大象传媒

Nicholas Witchell reports on the beginning of the second hunger strike in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. The dirty protest, which had continued in the Maze during the first hunger strike the previous year, has now been called off in an attempt to focus attention on the new hunger strike and put pressure on the government to offer some gesture in return towards their demand for political status.

Provisional Sinn Fein spokesman Danny Morrison tells Witchell that the thinking behind this strategy is to emphasise that the campaign inside the Maze is not a protest about prison furniture or access to the toilets, but that it is a protest for political status.

The Northern Ireland Office welcomed the ending of the dirty protest, and expressed its hope that other forms of protest in the prison might also soon be ended.