As we enter the New Year, four Palestine Action hunger strikers have now gone without food for more than sixty days.
By Jack Yarlett
Their health situation is critical. There is an imminent risk of serious organ failure and death. Even if the hunger strike is paused – something some strikers have been forced to do due to deteriorating health – the dangers of ‘refeeding syndrome’ mean the risk does not end. They will continue to require close and attentive medical care to prevent further serious or life-threatening complications.
It has been reported that one hunger striker, Heba Muraisi, can no longer speak in full sentences, and another, Teuta Hoxha, has lost the ability to stand. Two hunger strikers, Amu Gib and Kamran Ahmad, were already hospitalised shortly before Christmas. It took a campaign of protests, which included the intervention of Your Party MP Zarah Sultana, to pressure the prison authorities into allowing them to be transferred to hospital by ambulance for appropriate treatment.
Both the prison authorities and the Labour government have refused to engage with any of the hunger strikers’ demands – they have signalled clearly that they are prepared to watch them die. Perhaps we should expect nothing less than this cold disregard for human life from the same government that has supported and armed the Israeli state’s genocide in Gaza.
As well as protesting the British government’s ongoing complicity in the mass murder of Palestinians, the hunger strikers are fighting the banning of Palestine Action. They are also resisting their own lengthy imprisonment without trial for participating in direct protest action against the genocide in Gaza.
The British state is currently holding 24 activists prisoner for their alleged involvement in direct action against a weapons factory near Bristol owned by Israeli arms company Elbit. Some of the activists have begun their trials, but most will not face trial until this summer, meaning they will have been held in prison for around two years before being given their day in court. A further five activists are being held on remand for an action taken at the RAF base Brize Norton – which was used as the pretext for the government taking the unprecedented step of banning a non-violent direct action group under the Terrorism Act.
This exceptionally lengthy pre-trial detention, and the inhumane conditions in which the prisoners are held are thanks to the proscription of Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation, despite not a single member of that organisation having been convicted of a violent offence against a person.
By initially holding the Filton 24 under counter-terror powers, despite none of the charges they later faced being for terror offences, the government has set a new precedent for cracking down on protest. It set the stage for the banning of Palestine Action, which took place shortly after the protest at Brize Norton. This has resulted in the ludicrous situation where hundreds of ordinary people – from veteran peace campaigners, to trade unionists, to GPs and vicars – face terror charges with 14 year maximum prison sentences.
It is not a coincidence that while all this has been ongoing, Home Secretary David Lammy has floated the idea of introducing non-jury trials for all but the most serious offences. As well as cutting costs, Starmer’s cabinet is clearly aware of the many occasions on which political activists have been acquitted by juries for taking very similar actions to these.
The mass arrests of protestors for holding up signs in support of Palestine Action, and calls for the arrests of protestors voicing slogans such as ‘globalise the intifada’ actually underlines the fact that the government has lost the argument on Palestine. In the face of overwhelming opposition to Britain’s support for Isreali genocide, they are resorting to trying to have the opposition locked up.
Socialist Alternative stands full square behind the brave actions of the hunger strikers. We must continue and step up the actions in solidarity – including the mobilisations outside the prisons where the strikers are held. The trade union movement should also weigh in on the side of the hunger strikers, passing motions of solidarity, and actively getting behind the protests being organised to support them.
Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn have both been taking the issue of the hunger strikes up in parliament, and Zarah was key to mobilising the emergency protest which fought to ensure hunger striker Qesser Zurat was transferred to hospital when she was being denied a desperately needed ambulance by prison authorities. Your Party branches should also continue to take up this issue, and the party nationally must use its mailing lists and resources to help build and grow the mobilisations in support of the strikers.
To ultimately secure the release of all Palestine Action prisoners, the repeal of authoritarian anti-terror laws and an end to Britain’s support for genocide, we need a mass movement of strikes and protests, the likes of which we saw in Italy last year in support of the Sumud flotilla. This is the kind of movement we must fight to build.
