-
Subject Index A-B
-
Subject Index C-F
-
Subject Index G-K
-
Subject Index L-O
-
Subject Index P-Z
Email: info@searcs-web.com
|
|
Email: info@searcs-web.com |
|
Searc's Web Guide to
20th Century Ireland - Republican Women Prisoners, Magheraberry Gaol (1992)
Between 1982 and 2000 republican women prisoners experienced frequent and violent strip-searches. Twenty-one republican women prisoners were violently strip-searched and sexually assaulted by prison officers in Maghaberry Gaol, County Armagh on March 2nd, 1992. After the strip-search the women were charged and found guilty with refusing to obey the order to strip naked. Several were put in solitary confinement for three days and later denied access to exercise or to leave their cells after 4.30pm for periods ranging from 14 to 40 days and lost between two and three weeks remission, including the remand prisoners who had not yet been tried. The women sought a judicial review of the validity of the strip-searches and on March 4th, 1994 the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal ruled that forced strip-searches were legal and could be carried out at any time. This extract is from an article 'Humane and Acceptable?' written collectively by the republican women prisoners in Maghaberry Gaol. It was first published in The Captive Voice Vol. 4 No. 2, 1992. © At 8.20am, we were told that we would not be unlocked because a search of the jail was being conducted. Ten minutes later male screws walked through the wings singing 'Happy days are here again'. Approximately a hour later women were informed by either male or female SO's (senior officers) that they would each be subjected to a strip-search. When the women objected they were threatened with being put 'on report' and punished if they did not comply. Republican women continued to refuse. Within a hour, large numbers of female screws dressed in full riot gear entered the wings carrying shields and batons. Before long the sound of screaming was heard throughout the jail as one woman, Teresa Malocco [a remand prisoner], was set upon by six of the riot squad, dragged down onto the floor of her cell and forcibly stripped naked. The terror and revulsion felt by every other woman in the jail was so overwhelming that most began to barricade their doors, using the bed and locker, in an attempt to prevent the same thing happening to them. The male search team and dog-handlers outside the windows laughed and cheered at the sound of each woman's screams, watching as women were dragged off the bars of their windows. Cell doors were left open so that both male and female searchers on the landings outside could watch if they wished. The Board of Visitors (BOV) took the opportunity to partake in the proceedings by looking on from open cell doors as women were held down and brutally stripped and assaulted. The BOV would claim to be an impartial watchdog body, yet they stood in silence as these attacks were being carried out. Their very presence would suggest participation, their silence a vote of consent. All of the attacks carried out on a total of 21 Republican POWs were similar in nature. Between five and six female screws in riot gear, their faces disguised with helmets, would burst into the cell, seize hold of the woman's arms and legs, and drag her down, pushing her face tightly into the floor. Women's mouths were covered in an attempt to stifle screams. While some of the women's arms were twisted up their backs, others had their arms pinned to the floor above their heads. Women were punched, kicked, scrapped and nipped and they had their limbs twisted in various directions throughout the ordeal. All 21 women sustained injuries of some description while being forcibly stripped naked. In the case of one woman, Rosie McCorley, screws stripped her from the waist down and then began shouting, 'On your knees, prisoner'. Some of the women were beaten with batons, among them Mary and Teresa McArdle who were hit on the back, neck and hands. The prison doctor recorded the women's injuries later the same night and he sent Karen Quinn to an outside hospital the following day because of the extent of swelling and bruising down one side of her face, caused mainly by her face being banged off the cell floor. Many of the women were put on anti-inflammatory tablets, painkillers and sleeping draughts, and one woman had a urine sample taken after she sustained a back injury. After stripping them naked and searching them, some of the screws forced the women's clothes back on while still holding them down. Others left the victims lying naked or half naked on the floor. Those women unable or unwilling to walk were carried, face down, up the landing and locked in an association room while a search of the cell was conducted. Some of the women had their periods and while the SO made a point of asking that before sending in the riot squad, the screws still pulled down the women's pants... all prisoners were stripped by the riot squad without the presence of an MO [Medical Officer]... The entire search operation began at 8.00am and continued through to 9.00 that night. At no time during the day were the women permitted to leave their cells for any reason, not even to bathe or exercise. Two women nursing children were also confined to their cells at all times. Meals were handed into the cells twice during the day by the same screws who were carrying out these attacks, but the women were too shocked and sickened to eat anything... The whole atmosphere during the day was set to strike the maximum terror into women prisoners. Screws were all psyched up, some of them seemed crazy - roaring and shouting at the top of their voices. Many laughed and joked on the landings; some stood gloating at open cells doors as they watched women being stripped naked; male screws on the landings mimicked the screams of women prisoners; the male search team outside the windows shouted remarks in at the women, held up their middle finger, and stuck out and wiggled their tongues... Since the forcible strip-searches were carried out the NIO [Northern Ireland Office] has embarked on an attempted face-saving exercise to hide the truth, releasing statements saying that women had 'overreacted' to the searches. Indeed the latest claim by the NIO reads: 'There was a cynical attempt to provoke the entire incident so that it could be used as a propoganda exercise,' and goes on to talk of 'the organised violent reaction to it by a particular group of inmates.' Comments like these are not only lies, they are also utterly repugnant. To suggest that women would actually wish to be held down and sexually and physically assaulted is beyond all comprehension. Is the NIO trying to suggest that every woman in Maghaberry invited these mobs into her cell...? When some women barricaded their cell doors in an attempt to keep these mobs out and defend themselves, they were acting out of sheer terror and natural instinct. It would be true to say that the NIO is making a cynical attempt to explain away the brutal torture of defenseless women prisoners, because it realises that such disgusting and degrading treatment will never be acceptable to society. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008. |
|
|