Two Palestine Action protesters end 73-day hunger strike

Two alleged Palestine Action activists awaiting trial ended their hunger strike protest in prison, seemingly bringing an end to 73 days of protests.

In the statement made by their supporters, Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed said that they ended their protests in the prisons where they were detained.

The Ministry of Justice (Ministry of Justice) has not commented on the action for the past two months, but has not previously disputed supporters’ statements that hunger strikes are taking place.

Muraisi and Ahmed, along with four other detainees who started a strike in early November, stopped their protests last month.

They are all objecting to the period of detention ahead of hearings, which have been postponed for up to a year due to unprecedented workload in the courts.

The BBC understands Ahmed was taken to hospital in a very bad condition in the early hours of Wednesday.

Supporters say the pair now join Teuta Hoxha, Jon Cink, Qesser Zuhrah and Amy Gardiner-Gibson, also known as Amu Gib, in receiving medical refeeding treatment supervised by doctors, as outlined in guidelines for the management of hunger strikes in prisons.

The seventh prisoner, who refused to eat every other day due to his underlying health problem, also ended his protest.

During the protest, the group had made five demands, including that the UK government lift its ban on Palestine Action, close down an Israeli-owned defense firm, and address complaints about prison conditions and treatment.

The ban on the association was already being evaluated independently by senior judges. Bail decisions are made by judges, not the government, and ministers have no role in deciding who is detained ahead of trial.

Shortly before Christmas, lawyers for the hunger strikers threatened legal action over their treatment.

Ministers said neither they nor Ministry of Justice officials would meet with protesters, but the government offered to facilitate a meeting between protesters’ representatives and medical professionals in prisons to provide information about the care provided.

Protesters accepted this offer two weeks after it was made.

The Justice Department has vehemently denied the allegations of medical mistreatment, and a watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, has not launched any investigation.

He confirmed to the BBC that his experts had spoken to medical staff at HMP Bronzefield, one of the prisons where the protest took place.

Nearly 200 hunger strikes are held in prisons a year, and nine people have died as a result of the protests since 1999.

Hunger strikes are considered part of the right to protest under human rights law; This means the state no longer has the authority to force-feed a prisoner unless doctors decide that these individuals lack the mental capacity to understand the consequences of their actions.

If a prisoner is aware of the risk of dying and has made this wish clear, doctors will not give him food even if it would save their lives.