Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/123

 name of humanity we demand full satisfaction.”

More light on the barbarous conditions prevailing in Austria during the war was thrown by the interpellation of deputies Binovec, Filipinský and Stejskal in regard to the torture of political prisoners. These deputies say:

“We face today the pitiable fact that in all the military prisons awful undernourishment is the rule. In all of them prisoners, both condemned and under investigation, die in great numbers of one of the most terrible sicknesses, hunger typhoid, in other words of empty stomach. In proof of that we point to the garrison prison of Vienna in which more than fifty death sentences have been pronounced for political crimes. To be imprisoned for two years, while the government is supposed to be looking for proof of guilt, is not unusual. All decrees regulating the treatment of political prisoners are suspended; everything depends on the absolute discretion of some noncommissioned officer, and men of the highest professional and social standing are quartered with known thieves, burglars and murderers. Then for months at a time they won’t get paper or pencil—something that makes these educated men desperate.

“But the most terrible feature of this regime is the constant hunger prevailing in the prison. Lately the condition has been aggravated shockingly. Those without means to order food from restaurants, and those who are not allowed to send for food outside the prison, though able to pay for it, are virtually condemned to that most horrible of all deaths, death by slow starvation. This desperate state of affairs is aggravated by the fact that the commander of the Vienna garrison will not permit families of men under investigation to send them even the plainest of food. When a package is received at the prison for some poor inmate whose family fears that he may be hungry, it is returned, but only after long delay, so that by the time it gets back to the sender the food is spoiled. This refinement of cruelty goes so far that even medicines cannot be sent to the prisoners.

“If there is not enough food to supply persons detained in military prisons, then the government should do one of the two things: either shorten the detention of such men in every possible manner, or permit their families to send them food. In no case should it be possible that men imprisoned by the government should die of hunger.

“In conclusion the undersigned ask: 1. Are these horrible conditions known to the minister? 2. What will the minister do to have the whole situation investigated in the most impartial and strict manner and to have such regimen introduced in all these institutions as will comply with the law and with the most elementary demands of humanity?”

Dr. Adolf Stránský, deputy for Moravia in the Vienna parliament, delivered a bold speech on June 12th immediately after a wordy and empty declaration of program by Premier Clam-Martinic. It is, in part, as follows:

“If I arise to set forth the attitude of Czech deputies, I do so with feelings of regret and pain. For I think of the man who in political debates used to reply first for the Bohemians—Dr. Kramář. (Stormy applause and shouts from Czech benches.) Others of his colleagues, Dr. Rašín and leaders of the national socialists, Klofáč, Choc, Buřival, Vojna, Netolický, are not here today. (Shouts.) They were branded traitors, and their place is in various penitentiaries, instead of in parliament.

“But since the absolutist government set aside the competent judge and put in his place a so-called court with orders not to judge, but to condemn, and since the condemnation was effected in an illegal manner, through barefaced violation of the constitution, by means of the most infamous political crime that Europe has ever seen (stormy applause on the part of Czechs), we need not pay any regard to such judgment and may confidently acclaim the condemned as friends and colleagues, the more so, since we knew very well that their crime consisted in faithfulness to their nation and to their country.

“I firmly believe that not only will these representatives of the people come out free from their jails, but that the time will come when the Austrian Petro-Pavlovsk prison will open its doors wide and the places of the political prisoners will be taken by their present enemies.