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risk peace in the community -and destroy peace within themselves." editorial an edge peein The aș procia ed:

• There is no haven for them here.

If ang of the escapers are recaptured in the South, they face the prospect of either imprisonment in the Free State or even extradition.

In August this year, the Dublin High Court - ignoring established precedent - ordered the extradition of Philip McMahon, who was one of the 12 republican prisoners who escaped from Newry Courthouse in 1975. • This case is awaiting appeal to the Free State Supreme Cour, which has already signalled its wish to re-interpret IRA activity

COND ON TRIAL

er pamphlet, 50p; latest TSC bailetin, 30p, plus postage. From TSC, BM Box 5965, London WCIN 3XX.

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would like to obtain further details about adopting a Polish trade unionist victimised for his/her me nbership of Solidarnosc. Military and civilian courts have already sentenced over 5000 Solidarnosc prisoners to jail terms Send to: NSZZ Solidarnosc Information Office, 314320. Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8DP (01-837 9464) ACCORDING to a recent statement from the leader of the now-banned Tamil parliamentary party, Tamil United Liberation Front, the time for a political solution in Sri Lanka is running short.

The Sinhala-communalist government has rushed through legislation specifically outlawing parties which advocate a separate Tamil state. Thus the TULF MPs expect their seats to be declared vacant, and by-elections to be called on November 21.

During the recent anti-Tamil pogroms, the worst in Sri Lanka's history, the government provoked the situation by official broadcasts, speeches, and newspaper articles, and the army and police joined in the slaughter.

•The banned opposition party fears fresh violence. The TULF, pledged to a non-violent campaign on Gandhian principles, is likely now to be overtaken by more militant groups [such as the Tamil Tigers] prepared to use guerilla-warfare to defend their community, and in the process to split the country.

According to the TULF, the Sinhalese government has consistently understated the latest outbreak of coramunal violence.

360 and 30 Taels died, barten reality it was more than 2000. More than 10,000 Tamil homes were burned and destroyed, and 155,000 Tamils rendered homeless.

The government has also outlawed the parties of the left, smearing them by alleged association with alleged gun-smuggling by foreign powers, namely the Soviet Union and East Germany.

Its repression is directed not only against the Tamils but also against the organised labour movement.

THE LEFT has lost further electoral ground in France. Sarcelles, near Paris, a town which has had a Communist Party mayor for 18 years, went over to the Right at a by-election on October SEVERAL hundred people, it is estimated, have been executed, and tens of thousands arrested or deported, in an 'anti-crime' drive in China. Even official figures cite 31,000 arrested.

According to the Paris daily Le Monde, the drive "seems linked to political repression"

THE SHIPYARD occupations in West Germany are over. But the workers' resistance is not finished. 130,000 shipyard and metal workers demonstrated in Bonn on September 29 against cutbacks in their industries.

THE GENERALS' so-called return to 'democracy' in Turkey received another adornment on September 29, when the National Assembly adopted a new press law. Local magistrates can close newspapers or ban texts. The national government can proscribe any publication which is "a threat to the unity of the country, national security, and public morals"

STILL deadlock in Chad, where France has sent its biggest military force to Africa since the Algerian war of independence.

France and Hissene Habre still control most of the south, Libya and Goukouni Oueddei the north.

The French government will be hoping to promote a settlement at a Franco-African conference of governments starting on October 3.

Blew January. I have developed a healthy habit of refusing to be in the least bit perturbed by things over which I have no control. I've managed to cut my smoking down to 8-10 a day, so that what I'm allowed to buy in the prison canteen lasts out. Nothing new here. They took away my coupons, so you won't have any trouble in sending me parcels. 'The snails come out in the walking places when it warms up - they have brown shells. In one yard there are four of them..

To try and keep fit somehow, I've been doing exercises in the mornings and evenings: 100 knee-bends, 20-30 press-ups, 30 lifts of a bucket of water in each hand . ..

Both my mates are asleep; they've received permission from the doctor to remain in bed during the day. I'm lucky myself, in being healthy and not needing to lie down, so I'm not allowed to!

