Scotland’s Political Prisoner Tommy Sheridan issues statement on his imprisonment, the Birdman of Barlinnie speaks to the nation, keep flapping Tommy!

Dear All

Tommy Sheridan is still banged up.

No Kebabs, no booze, no shagging (wife) but he does have a captive audience to talk too.

Politically buried like an old dog and a set of moth eaten slippers, he speaks from ‘beyond the grave’, well Barlinnie Prison anyway.

The champagne socialist is weighed down by weighty matters.

Here is the ditto from Scotland’s own Nelson Mandela, Political Prisoner Tommy Sheridan.

“Comrades,

By the time you read this I will be a guest of the Crown. Despite a tremendous fight against the combined forces of the state and the Murdoch empire, we have lost this round. But the fight isn’t over yet.

Though I have been in jail before, this time will be tougher because I will be separated from my family. But my plight is nothing compared to the families blown apart and torn apart by the horrors of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have friends whose husbands, sons and fathers have to go to fight wars in these places, some of them never return. My family’s troubles do not compare to the loss these people face.

Across the world there are migrants who have to leave their families and travel across the world, trying to earn enough just to eat, sometimes never seeing them for years, if at all. There are families who lose everything in natural and man-made disasters. In Haiti their lives are destroyed by Earthquake, in Australia by floods, in Gaza by Israeli Bulldozers.

These are the people who make us know that it is right to fight for a better and fairer world, these are the people who show the strength to keep going and fight back. When we fight back it can mean that we become a target of those in power. Right now, I am the target and I am being made to pay. I accept that and, inspired by students across this country, and my brothers and sisters in Tunisia and Egypt, know that it is right to fight on.

It may be some time before I can join you again on the picket lines, at the protests against war and weapons of mass destruction, at the marches and meetings to fight against the slash and burn policies of the Government coalition. But I will be there in spirit and, before long, will be back by your side, fighting the good fight.

I have been humbled and empowered by the strength of the support you all have shown to me and Gail, I am lucky to be supported by some outstanding and talented individuals and organisations, I will be alright. I urge you to give your support to trade unions in their struggle against the cuts, students in their battle for fair and equal right to education, ordinary families on benefits who face the brunt of the tory onslaught. They need you now, more than ever.

In Solidarity,

Tommy”

When I read the comparisons he is making to tragic events and weaving in his own situation I have to say:

‘For fuck sake Tommy, you have got a bed and three square meals a day in a nice cosy prison cell.

And you are the reason you are up shit creek in the first place!’

Scotland’s political prisoner has only done four days; already I feel he has done 10 years!

Surely the Scottish Government will release him on compassionate grounds, mine, he is doing my tits in!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University