They Face Death - Starmer Does As He's Told...

Three Palestine Action members on hunger strike are facing death as Keir Starmer sits down to dinner tonight, still ‘considering’ whether to join Trump’s ‘Gaza Peace Board’…

They have not been to trial, not been convicted. They are, according to the most basic tenet of UK law, innocent until proven guilty. But because Starmer’s government is compromised and apparently controlled by a foreign power, they face death.

The hunger strikers have five key demands: immediate bail, the right to a fair trial – which they say includes releasing documents related to “the ongoing witch-hunt of activists and campaigners” – an end to censorship of their communications, “de-proscribing” Palestine Action and shutting down Elbit Systems, which operates several UK factories.

All have suffered ill treatment. Kamran Ahmed, who has been hospitalised five times, has described being “cuffed the entire time.” Prisoners for Palestine say Teuta Hoxha, was taken to hospital after pausing her hunger strike at 58 days, to prevent refeeding syndrome, which occurs when nutrition is restarted too quickly, and is potentially fatal – they accuse HMP Peterborough of “refusing medical treatment, which is required to prevent death in extreme cases of starvation.”

“The UK government has forced their bodies to a breaking point,” said pro-Palestine activist Audrey Corno.

“A promise to the government is that the prisoners’ resistance and the people’s resistance against the genocide in Gaza, Israel’s occupation and apartheid of genocide will not stop until it ends”

Jon Trickett, MP for Normanton and Hemsworth, near New Hall prison in Wakefield, has been refused permission to visit Muraisi. John McDonnell MP and more than 50 other MPs and MSPs have signed a letter to ‘Justice’ Secretary David Lammy urging him to engage with the legal representatives of the hunger strikers – despite the urgency of the situation, Lammy has at the time of writing done nothing…

Prisons Minister and Labour ‘shoe baron’ peer James Timpson - doubtless drawing on his vast experience of recruiting ex-prisoners - said this week of the government which is planning to revoke the right to trial by jury:

“Ministers will not meet with them — we have a justice system that is based on the separation of powers, and the independent judiciary is the cornerstone of our system. It would be entirely unconstitutional and inappropriate for ministers to intervene in ongoing legal cases.”

Perhaps he gleaned his knowledge of the parliamentary system from his brother Edward, a Tory MP for 14 years…

Asked about the hunger strikers in parliament last week, Starmer said “rules and procedures” were being followed.

Activist and journalist George Monbiot wrote last week:

“The Crown Prosecution Service states that the maximum time a prisoner can spend on remand is 182 days (six months). Yet Muraisi and Ahmed were arrested in November 2024, and are not due to be tried until June at the earliest, which means they will be remanded for 20 months. Chiaramello, who was arrested in July 2025, has a provisional court date in January 2027, which means 18 months in prison without trial”

“On 26 December, a group of United Nations rapporteurs – the kind of people who, in days gone by, were heeded by governments – expressed grave concern about the treatment of these prisoners, which, they said, included “reported delays in accessing medical care, use of excessive restraint during hospital treatment, denial of contact with family members and legal counsel, and lack of consistent independent medical oversight, particularly for detainees with serious pre-existing health conditions”

These are not ‘terrorists’. These are not ‘a danger to public safety’. They are young people with the strength to stand up for their belief that the brutal, genocidal Israeli occupation of Palestine and slaughter in Gaza must end. They are your neighbours, your children, your friends. They are human beings – human beings who Keir Starmer’s Israel-toadying government is allowing to risk death or permanent health damage.

The Palestine Action hunger strike is the biggest since the 1981 strike by Irish Republicans at Long Kesh, protesting the Tories’ revocation of Special Category Status for political prisoners. Thatcher’s refusal to back down saw 10 prisoners starve to death including Bobby Sands, elected as an MP during his strike, who died after 66 days.

Six days less than Heba Muraisi has currently been on hunger strike…

None of the Palestine Action protestors has been found guilty of anything, or even gone to trial. All have been detained on remand for more than a year, despite a standard pre-trial custody limit of six months. Ahmed and Muraisi both have trial dates in June 2026. By that point, Muraisi, who has currently been detained for 412 days, will have been held without trial for nearly two years.

By that time, they will probably be dead, if Starmer’s government allows that to happen…

To find out what you can do to show support and solidarity with the Palestine Action hunger strikers, visit Prisoners For Palestine or Defend Our Juries for details of local or national protests; even write to your MP - most couldn't care less about Palestine, but they DO care about losing votes.

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THE PALESTINE ACTION HUNGER STRIKERS

Heba Muraisi

Heba was arrested on November 19th 2024 in a dawn raid in the third wave of Filton arrests, on allegations of being connected to the Filton action, which saw over £1million in damage caused to Elbit’s research centre for Israeli weapons. She was arrested violently, and stripped of her clothes and dignity which left her deeply traumatised. Initially held and interrogated under counter-terrorism powers, she was then remanded in custody for a non-terrorism related offence making her one of the Filton 24.

