the torturers act with impunity, knowing that there will be no comeback or outcry in the media. Despite this, the Spanish state has not been capable of eliminating the liberation struggle.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! stands firmly in solidarity with the political prisoners in French and Spanish gaols.
Scott McDonald
Review
If it was easy they wouldn’t call it ‘struggle’ by Mark Barnsley
This pamphlet is a translation of a speech made by Mark Barnsley to a prison support group in France in 2004. Mark served eight years of a 12-year sentence, having been wrongly convicted of two counts of grievous bodily harm in an incident in which he was not only not the aggressor but was in fact the victim of an attack perpetrated by 15 drunken students. Accounts of Mark’s conviction and struggle to clear his name are available from the campaign address; however this pamphlet deals not with why he was in prison but with how he survived and fought his incarceration.
This is a concise but very moving, highly political and sometimes funny account of prison life and ways in which solidarity and resistance can be engendered. At a time when prisoners have been systematically divided against one another by incentive and privilege schemes, the possibility of parole and the widespread encouragement of heroin use, it is extremely refreshing to read this pamphlet, which includes many examples of prisoners fighting back against the system, from tiny acts of resistance and sabotage to the full scale uprising that took place at Full Sutton prison in 1997.
Copies available from Justice for Mark Barnsley, PO Box 381, Huddersfield HD1 3XX price £2.50, free to prisoners.
Inside News
Overcrowding
On 9 September the prison population of England and Wales stood at 76,934. In August a report from the Prison Reform Trust had already warned that the system was dangerously overcrowded, with over half of prisons over capacity, and 10,000 more people in the prison system than it was designed to hold.
In July the Home Office was forced to withdraw its long-term prison population projections – released in January – as the population had climbed to 2,000 over the highest predicted scenario in only six months. The new projection foresees the prison population reaching 90,000 by 2010.
Harmondsworth
On 10 August the trial of seven men accused of riot and violent disorder at Harmondsworth Removal Centre in July 2004 ended with three acquittals and four convictions. The uprising occurred following the death of detainee Sergey Baranuyck, who was facing imminent removal to the Ukraine.
Those found guilty were Andrew Walters, Give Okropiridze, Albert Atkinson and Rayon Oates. They were sentenced to between three and four and a half years’ imprisonment each. FRFI sends them our solidarity and best wishes.
Lincoln mutineers
We would also like to belatedly send solidarity greetings to all those convicted in January this year of participating in the 2002 uprising at Lincoln prison. Twenty-one prisoners received sentences for their involvement in the Lincoln protest, with six men (Alan Brown, Gavin Collins, Michael Westwood, Benjamin Daws, John Lambert and Lee McGrath) receiving nine-year sentences. FRFI would like to hear from any of those convicted about their experiences at Lincoln and their treatment since.
Censorship of FRFI
Following Iñigo Makazaga’s victory against the Prison Service’s attempts to prevent FRFI reaching prisoners in high security prisons, we have been contacted by a number of prisoners who have experienced further problems. Subscribers to the paper in Nottingham, Birmingham, Parc and Frankland prisons have reported repeated difficulties with censorship, the majority of which are ultimately resolved but which require repeated submission of complaints and letters from solicitors in order to remind the prisons that they have a duty to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights, and in particular with Article 10 (Freedom of Expression). We will continue to oppose each and every instance in which our paper is censored.
G8 defendants
Over 700 protesters were arrested at the G8 summit in July, with 366 being charged. All those held in prison on remand have now been released and trials are now beginning in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Perth and Falkirk. although sheriffs have been using powers to ban supporters from the public galleries of courts. Legal and material support is being organised by the July 2005 Solidarity Group, c/o 17 West Montgomery Place, Edinburgh EH7 5HA; 0131 557 6242; e-mail July2005solidarity at yahoo.co.uk
FRFI 187 October / November 2005
