Thousands back 'H' Block
Socialist Press1980 1980-12-10Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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Thatcher-and half the still limited.
Rioting in Derry; the biggest demonstration against the British army in Dublin for eight years; the first stirrings of a growing movement on the H Blocks in Britain-the headaches for Thatcher and for Haughey grow.
The ten hunger strikersseven men in the H Blocks of Long Kesh and three women in Armagh Jail-have sparked off a wave of struggle against the brutality of British rule in the north.
The demonstration in Dublin saw 40,000 marching in support of political status.
Nervous Gardai lined the route to the British Embassy which was burned to the ground in 1972.
The size of the march is reported to have taken the police and the organisers by surprise.
. In the north and the south of Ireland strikes have taken place in support of political status and a national day of action was being planned for December 10.
Talks
senior end of her cabinet-were attempting to put together talks with Haughey before that date.
Deals, compromises and buyoffs will doubtless be attempted in the few remaining days that now separate the seven men from their deaths and the few weeks that the women have left to live.
But the attempts to black out growing support for political status are falling apart.
The fight is not just a humanitarian question. The hunger strikers are political prisoners-they are prisoners of war.
Brutality
The no-jury courts torture brutality and fabricated evidence that lead to their imprisonment are themselves symptoms of the sectarian state.
The case for Aolitical status rests however on still. firmer ground and cannot be diluted by 'prison reform' or by lying (such as changing the prison uniform and calling it 'civilian clothes').
The support in the north is overwhelming, with demonstrations every week and tens of thousands of pounds flooding in to the National H Block Committee, which has now been extended to include Armagh.
In Britain however, action in support of the hunger strikers is The Charter 80 campaign is Continued page 2