In prison, Heba has been denied her fundamental human rights, including the right to privacy and a clean bed. Access to books and visits has been restricted, and she has been subjected to isolation and arbitrary cell searches that have violated her right to privacy and safety. Her kuffiya was forcibly removed from her by Yasmin Cooper, HMP Bronzefield’s head of security, despite Heba telling her she wears it as a hijab during prayers- meaning she is not allowed to keep it in her cell at all. In October 2025, Heba was forcibly transferred from HMP Bronzefield to HMP New Hall, hundreds of miles away from her family and support system.

Muraisi, the longest fasting member of the group, “looks very pale and thin”, said her friend Amareen Afzal, who visited the 31-year-old on Wednesday. “Her cheekbones are quite prominent. She looks quite emaciated.”

Muraisi, a Londoner who had worked as a florist and lifeguard, is reportedly suffering from muscle spasms, breathlessness, severe pain and a low white blood cell count. She has been admitted to hospital three times over the past nine weeks. Afzal has also noticed the decline of Muraisi’s memory and said it is now “more difficult for her to stay engaged conversationally”.

“She speaks of herself as dying and she’s very aware and she is worried,” Afzal said.

Statement from Heba Muraisi

Today, I join my comrades and begin my hunger strike. I want to make it abundantly clear that this is not about dying, because unlike the enemy I love life, and my love for life, for people, is the reason why I have been incarcerated for 349 days now.

The horrors and suffering that I have witnessed coming out of Gaza will always be sewed into my memory. And while the world stood by and spoke empty words we’ve collectively condemned our brothers and sisters in Palestine to a life of misery and death. And with the ongoing systematic genocide, the state has been complicit and a participant from the very start. These tyrants now want to sign a 2 billion dollar contract with Elbit, a monstrous establishment who reap the benefits from the blood of our brothers and sisters in Palestine.

Elbit is a terrorist zionist state-made weaponry provider here in the UK, with multiple sites up and down the country. It is right here on our doorstep where these deadly suppliers are manufactured to be tested on the Palestinians and then sold to war pigs globally. The Palestinian suffering is what makes Elbit richer and statistics prove just that.

In a pathetic attempt to wash the blood off his hands, Starmer has now recognised the State of Palestine once Palestine has become unrecognisable. We will never forget and we will never forgive. I knew that in order to win this fight, we had to engage the enemy’s main force, and here in the UK, that would be Elbit. It wasn’t a recruitment, but rather a conscious incorporation from my part: I became Palestine Action.

And now, from behind these steel walls and sensors, I will continue the fight and to resist. This is for the mothers who can’t bury their children, for the fathers who had to bury all of theirs. For the children who have no family left and too young to understand why. And for my family – who I don’t even know if they’ve made it out of Rafah.

I will not compromise until all demands are met. Long live the intifada.

Kamran Ahmed

Kamran was arrested in a violent dawn raid by counter-terrorism police on 19th November 2024 during which his elderly parents were also denied food and medication for hours. He was then remanded to prison after being charged with a non-terrorism related offence on allegations of being connected to the Filton action, which saw over £1 million in damage caused to Elbit’s research centre for Israeli weapons- making him one of the Filton 24. During his time in prison, Kamran’s fundamental rights have been consistently abused by the prison, including restrictons on visits and mail, being arbitrarily subjected to isolation and limited access to the prison library.

In his reflections after his court hearing in March 2025, Kamran shares how he would have responded to the judge:

“As with your decision about how to proceed with our case, you spit in the face of many before me who fought against oppression. You spit in the face of the suffragettes, who like us, sat in jail, some 15 minutes down from here, at the now closed Holloway Road Prison. You spit on the face of Anne Frank, who wished someone would put a halt to that genocide (Holocaust). You spit on the face of every American who refused to pillage Vietnam. What the 3 events have in common is that people like you had the power to stop or end it. But it took those with a bit of humanity instead to step in and outnumber those who care more for their job or the vehicle they drive.

Before I was remanded I remember reading something along the lines of, ‘You ask what you would’ve done then? You’re doing it now.’”

Statement from Kamran Ahmed

This is not a speech, it’s some thoughts. As I battle myself in chess I actually wonder whether the movement for Palestinian liberation is at a stalemate.

With the ceasefire supposedly holding, I question whether it means if I should silently see my time through prison? But would that mean that I agree that anyone who opposes the government when they are wrong, should not only be imprisoned, but subject to an unfair trial?

And if some of my comrades’ positions be further stripped, not in the clothing sense, although that happened to one*, but stripped of what basic prisoner rights we have, does that mean that in the future an alleged protestor should be held in remand in the same breath as the Manchester bomber? If so, then I refuse to set the precedent with my silence.

On the 10th November, I plan to commence my hunger strike, insha’Allah, in line with the demands sent to the home office but also in solidarity with those who are having a harder time on remand than me, as it fills me with a sense of guilt, due to my time being relatively peaceful compared to others, alhamdulilah.

I remind myself that many Palestinians sit in Israeli jails unlawfully detained, namely Siham Abu Salem, a 71 year old woman ripped from her hospital bed and declared an unlawful combatant (Recently released after a 2 year detention).

