Government will not back down to hunger-striking Jamaican prisoners challenging its policy of making them serve at least half their sentence, Home Affairs Minister Terry Lister vowed last night.

He said about six prisoners on E1 wing had began their protest on Friday but Government would force feed them if necessary. He said: “There are a number of Jamaicans in particular who feel they should not have to do half time who are trying to organise a protest.

“We have a policy those people who run afoul of the law importing drugs into Bermuda will do half time.”

Mr. Lister said he feared some criminals viewed Bermuda as a “soft touch” but he said Government would make them think again.

He said drug mules might get away with importing narcotics for some time but they needed to be taught that if they did get caught they would get a significant sentence for a significant length of time as deterrent to others.

The Minister said he understood the protest was just at the beginning stages and prison authorities were keeping an eye on it and Prison Commissioner John Prescod would talk with them to bring them around. “We are monitoring it, should it become a concern we'll take the appropriate action.”

Asked what that action would be Mr. Lister said: “If we hear they are not eating for an extended period of time, we would take them into the hospital and force feed them but that's quite some time away.”

But he said there would be no change in sentencing policy. “We in Bermuda take importing drugs very seriously and that's a message we want those beyond our borders to take. It would be inappropriate to change the policy given what were are trying to accomplish.”

He said some prisoners, not convicted of drug, violence or sex offences could get released after serving one third of their time if they had been doing all the training and rehabilitation courses required of them. But he said drug importers always did at least half of their sentence and the policy did not discriminate between Bermudians and non-Bermudians.

He said the Bermudian people had to suffer from the effects of the drug importation so the drug mules in turn would have to suffer for what they did. Last summer Government passed the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 2002 which allows some foreign prisoners to be sent home.

The act extends to Bermuda the Council of Europe's Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons 1983 which allows for prisoner repatriation to each of the 44 signatory countries under certain conditions.

However Jamaica is not a signatory to the act and last year most foreign prisoners in Bermuda were Jamaican. Despite some high profile foreign drug mule cases a profile of the prison population in Bermuda done by prisoner reform group Work Inc. and published this year showed 91 percent were Bermudian.