Political Prisoner Freed

One of Stoke’s most prominent political prisoners has for the first time described conditions in the notorious gulag camps at HMP Werrington where hundreds of pro-democracy activists have been incarcerated as Stoke College cracks down on dissent.

“For much of my time I was kept in solitary confinement,” said the 18-year-old. “But when they moved me to a cell it was forbidden to talk to me. If someone started to speak to me, they would immediately be thrashed and moved into worse conditions or sent to another gulag.”

Mr Skankton was one of the most popular opposition candidates to stand against Alex Bryantic in the disputed September 2011 Stoke College Student President elections. When protests broke out over claims of voting fraud, President Bryantic responded with a brutal crackdown that led to hundreds of arrests, widespread torture and the imprisonment of almost all those who ran against him.

Although some opposition students fled, were eventually freed or were placed under less restrictive house arrest, Mr Skankton and many others were sentenced to long jail terms after trials that were described by observers as little more than a sham. In the run-up to those trials many, including Mr Skankton, alleged that they were tortured by Stoke College’s secret police, which uses the name the SGB.

The release of Mr Skankton at the weekend, along with that of best mate Kenton Mammory, came as a surprise to many observers and was hailed as a sign that the diplomatic pressure is working. But Mr Skankton warned against making concessions to the Student President’s regime until all political prisoners are released.

“We have to continue because there are a lot of my friends and people who suffer for political reasons in prison today in Stoke,” he said. “They have to be released immediately, all of them, and unconditionally. The authorities at Stoke College don't understand any other language.”

Mr Skankton and Mr Mammory owe their release to their decision to seek a pardon from Stoke’s council of elders, an authority higher than that of student president. However, this allows the city council to emphasise that they have admitted their guilt and that they have been magnanimous in releasing them.

Skankton said he was determined to remain in Stoke but that he was under no illusions about what kind of college he had returned to. “The situation has become really difficult here now. After the elections the power machine stopped pretending and declared openly that there is a dictatorship at the college. The consequences are felt every day. I’m even considering moving from the Cauldon campus to the Burslem one where there’s a lot less hassle.”