You are not forgotten, along with all the other political prisoners who are voices for the oppressed.

I hope my hunger strike acts as a symbol for people in the future so they remain undeterred to stand up for what’s right.

I finish with, I hope they do not silence our voices, like I feel we are being silenced in court.

Perhaps for the government committing the genocide is one big chess game but it is only their game when we refuse to play.

Lewie Chiaramello

Lewie was arrested by counter-terrorism police in connection to the action at RAF Brize Norton where an alleged £7million worth of damage was caused to two military aircraft. RAF Brize Norton facilitates daily flights to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, where military operations include the surveillance missions over Gaza providing the Israeli army with intelligence for the Genocide in real time, refueling fighter jets, and transporting weapons.

Lewie was remanded to prison on charges of conspiring to enter a restricted area for purposes harmful to the UK’s safety and interests, and with conspiracy to commit criminal damage

Lewie has been standing in solidarity with the hunger strike since the beginning, he tells us:

“I am in support of and in solidarity with [Qesser and Amu’s] hunger strike. I believe violence can be loving and Alhamdulillah this suffocating microcosm that the ruling class warmongers wish to portray as the overarching and natural state of social justice is nothing more than a desperate retaliation of a group of people so afraid to lose what they’ve stolen that they’re willing to sacrifice every second of their time on earth and all their energy to destroy something that is indestructable and inevitable. My love goes out to the intifada and to all the oppressed people in the world. Please bless us with strength. I love you”

On 24th November, Lewie joined the hunger strike on alternate days, despite being type 1 diabetic. This could still be life-threatening in his condition.

“Today I wrote that I support the hunger strikers on a t-shirt and the prison stopped me from working my job in the servery and told me I wasn’t allowed to leave my cell until I hand the shirt back in.

I am diabetic so I can’t hunger strike [each day]. But I have decided to fast every other day in solidarity with the hunger strikers until the deal with Elbit Systems is cancelled or another necessary ending point.

I love you all. Thank you for hearing me”

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Hunger strikes in history

Palestine

·       Palestinians held, often without trial, in Israeli jails have long used hunger strikes as a form of protest. One of the most well-known figures is Khader Adnan, whose shocking death in May 2023 after an 86-day hunger strike drew global attention to the appalling treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government.

·       Adnan, who was 45 when he starved to death at the Ayalon Prison, leaving behind nine children, had repeatedly been targeted by Israeli authorities since the early 2000s. The baker from the occupied West Bank had once been part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group as a spokesperson, although his wife later stated publicly that he had left the group and that he had never been involved in armed operations.

·       However, Adnan was arrested and held without trial multiple times, with some estimates stating that he spent a cumulative eight years in Israeli prisons. 

·       On the morning of May 2, Adnan was found dead in his cell, making him the first Palestinian prisoner to die in a hunger strike in three decades. Former Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti described his death as an “assassination” by the Israeli government.

·       Officials forcefully fed those whose health had severely deteriorated through nasal tubes. Others were cuffed daily, restrained, and force-fed. One detainee, Lakhdar Boumediene, later wrote that he went without a real meal for two years, but that he was forcefully fed twice a day: he was strapped down in a restraining chair that inmates called the “torture chair”, and a tube was inserted in his nose and another in his stomach. His lawyer also told reporters that his face was usually masked, and that when one side of his nose was broken one time, they stuck the tube in the other side, his lawyer said. Sometimes, the food got into his lungs.

Mandela

·       In his 1994 biography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela wrote that prison authorities began serving bigger rations, even accompanying the food with more vegetables and hunks of meat to try to break the strike. Prison wardens smiled as the prisoners rejected the food, he wrote, and the men were driven especially hard at the quarry. Many would collapse under the intensity of the work and the hunger, but the strikes continued.

·       A crucial plot twist began when prison wardens, whom Mandela and other political prisoners had taken extra care to befriend, began hunger strikes of their own, demanding better living conditions and food for themselves. Authorities were forced to immediately settle with the prison guards and, a day later, negotiate with the prisoners. The strike lasted about seven days.

Bobby Sands MP

Bobby Sands was an Irish republican, an IRA Volunteer and a key figure in the fight against British imperialism in the north of Ireland during the 1970s and early 1980s. He came to public prominence during the 1981 hunger strike when he led the protest by men in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and women in Armagh Jail who sought political prisoner status. Bobby endured years of solitary confinement and beatings. During his imprisonment he was elected MP for the constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

Bobby began his hunger strike on 1^st March 1981 and died after sixty-six days on the 5th May 1981.

In the aftermath of his death he has become an international figure that inspires not only Irish republicans in their pursuit of freedom from British rule, but people around the world in the fight for their rights.

“They will not criminalise us, rob us of our true identity, steal our individualism, depoliticise us, churn us out as systemised, institutionalised, decent law-abiding robots. Never will they label our liberation struggle as criminal.”

His Final Diary Entry (March 1981):

"I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world. May God have mercy on my soul". He also wrote of his resolve, "If they aren't able to destroy the desire for freedom, they won't break you. They won't break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then we'll see the rising of the moon".