TEKST
“I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
The year is 2025, and 8 prisoners across England are on hunger strike- the largest coordinated political hunger strike since Bobby Sands. Facing well over a year in prison pre-trial, while being charged with non-violent offences, some of those on remand decided to go on a collective hunger strike.
Hunger Strikes against the British Government
A woman is held down by five other adults as a doctor force feeds her through a tube in her nose. The year is 1910, and this is an anti-government poster issued by the Women’s Social and Political Union ahead of the election. They are labelling the government’s treatment of hunger-striking suffragettes as ‘the new inquisition’. Today if you ask a British person what their association is with the term ‘hunger strike’, they’ll probably remember this poster, and the suffragettes, from their lessons in school. Relatively uncontroversial now, after all, as a polite society we agree that women should have suffrage. There is no mention that a century ago, the suffragettes were also deemed terrorists and extremists.
However, the use of hunger strikes in protest against the British government has a longer and more storied history than just the suffragettes. Primarily, hunger strikes have been used in the Irish Republican cause over several centuries, drawing on old Irish traditions of fasting as a form of moral protest. This practice was relatively common, and as such made its way into the indigenous Irish Brehon legal system. The year is 1981. Bobby Sands and a number of fellow Irish Republican prisoners go on hunger strike after other forms of protests had not been heeded for half a decade, as well as their demands regarding their treatment as prisoners being ‘reneged’ by the UK government. While on hunger strike, Bobby Sands was elected as an MP to the UK Parliament. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to engage with the protests. Bobby Sands died on day 66 of his hunger strike, and nine of his other comrades on strike also died.
The year is 2025, and 8 prisoners across England are on hunger strike- the largest coordinated political hunger strike since Bobby Sands.
Crime and punishment
In July 2024, the Labour Party under Sir Keir Starmer won the UK general election by a landslide. Some on the broader left were cautiously optimistic that there would be a reversal, or at the very least a relaxation, of the reactionary curtailing of protest rights successive Tory governments had implemented. These rights were restricted primarily in response to BLM, XR and Just Stop Oil, and were used to justify ‘expanding police powers’. While Labour was in opposition they opposed some of these Bills. They are also a historically left-wing party that has formal union affiliations. However, that optimism proved to be misplaced and – while some backbench MPs on the left of the party have been vocal on the issue – the party has ended up continuing this repression of the right to protest.
Palestine Action started as a direct action group in the UK in 2020. Its aims were simple, to disrupt and halt the supply of UK-based military technology and arms that were being used by Israel against Palestinians. Their most famous target is Elbit Systems (and its subsidiaries), an Israeli arms manufacturer that is a key supplier to the IDF. Previous actions have included occupying the roof of an Elbit subsidiary for several days in 2021 and creating blockades outside of Elbit sites to stop the transportation of machine parts. Since October 2023, the group has become more prolific in the UK.
In August 2024, 18 people (now known as the Filton 18) allegedly broke into the Filton site of Elbit systems, where they sprayed equipment with red paint and destroyed it with sledgehammers and crowbars. Some of the activists engaged in a confrontation with security staff, and a police officer was seriously injured.
On the 20th June 2025, four activists allegedly broke into Royal Air Force (RAF) station Brize Norton on electric scooters without being challenged or stopped. They spray painted two planes, an action the government claims caused £7million worth of damages. In response, on the 5th July 2025, the government used the 2000 Terrorism Act to ‘proscribe’ Palestine Action, making it illegal to be a member or express support of the group. The penalty for supporting Palestine Action could be up to 14 years in prison. This decision has been criticised by groups such as Liberty, the UNHRC and Amnesty International amongst others for being ‘disproportionate’ and ‘hindering the exercise of fundamental freedoms’. The proscription of Palestine Action has since led to mass arrests of hundreds of peaceful protesters. Their crime? Holding up signs that state ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’.
Activists from both the Filton and Brize Norton actions have been held on remand, even those who have not been charged with any violent offences. In the UK, remand means being detained in prison pre-trial. None of the activists from these actions have been granted bail. For serious offences, the custody time limit in the UK for those on remand is supposed to be six months. Some of these prisoners have been held for a year and half, with trial dates being set for April 2026, amounting to 21 months in prison before being given the chance to mount a defence. The RAF Brize Norton defendants have been given a trial date of January 2027, which will amount to 18 months in prison pre-trial. This is the optimistic estimate as trials in the UK have a tendency to be pushed back or postponed at the last minute. (This author, for example, personally knows a protestor who was arrested in November 2023, was supposed to go on trial in June 2025, and the day before had their trial postponed a whole year).