We had a "kipisz" - something like a search. When we returned from a walk, we found all our stuff turned over. The confiscation of my tobacco was a great loss. It had been made up from carefully collected dogends and was just half-way through the process of refinement with the help of syrup from strawberry jam and apple rinds. They said it had been thrown away because it had been "mixed with tea". Don't try and understand it - even I, after 14 months of imprisonment, was struck dumb.

Send me some Pyralgin (painkiller), they've only got antineuralgin here, which doesn't help me at all and further strongly aggravates my stomach.

They X-rayed my gall stone: it's still there, nothing has happened to it. I won't be able to see the photograph, of course, because it's a secret. The same as not knowing what medicines will be given. March. On the subject of prison - when I was in the army. the battery commander mas constantly threatening me with arrest. When he was away, the non-commissioned officers took advantage of it and clapped me inside. The commander gave them a terrible telling off when he returned: "Until now, Gwiazda was only afraid of being arrested, and now what have you done? Shown him that it's not so terrible, after all. Now he will be afraid of nothing." A similar situation must exist in Poland now. All at once, for no reason whatever, some few thousand people passed througt the mythical prison and stopped being afraid.

I am having trouble with the remaining teeth which are left to me after a year of prison dental care. I'm unable to eat food quickly enough in order to finish it before it goes completely cold.

Your letter of March 8 found its way into the indictment. You wrote something too harsh about the prison service. (...) April. I'm sitting in the "kabryna" (special punishment cell) and finishing off the last of my stock of food from the January parcel.

There are snails in only one of the walking places - there were four, but now I've seen only two, one of which didn't look too good.

In January I pushed a semirotten apple core towards them. They seemed to move in its direction, but you can't really tell much about a snail's intentions - especially if it's freezing cold — in only half-an-hour.

I had intended to start writing in the morning, but could not tear myself away from Easter breakfast. Apart from what you sent, there was: a frankfurter saved from Thursday, and beef from Saturday. I had also saved an egg, it must have been from Friday, since they didn't give us any today. It's odd - on Christmas Eve, we got carp, but at Easter, they couldn't even give us a boiled egg.

Whilst writing this description of my feast-day, I quite forgot that I was in the "kabryna" I'his is a real prison, not just a 'hotel" . Most important of all, there is a real bucket, and no WC of any kind. Inside the cell, there is a barred cage with another lock. I feel as though I'm on an outing - fresh air, caid. few people, sleeping on a hard bed under a blanket with no sheets. The only thing missing is the beautiful scenery and, of course, the possibilicy of going on long walks. (From Voice of Solidarosc. 70-711. ANDRZEJ Gwiazda, vice-chairman of NSZZ Solidarnosc, has been imprisoned since the imposition of martial law in Poland on 13 December 1981 _ 'awaiting trial' Andrzej Gwiazda is chronically ill. He has suffered from stomach ulcers for 12 years; these can revive as often as several times a year [as bleeding ulcers], depending on conditions and treatment. He also suffers from gall stones (currently a large stonel, and paradentoza; in Bialoleka Internment Camp and in Rakow. iecka Street Prison, he lost all his front teeth. Chronic inflammation of the sinuses brings on continuous headaches during cold periods. These illnesses are mutually compounded, and exclude the use of- some medicines. His stay under investigative arrest is leading to a rapid intensification of his illnesses and to the emaciation of his system.

DURING discussion with his friends, he sometimes mentioned his childhood, which he had spent in Kazakhstan (USSR), to which he, his mother and grandmother were deported when the Red Army entered Pinsk (in 1939), where they had been staying at the time. His father survived the war in an officers' PoW campt.

Andrzej told of the hunger he had experienced in the Kazakhstan village of Immantau, and about his resourcefulness in finding food on the steppes and taiga. Once, after eating some grains which he had chipped out of frozen heaps spilled out near some railway lines, he fell ill with an ulcerating inflammațion of the alimentary canal. he was close to death, and still experiences the effects of the illness to this day.

The Gwiazdas returned to Poland in 1946, and lived first in Chorzow, and then in Gdansk.

In December 1970*, Gwiazda was present at the Gdansk Voivodship Committee during the most heated moments. He caused armoured transport vehicles to stop by inserting metal rods in their caterpillars.

