The families began to realise that the government would not concede, and to conclude that the deaths of their husbands and sons were both inevitable and futile. An increasing number of families took action once their sons had lapsed into the coma which normally preceded death, asking the authorities to medically revive them. In October the hungerstrikers called off the protest, thwarted by their families rather than by the government or the prison authorities. Within days Prior eased regulations to allow prisoners to wear their own clothes at all times and made limited concessions on the other
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