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The sister of one of six Palestine Action-affiliated hunger strikers has said she fears every conversation with him will be her last and that ministers are waiting for them all to be hospitalised or “even worse” before engaging with them.
Two of those refusing food were taken to hospital last week, and with the rolling hunger strike entering its second month on Tuesday there is mounting concern for their safety.
Shahmina Alam, whose 28-year-old brother, Kamran Ahmed, was taken to hospital on 25 November, condemned the government for failing to respond to their demands. They include immediate bail, ending the ban on Palestine Action, and stopping restrictions on communications.
“He’s gone into his fourth week of a hunger strike, and we’ve had no response from the home secretary and the Ministry of Justice, which leads to feelings of frustration, anger and a deep-rooted sadness,” said Alam.
“If I start thinking about too much, I will break apart. Every single time I speak to him, I’m like: this could be our last conversation. Are we waiting for all of them to be in hospital, or even worse, before the government decides to respond?”
The 33-year-old pharmacist said her brother’s hospitalisation was made worse by the fact that his family had not been given updates about his condition. “I couldn’t sleep all night,” she said. “I would have panic attacks and palpitations through the day. I had carers’ leave given to me because my work was so concerned about my ability to carry out my duties.”
She said she had had a conversation with her brother shortly before speaking with the Guardian. Although he was no longer in hospital, where she said he was handcuffed to a prison guard the whole time, his ketone levels were starting to rise again and his sugar levels were dropping, she said.
He also told her that doctors had told him in hospital that he had acidic blood and had developed arrhythmia. “I don’t want to receive another call from him saying that an ambulance is taking him [to hospital],” said Alam.
Ahmed, who is being held at Pentonville prison in London, went on hunger strike on 10 November. He joined Teuta Hoxha, at Peterborough prison, who began refusing food on 9 November and was hospitalised on Thursday; Jon Cink at Bronzefield prison in Surrey, who began on 6 November, and Heba Muraisi, who is held at HMP New Hall and started on 5 November. The first two prisoners to go on hunger strike were Qesser Zuhrah and Amu Gib, both also at Bronzefield, on 2 November.
All are accused of participating in actions before Palestine Action was proscribed and will have been in prison for well over a year before they are tried. A legal challenge to the ban on the direct action group concluded on Tuesday, with the judges reserving their decision until a later date. Tuesday’s hearing included more than two hours in closed court, which the claimant, the Palestine Action co-founder, Huda Ammori, was excluded from.
Zuhrah’s best friend and designated “loved one” while in prison, Ella Moulsdale, 21, said: “She’s definitely a lot lower on energy and just in a lot of pain all over, especially her joints. I think just everything is a big effort for her, because she doesn’t have any fuel really in her body.
“Mentally she’s still very strong, surprisingly and very impressively. She’s very committed to getting all of their demands met and going for as long as her body will let her but it is extremely hard to watch the kind of slow deterioration of her body.
“I’m definitely very scared but at the same time, I’m very proud of her. Nobody wants to make this choice but I completely understand why she has come to this, to take this action, because it’s not only a way to reclaim her autonomy in there [jail], but it’s also a way to fight back.”
The hunger strike is believed to be the biggest such action in the UK since the hunger strike by IRA prisoners led by Bobby Sands, and Moulsdale and Alam both referenced that in criticising the government’s current lack of engagement.
Moulsdale, with whom Zuhrah, 20, was at university before being imprisoned, said ministers’ response was “not surprising, because they let the Irish hunger strikers starve to death, 10 of them in 1981”.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: “Any prisoner assessed as needing hospital treatment is immediately taken to hospital.”
