"We are Algerian men who have now been locked up in
prison in this country for as long as five years. We know
that we face torture in our country of origin, but some of
us have come to the decision that a quick death is
preferable to the slow death we feel we are enduring here.
We have watched some of our members go mad under the strain;
we have watched our families suffer and some of us believe
that the only thing that we can do is to go forward into the
fire, even though we believe we will be burnt.
Having made that decision, we now find that the Algerian
embassy says it is the Home Office that is not cooperating
with them. We believe that the Home Office prefers to keep
us here as a particular form of hostage, for political
purposes, and to continue to inflict cruelty upon us, until,
they hope, all of us will feel compelled to go.
We have tried to tell the media and, in particular, we have
tried to tell the Islam television channel in this country,
but had the phone box closed down so we could no longer
phone the presenter of the programme, whose number we had
previously been authorised to ring. We know the population
at large in this country, including Muslims, knows nothing
of what has happened to us. We write to ask that you help us
break the silence. We are all on hunger strike and have been
so now for a week."
The forgotten Long Lartin hostages
Long Lartin prison, Evesham, Worcs
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