Evidently, the purpose of this imprisonment is what many are calling ‘punishment in advance’, or ‘process as punishment’. As Nida Jafri, activist and best friend of hunger striker Amu Gib puts it, ‘this is the scary part, they don’t just lock you up- they use this to scare everyone else… the message is if you dare to threaten the arms factories of genocide they won’t just arrest you. They will lock you in prison for years without trial, they’ll raid your friends, follow them, harass them… it is a way to crush protest without ever having to convince anyone that the accusations are true’. Over recent years, we have seen juries across the UK acquit protestors and activists. The Colston Four- who toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston and dumped it into Bristol harbour during BLM protests in 2020- were famously acquitted in 2022 with the jury accepting that their actions were justified. There is precedent that a jury of these activists’ peers would accept their actions as morally justified. By keeping them on remand, and delaying their trial dates, the government is engaging in clear repression of political protest and dissent.
The Hunger Strike:
Facing well over a year in prison pre-trial, while being charged with non-violent offences, some of those on remand decided to go on a collective hunger strike. The date of the strike was symbolic; 2nd November, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration (a 1917 public declaration of support for ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’ by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour).
- Qesser Zuhrah- pausing on day 48
- Amu Gib- pausing on day 48
- Heba Muraisi- day 66 when the article was being written
- Teuta Hoxha- pausing on day 59
- Kamran Ahmed- day 59 when the article was being written
- Lewie Chiaramello- day 45 when the article was being written (diabetic type 1)
- Jon Cink-pausing on day 41
- Umer Khaled- pausing on day 13
The hunger strikers have five key demands, which can be read on the Prisoners for Palestine website. These are: an end to the censorship of their communications, immediate bail, a right to a fair trial (documents related to their cases haven’t been released in full), for the government to ‘deproscribe’ Palestine Action, and a permanent shutdown of Elbit systems and its subsidiaries in the UK.
The hunger strike has been met with derision in British politics and was ignored by much of the UK media until mid-December. When Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour leader and now a founding member of Your Party, raised the issue in parliament three weeks ago, Justice Minister Jake Richards bluntly refused to meet with the striker’s legal representatives. His response drew some laughter from other MPs. Justice Secretary David Lammy hasn’t engaged with the families or legal representatives of the strikers despite calls to do so.
Unsurprisingly, hunger strikers report mistreatment within the prison system. A protest was held outside of HMP Bronzefield in the early hours of 17th December after Qesser Zuhrah reported that she had been denied an ambulance by prison officials. An ambulance was finally allowed into the prison at 8pm that day, but not before an MP joined the protest and arrests were made. Kamran Ahmed was double-cuffed at the hospital, despite being weak and frail from starvation. An additional demand of Heba Muraisi is to be returned back to HMP Bronzefield in London, after she was forcibly moved to HMP New Hall, almost 200 miles away from her family.
The three who are still continuing their strike are reaching a critical point and the reality that they could die becomes increasingly stark with each passing day. Bobby Sands died on day 66 of his hunger strike, a milestone that Heba Muraisi has reached. According to Prisoners for Palestine, Muraisi is ‘experiencing uncontrollable muscle spasms which could indicate neurological damage, and breathing difficulties’.
The hunger strike lays bare the rot in British democracy, exposing the capitalistic imperialism at its core. A country that has prided itself on its democratic values now openly and shamelessly denies the right of protest, punishes dissidence and spits in the face of civil liberties and human rights. It is no shock, then, that the Western world is trending towards fascism.
MAZ
Autorica teksta željela je ostati anonimna radi mogućeg političkog progona u Velikoj Britaniji.
Tekst izvorno pisan na engleskom jeziku, a prijevod na hrvatski je rad uredništva MAZ portala.
Tekst je financiran sredstvima Fonda za poticanje pluralizma i raznovrsnosti elektroničkih medija Agencije za elektroničke medije za 2025. godinu.