Prisoners’ rights

In the early eighties, several members of the IRA (the Irish Republican Army) jailed in a Northern Irish prison fought to achieve the status of political prisoners and an improvement in their subhuman living conditions. Despite the fact that ten inmates eventually lost their lives as the result of long hunger strikes, the British Government stoically maintained its position, unleashing a violent period in the country.

Human rights are violated in prisons the world over. The sexual humiliation and torture inflicted on the inmates at Iraq’s Abu Grahib prison, the inhuman treatment of those incarcerated at North America’s Guantanamo prison, or the house arrest imposed upon the Burmese opposition leader, Nobel Prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi, are only a few examples.