Protesters Express Solidarity With Palestine Action Hunger Strikers

Protesters in Cape Town called for the immediate release of Palestine Action members who are in prisons across the UK.

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the British Consulate in Cape Town on Tuesday afternoon, demanding the immediate release of jailed Palestine Action members in the United Kingdom.

For more than 60 days, some members of Palestine Action have been on hunger strikes in prisons across the UK. They have been jailed over their alleged involvement in break-ins at the UK subsidiary of Elbit Systems near Bristol in 2024. Others are being held for an alleged break-in at the Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire.

The prisoners have been denied bail, have been in remand since at least August, and are not likely to go on trial for months. (Read a detailed description of the situation on Wikipedia.)

Eight prisoners went on a hunger strike on 2 November 2024. According to reports, some prisoners require urgent medical care. At the time of writing, three — Heba Muraisi, Teuta Hoxha and Kamran Ahmad — continue to be on hunger strike. A fourth, Lewie Chiaramello, is on an intermittent hunger strike.

Protesters in Cape Town chanted “Blood on your hands, not your country, not your land” and “Keir Starmer you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide.”

They also carried placards which read “I support Palestine Action prisoners, I oppose the genocide” and “Free the hunger strikers”.

There were also protests in Johannesburg and Durban on Tuesday.

Dozens of people picketed outside the British Consulate in Cape Town on Tuesday afternoon.

Activists called for the accused to receive bail and a fair and urgent trial, an end to censorship, the de-proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group and the immediate dropping of terror-related charges against activists linked to the organisation.

One of the protestors, Dr Feroza Amien, told GroundUp that the hunger strike prisoners would have suffered “so much muscle mass loss that it would damage their internal organs,” she said.

“They’ve embarked on this hunger strike in a last-ditch effort to be heard,” she added.

In a statement, South African Jews for a Free Palestine called for the release of the prisoners. They also called on the South African government to intervene in the matter.

“We know the history of anti-apartheid hunger strikes in South Africa, and cannot sit idly by as humans are effectively sentenced to death for opposing a genocide in which their country is complicit,” the statement read.

“The hunger strikers are being held without bail on charges brought under the United Kingdom’s security legislation. This legislation has brought about the banning of Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist organisation’. It is a grotesque irony that the law should be used to criminalise opposition to genocide rather than genocide itself.”

The United Nations, in a statement last month, “expressed grave concern for the lives and fundamental rights” of the pro-Palestinian activists.

According to a report in The Guardian, Lord Timpson, minister for prisons, probation and reducing reoffending, said: “While very concerning, hunger strikes are not a new issue for our prisons. Over the last five years, we’ve averaged over 200 a year and we have longstanding procedures in place to ensure prisoner safety.”

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