ILL-TREATED PRISONERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 159, 5 January 1914, Page 3

ILL-TREATED PRISONERS.

WHAT LIBERTY IX THE CZAR'S EMI'IRE MEANS. There is being published throughout Europe a- protest, against the ill-treat-ment of political prisoners in Russia. It bears numerous signatures of politicians, scientists, artists and men of letters of European repute. It is declared in th:- protest that since the Czar's manifesto of October, 1905, promising' liberty to the people of Russia, over 10,000 persons have been sentenced for political offences. Of these, over 2000 have been executed, and more than l'llOO thrown into (be horrible "Katorga" or hard labor prisons. I The tercentenary of the Romanoffs, it is stated, scarcely affected the political j prisoners. Their terrible sufferings have | not been .mitigated. • The, prisons are overcrowded to such an extent that it is impossible for the prisoners even to rest on' the bare lloors. Absolute starvation and the most barbarous treatment are, their daily portion. The prisoners become victims of all kinds of epidemics, and very oft<>n the prisons become centres of infection for the surrounding districts. Those sentenced to long terms, chiefly political prisoners, are, in fact, condemned to tho crudest death. The unhappy prisoners see in suicide the only way of escape. Most tragic is the late of those tens of thousands of political exiles of whom most are deported in Siberia without trial, but simply by urbitratory action of the administration. Most of them are sent to frozen' wastes where they are unable to obtain necessary food, clothing and bousing and where they perish. The signatories to the protest, who say they join together to publish the facta so that the world an ay know and form an opinion, include, the following: Lord Lytton, J. t W. Edgewood, M.P., J. Ramsay Macdonald, M.l'., Sir A. Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells. Jerome K. Jerome. Professor Gilbert Murray, Professor J. B. Bury, Laurence Irving, Sir Victor Horsley and Maurice Hewlett. ■ v ■ '. "iili.i ,'■..'''