"So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Israel might brand Palestine's fight
60 Years of crime"
Salama: We will not wear orange uniform Al Qassam website - The leader in Al Qassam Brigades and the prisoner in the Zionist jails, Hassan Salama said that Hamas prisoners will not wear the orange uniform which the Zionist prison service tries to impose on the prisoners even if they pay their lives for this.Haaretz reports on this as well and notes the many connotations associated with this "new" degrading uniform. Which, is clearly a psychological attack on Palestinian Resistance Prisoners to demoralise them
Salama, who is sentenced to 48 years, said that the prisoners of his movement may be exterminated at all in the darkness of the Zionist cells, but they will not put this uniform on their bodies.
He added:”Hamas as all the liberation movements around the world wage the same battle against occupation and arrogance powers which try to entitle the resistance with terrorism. Hamas will foil this imperialistic scheme through the steadfastness of her prisoners.
Around a year ago, the Israel Prison Service issued new, orange uniforms to inmates to replace the old brown uniforms. An article in Yedioth Ahronoth last July quoted the Prison Service as saying that inmates who were issued the new uniforms, which are trimmed with reflective stripes, took them happily, as their color "is much cheerier than the gloomy brown uniforms."(As if Israel is concerned with Palestinian Prisoners feeling "Cheerful")
Really? Attorney Majd Bader of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel says all the inmates he has met at Israel's security prisons vehemently object to the new uniforms and refuse to wear them.All of this reminds me of something closer to home, once again we see analogies between two peoples struggling for their freedom and independence from a colonizing oppressor. I remember an Irish Resistance song about this very thing, called the H-Block Song. One of the five demands was not to wear a criminals Uniform. On 14 September 1976, newly convicted prisoner Kieran Nugent began the blanket protest, in which IRA and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners refused to wear prison uniform and either went naked or fashioned garments from prison blankets.
"It raises very negative associations with Guantanamo," Bader said. "There was a sense that this was an attempt to link them with Al-Qaida or attach that label. Another thing is that orange uniforms are the uniforms of death row inmates in Western countries.
Inmates who refuse to wear the new uniforms are being denied visitors and other privileges. harretz
One young man on that protest was Raymond McCartney (Born 1954 in Derry, North of Ireland) is a Sinn Féin politician, and a former hunger striker and volunteer within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) pictured in the famous mural at the top of this post.
Following his release from prison Raymond became involved in community politics and Sinn Féin structures. Raymond was co-opted onto the Assembly team following the retirement of Mary Nelis and was a founding member of Coiste Na n-Iarchimí, the group set up to look after the interests of former political prisoners. Raymond also represents Sinn Féin on the policing and justice issue in the Programme for Government Committee and is the party spokesperson on Regional Development and is on the Long Kesh monitoring group which is overseeing the redeveloping of the former Kesh Prison site. The same site where he was on the Blanket protest and hungerstrike!
Perhaps one day, one of those Palestinian Prisoners will survive the Israeli terrorists and rise to represent their people as well. So, In solidarity to the Prisoners, I offer the H-Block Song, lyrics below, changed to reflect the Palestinian cause:
Here’s the Original song:I am a proud young Palestinian
From Gaza Strip my life began
A happy boy through green fields ran
And I kept Allah's and man's laws
But when my age was barely ten
My country's wrongs were told again
By tens of thousands marching men
And my heart stared to their cause.
(chorus)
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Israel might brand Gaza’s fight
60 Years of crime
****************
I learned of centuries of strife
Of cruel laws injustice rife
And I saw now in my own young life
The fruits of foreign sway
Protesters threatened, tortured, maimed
Divisions nurtured passions flamed
Outrage provoked rights cause defamed
This is the conqueror's ways
(chorus)
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Israel might brand Gaza’s fight
60 Years of crime
***************
Descendant's of proud Palestine's clan
The West served cruel Israel’s plan
Man's inhumanity to man
Had spawned a trusty slave
No strangers are these bolts and locks
No new design these dark Cell-Blocks
Cruel Nakba lives while Israel stalks
The bully taunts the brave
(chorus)
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Israel might brand Gaza’s fight
60 Years of crime
***************
Does Israel need one thousand years
Of protest, riots, death and tears
Or will this last decade of fears
Of six decades spell
An end to Palestine's agony
New hope for human dignity
And will the last obscenity
Be this grim Prison-Block cell
(chorus)
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Israel might brand Gaza’s fight
60 Years of crime
***************
