A secure foundation
As we enter the twenty-second month of the most heroic and
intense republican prison struggle this century the prisoners
today are as determined as Kieran Nugent all those months ago
when he said ``they will have to nail the prison uniform on my
back''.
The living conditions these prisoners have to exist in, the
constant solitary confinement and the frequent beatings have
strained them physically and mentally almost to the breaking
point.
But still the resistance not only continues but grows daily as
republican prisoners are diplocked away for as long as thirty
years.
Importantly, the prisoners' protest has decisively set back the
central theme of the Brit policy of criminalisation.
No longer is the media fed weekly Northern Ireland Office
statistics indicating how many prisoners ``are not conforming to
prison discipline''.
No longer is the `Irish News' carrying daily full-page adverts
depicting republican guerrillas as gangsters, and much less
frequently do we hear the abusive term of ``Godfathers'' aimed at
republicans.
Today Mason himself is keeping a well-advised and noticeable `low
profile'.
The price we have paid to establish both nationally and
internationally that we are fighting a war of national liberation
is very high and the prisoners especially have borne the brunt of
this struggle. Their determination has even forced the loyalist
paramilitants (who had been in agreement with the Brit policy of
criminalisation and helped them implement it by prison
collaboration) to begin to protest seriously for segregation and
political recognition.
A welcome development which can only assist republican
protesters.
Phoblacht 3 June 1978
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)