The following letter has been sent by a group of 38 doctors to the British Medical Association, asking the association to make a statement on the forcible feeding of Irish political prisoners, Similar letters were sent to the Tinier and the Guardian, but to date these have not been published. Dear Er Slerenson, We are writing as doctors wacking in Britain. to call for & public statement by the British Medical Association, on the After 23 UCATT members went on site, Corgie Road, Edinbargh. their employers, Trenthams, locked them out, hoping to smash union organisaTion at the stact of this, their bigeest job in the area.
The dispute s over bonus, which is already being paid on other Trenthans sites in the area, Peter Law, the jouters shop steward told & Rot bains sire only halfs-mile up 190 Despite che tact that the Onion ethical position of the doctors involved in the forcible feeding of prisances in *British jails.
frecible feeding is being carried out et Brixion, Carte, and Wormwood Serbs, where four trish prisomers have maintained a Home Office decision not in allow thea transfer to prisons in Northern Ireland, whero they wish to work out sheir son. tences-tear theit relatices, Tois riding poes agent the precedent of eighteen prisaners corvicted in Ireland Seine mortar then Building employer tries to smash union has not made the strike official. strike at the New Telephone Exchange pickets are successfuily keeping scab labour off the site, It is obvious. Zowever, that combine shep stewards comentrees end joint shop stewarda committers are essential In deal with These small and bitter local disputes, They are necessury also lo propore tor the luture confrentations A figh! los a new wage clach aust surely come around 10 June, when the 1972 agreement runs out.
Messages of support and money are urgently nended.
Serito Peter Law. 41 Seaton Sanes, Long Nidary Eaxt Lothar, Scotlnd.
RUAND I FRASER зілее 1971.
At the present time, as you will know, on request to England, and four others being transferred similarly to leland Forcibic feeding reques that a clamp be placed in the mouth to bold it open whine a stomach tubo is passed, through which the prisoner is given his daily talone requirements in liquid form, Since Porting oftel bours, this process may need to bo repcated. This practice of Torcible Feeding is medically dangerous, prechologirally damaping. and ethically arisciner unacceptable, particularly as all fou Prisoners so now actively resisting the procedure, in 1917, Tharmas Asbe died and the caroner's jury said that his death was dea to his treatient in prisen and condemned force feeding as a dangorous Recent demonstration outside Brixton Jail in support of Winchester prisoners and intuman operation On 1 September, the BS carried an editorial concenting a German court rills that an unwilliog prisoner could be medically examined, forcibly if Becosury, and chen with the use of a drug to overcome resistance, It stated that the forcible examination of a person is cartrary to le ethical tradition of medicine in any country, the more so if that person is a We food that the failue to date of the #MA to make a similar pronounecment on the forcible feeding carried our by doctors in our owe country should be rectified immedialely. Forcible feeding of these prisoners must ocase, and their reasonable request of transfer to irish Tails granted
importance to other groups of work-
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West reporter that the new were solid, bun there was a danger of the strike being ispiated. Another Trent-
cond has taker no soliderity actain ause has not even had a collation.