STAMPING feet and 'troops out now' slogans followed speeches by Ireland speakers at the National Union of Students conference Blackpool. One of the speakers was from the Relatives Action Committee, the other was protesting about the conditions in Armagh jail.
The student conference was polarised on the issue, the NUS executive suffering a major defeat after an emergency motion taking up the plight of women Armagh was passed by 296 delegate votes to The incoming executive is now mandated to issue a complaint to the Home Office and the United Nations, to support demands for the restoralion normal prisoners, and to launch a national petition ARMAGH prison in the North of Ireland is becoming notorious. It is inside these walls that women prisoners, who dare to demand prisoner-of-war status, are being subjected to regular beatings and have been denied washing toilet facilities.
The harassment goes on non-stop. On Wednesday 26 March four women prisoners were attacked in the prison yard and suffered cuts and bruises. On Sunday 30 March, while the women were at mass, prison warders entered their cells chamber pots over their Warders switch lights on bang cell doors, and rattle the door shutters back and forward.
The governor has also prevented two women, Dolores O'Neill and Anne Bateson, regular visits to which they entitled. a Patricia-Craig, andrber prisoner, has contracted a rash called impetigo. The rash is highly infectious because of Pauline's refusal to be 'criminalised' she has been denied Northern week in for Dr Cole, Workers Republican prisoners privileges for the Armagh A wing is women's H block and ART emptied beds. and off, getting are but protesting at the inhuman conditions under which they are held. The petition will also call the resident medical officer in Armagh, to be struck off the medical register.
The Socialist Students Alliance, a grouping which includes IMG students, and the Socialist Student Organisation gether throughout the conference to bring the attention of delegates to the situation in the North of Ireland.
On the opening night of the conferenee the SSA and SWSO won a motion to have guest speakers from Belfast. To pay their fares a collection was taken on the spot, despite the refusal to mandate to do so.
worked todiscussed hostility of some delegates to this proposal.
The executive was also taken up on its Amount a campaign against Prevention of Terrorism Act despite having a The Left Alliance which dominates the executive did their utmost to stop Ireland being Andy Permain, a member of the Communist Party, opposed the collection for the Armagh campaign on the grounds that it Relatives Action Committee "Provisional IRA fronts' Alan Christie, the Deputy President of the NUS and a member of the National Organisation of Labour Students, likewise thought that supporting it stands for' the would have put Traditional breakthrough'.
Irish issue.
the women of Armagh effective prisonels publicising their brutal treatment would give credence to the Provisional IRA and everything Pauline Roe, for the SSA and the IMG, replied that if she had wanted the conference to give support to the IRA that's the motion she supporters executive among the delegates broke with them to ensure that the emergency resolution was passed.
The decision, said Pauline, marked a 'huge While in no way committing the NUS to campaign for troop withdrawal it has forced the NUS to break its silence over the It remains for student militants at the base to make sure that the NUS executive are not allowed to cop out of making its protest about