Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
In the UK, four prisoners linked to the banned Palestine Action group are continuing their hunger strike, despite serious medical warnings, and two fellow strikers recently called off their protest after suffering serious health problems.
Protest group Prisoners For Palestine said the four remaining hunger strikers – Kamran Ahmed, Heba Muraisi, Teuta Hoxha and Lewie Chiaramello – would continue their protest action, despite the fact that Ahmed, 28, be hospitalized Saturday for the third time since he started refusing to eat.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 elementsend of list
“The other four will continue to refuse to eat on the basis of [their] demands,” the group said Tuesday.
The hunger strikers are demanding immediate release on bail, the right to a fair trial and for the UK to deban Palestine Action, which it banned in July as a “terrorist” group. For its part, the pro-Palestinian group claims that the British government is complicit in Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza.
They also call for an end to alleged censorship of their communications and demand the closure of all sites operated by Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, Elbit.
The statement said the remaining strikers, who are on remand, are adding to their list of demands: calling for an end to non-association orders between them, access to the same classes and activities as convicted prisoners, and the transfer of Muraisi from a prison in the north of England to Bronzefield Prison in Surrey, closer to his networks in London.
Chiaramello, who is on an intermittent hunger strike, refusing to eat every other day due to his diabetes, suffers from confusion, dizziness and weakness, Prisoners for Palestine said.
The prisoners are accused of being involved in burglaries at a British factory operated by Elbit near Bristol and at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire last year, in which two military planes were spray-painted. They deny the charges against them, such as burglary and violent disorder.
“Excruciating pain”
The pledge to continue the strike comes after two of their fellow inmates announced a pause in their strike on Friday after suffering serious health problems.
Qesser Zuhrah, a 20-year-old who Prisoners for Palestine said ended her hunger strike after 48 days of refusing food, was suffering from “excruciating and continuous abdominal pain,” the group said.
Her decision to suspend her hunger strike came after prison staff denied her an ambulance last week for more than 18 hours, prompting MP Zarah Sultana to join protests outside the prison before she was taken to hospital.
In a statement, Zuhrah – whose lawyers said she had lost 13 percent of her weight – indicated she intended to resume the hunger strike, warning the government: “We will definitely come back to fight you on an empty stomach in the new year.” »
Another prisoner, Amu Gib, also started eating again after the hunger strike left him in a wheelchair due to severe weakness and brain fog.
An MP accuses the government of “cruelty”
Sultana, representing the recently formed Your Party, paid tribute to Zuhrah and Gib, saying their actions had “exposed the cruelty of a Labor government wanting them dead”.
“They refused to give them this – and they will do so again in the new year,” she said in a statement, calling for the group’s immediate release.
She said the remaining four strikers were “at crisis point, refusing to eat until their demands are met, UK complicity ends and Palestine is free”.
On Monday, lawyers for the hunger strikers said they had written an advance letter to the government, warning it would take a case to the High Court over its demands to meet Justice Secretary David Lammy to discuss welfare and prison conditions.
