UK jails send Palestine Action hunger strikers to hospital
Two pro-Palestine activists held in British prisons have been transferred to hospital after weeks without food, prompting mounting concern from their families and members of parliament over prison conditions and medical care.
Amu Gib, 30, who is being held on remand at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, entered hospital on Saturday after reaching day 50 of a hunger strike. Kamran Ahmed, 28, who has refused food for 42 days at Pentonville prison in London, has also been hospitalised.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Monday, Ahmed's sister Shahmina Alam said that “at this point, there’s significant risk of organ damage”.
“We know that he’s rapidly been losing weight in the last few days, losing up to half a kilogram [1.1lbs] a day,” she added.
Ahmed was previously hospitalised in late November after collapsing in his cell with low blood sugar levels, indicating hypoglycaemia.
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According to the prisoner-led group Prisoners for Palestine, six detainees have now required hospital treatment since the hunger strike began on 2 November, the anniversary of the 1917 Balfour Declaration that led to the creation of Israel and the dispossession of Palestinians in 1948.
'Deliberate' government negligence
Ahmed and Gib are among six detainees awaiting trial over break-ins at the UK subsidiary of Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems in Bristol and a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire, protesting the UK’s continued complicity in the genocide in Gaza.
They are being held on suspicion of involvement in a June break-in at Brize Norton airbase, where military aircraft were sprayed with paint. The UK government has claimed that the pair carried out criminal damage, aggravated burglary and violent disorder.
Gib was issued a wheelchair on Friday as their condition worsened. Another detainee, Qesser Zuhrah, 20, has also been taken to hospital after refusing food for 50 days and losing 13 percent of her body weight, according to her legal team. Other hunger strikers include Heba Muraisi, Teuta Hoxha and Lewie Chiaramello, who has diabetes and alternates days without food.
The collective warned that the detainees’ lives were at risk without immediate government intervention.
“They are in the custody of the state and any harm that comes to them is a deliberate outcome of the government’s negligence and the politicisation of their detention,” it said.
Lawyers and MPs have criticised delays in medical assistance and restrictions on family contact. Justice Secretary David Lammy has declined requests to meet legal representatives.
Jessica Dolliver, Gib’s next of kin, said she learned of the hospital transfer moments before a scheduled prison visit.
“I just wasn’t surprised because I could see that Amu was deteriorating and I could also hear on the phone,” she said, speaking to The Guardian.
Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Gib’s MP, has written to the prisons inspectorate warning of “inconsistent and unreliable” healthcare for hunger strikers. MPs John McDonnell and Barry Gardiner co-signed the letter, which stated: “We are dismayed to learn that, as they near their eighth week on hunger strike, their treatment remains inconsistent and unreliable.”
More than 100 doctors signed a letter to NHS England's health and justice team raising their concern about the treatment of the prisoners and urging the body to intervene.
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