Writers declare solidarity with prisoners on hunger strike for Palestine

Global writers and scholars person shown their enactment to hunger striking prisoners from the Palestine Action group.

Dozens of planetary writers and scholars person signed a declaration of solidarity to enactment hunger-striking prisoners from the proscribed Palestine Action group.

Author Naomi Klein, novelist Sally Rooney, activistic and world Angela Davis, philosopher Judith Butler and writer George Monbiot are among the signatories backing 3 British activists successful the United Kingdom who are refusing nutrient until their demands are met.

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Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed person been connected hunger onslaught for 71 and 64 days, respectively, arsenic portion of a protestation that began successful November. A 3rd prisoner, Lewie Chiaramello, is besides refusing nutrient connected alternating days owed to benignant 1 diabetes.

The activists are being held successful antithetic prisons implicit their alleged engagement successful break-ins astatine the UK subsidiary of the Israeli defence steadfast Elbit Systems successful Bristol and a Royal Air Force (RAF) basal successful Oxfordshire. They contradict each the charges against them, which see burglary and convulsive disorder.

The hunger-striking prisoners are demanding bail and the close to a just trial, arsenic good arsenic a reversal of the UK government’s designation of Palestine Action arsenic a “terrorist organisation”.

They are besides calling for the closure of each Elbit sites successful the UK and an extremity to what they picture arsenic censorship wrong prison, including the withholding of mail, telephone calls and books.

Five of the 8 radical who took portion successful the archetypal protestation person ended their hunger strikes owed to wellness concerns.

All 8 of the activists volition person spent much than a twelvemonth successful custody without trials, exceeding the UK’s accustomed six-month pre-trial detention limit.

There is increasing planetary unit connected the UK authorities to instrumentality enactment to sphere the lives of the Palestine Action prisoners.

Former hunger strikers from Ireland, Palestine and Guantanamo Bay person issued an urgent appeal calling connected British ministers to conscionable families and ineligible representatives of the activists.

Friends and relatives of the prisoners person told Al Jazeera that they are determined to proceed refusing nutrient until each of their demands are met, contempt their rapidly deteriorating health.

On New Year’s Eve, hundreds successful Belfast gathered successful solidarity with the Palestine Action activists connected hunger strikes. Their chants echoed past murals that bash not simply decorate the city, but attest to its troubled past.

Along the Falls Road, Irish enactment murals beryllium beside Palestinian ones. The International Wall, erstwhile a rolling canvas of planetary struggles, has go known arsenic the Palestinian wall. Poems by the precocious Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer, killed successful an Israeli aerial onslaught successful December 2023, tally crossed its length. Images sent by Palestinian artists person been painted by section hands.

More recently, caller words person appeared connected Belfast’s famed walls: “Blessed are those who hunger for justice.”