In 1973, he was thrown out of the Polytechnic (he had been employed. there), and was unable to obtain any other work for half a year. Finally, he was taken on at the Elmor factory. In 1970, the workforce at Elmor had been frightened, and had behaved passively. Slowly, the atmosphere changed. Andrzej spent a lot of time in discussions with workers. They liked his directness and warm-heartedness, and respected his professional knowledge. In November 1976, Andrzej and his wife, Joanna, wrote a letter to the Sejm (Polish Parliament) in defence of the workers of Radom and Ursus**. Surveillances and persecutions followed. The Gwiazdas established _contact with Bogdan Borusewicz*** and other activists of the democratic opposition, and on 30 April 1978 Andrzej signed the founding declaration of Free Trade The Security Service harassed him constantly, and he was detained many times. But they stopped taking him from his place of work from the time when the workers attempted to remove the wheels of the Wolga, hiding Gwiazda in the shop, which they roped off, adding a notice stating work under high tension". • In March 1980, the director aproached him with an offer of a profitable contract trip to Algeria. Joanna was out of work at the time, Andrzej was ill, and both were very tired. They hesitated. (...) Andrzej decided to stay. Everyone knows what happened next: during the August 1980 strike, he was a Praesidium member of the Inter-factory Strike Committee, later he was Vice-Chairman of NSZZ Solidarnosc... Andrzej is honest, courageous, noble and above ail, very warm and kind.

Notes *In December 1970, scores of workers demonstrating against huge price increases were killed on the Baltic Coast by the militia and army.

**In June 1976 strikes broke out all over Poland in protest against massive price increases. In Radom and Ursus, during demonstrations, hundreds of workers were heavily beaten and many received long prison sentences.

***Bogdan Borusewicz was a member of KOR (former Workers Defence Committee), and one of the leaders of the August 1980 strike in the Gdansk shipyard. Although shot at in December 1981, he managed to evade arrest. Still underground at the present time, he is one of the three members of the underground Regional Coordinating Commission for the Gdansk Region.

+ Between one and 1½ mil lion Poles were deported to the USSR in 1939 from the area occupied by Stalin's army by agreement with Hitler, who invaded Poland from the west. 13' million people lived in Stalin's area, 8 million Ukrainians and Byelo-Russians and 5 million Poles. A quarter or a third of all, the Poles were deported. (Our note, SO).

of up to ten years. tannina detent tanternara toll THE Iran/Iraq war has just completed its third year - with 300,000 dead so far. Meanwhile, a new report has appeared on repression in Iran.

FRESH evidence of widespread torture and secret executions of political prisoners in Iran came to light recently in a report by Amnesty International. The evidence, corroborated in extensive interviews with former prisoners, show that nightly executions were commonplace in Tehran's Evin gaol, many not being publicly reported.

One former prisoner told Amnesty International that 497 political prisoners were killed at Evin prison in a single night in July 1981, with only 33 executions being subsequently announced.

Another, held for six months at the Revolutionary Guard headquarters in Rasht in Northern Iran near the Caspian Sea said that approximately 100 executions had taken place during that time of which only three had been reported.

Victims have included teenagers and pregnant women, two groups of people whose execution is specifically prohibited in international law, Amnesty International said.

Most of those executed, liké almost all political prisoners in Iran, are believed to have been tortured, most frequently by whipping, with such devices as leather whips, electric cables, hosepipes and flexible wooden strips bound with wire.

Women prisoners also find themselves under the constant threat of sexual abuse and rape by warders and Revolutionary: Guards.

Former inmates from Ceil Block 4 in Evin prison have: reported that men who refuse. to cooperate under interrogation are tied down and repeatedly thrashed across their testicles, leaving them unable to urinate for days.

In a letter to the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollab Khomeini, sent in August and made public this week, Amnesty International said war prepared to send a delegation to Iran to present its, evidence showing clearly that the total number of executions in Iran since the 1979 revolution must be considerably higher than the officially announced figure of 5,000 so far.

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Halsbury: one of the anti-union judges of the early 1900s From January to December 1930 unemployment nearly doubled, and then it stayed higi jor years, Tree

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