Portsmouth South constituents have, for the third working day in a row, protested outside the office of Portsmouth South’s MP, Stephen Morgan. Activist George Hibberd reports.
They are calling on Morgan, a member of Labour Friends of Israel and a recipient of financial assistance from the state of Israel, and the Labour government to meet with the legal representatives and families of the eight Palestine Action prisoners currently on hunger strike while incarcerated.
Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Teuta Hoxhah, Kamran Ahmed and Lewie Chiaramello are on day 52, 52, 51, 45, 44 and 30 respectively of their hunger strikes. Jon Cink ended his strike on day 41 and Umer Khalid on day 13.
The prisoners were arrested for allegedly taking part in direct action by the group Palestine Action against aircraft at RAF Brize Norton and an Elbit Systems weapons manufacturing facility in Filton, Bristol. The former action was an effort to halt RAF planes being used in the genocide in Palestine, which has claimed the lives of over 60,000 mostly innocent civilians. The latter action was intended to disrupt Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, which recently signed a deal $2.3billion deal with the UAE, a state accused of arming militias in Sudan’s genocide.
The eight hunger strikers have five demands:
- End censorship – They want to be able to send and receive communications without restriction, surveillance or interference from the prison administration.
- Immediate bail – They want to be released from custody while awaiting trial. Some of them will have been imprisoned for nearly two years without a conviction. The right to a fair trial, they say, must include the right to prepare for it in freedom, not behind bars.
- Right to a fair trial – They demand that all relevant documents related to their cases are released in full. This includes all meetings between British and Israeli state officials, the British police, the attorney general and Elbit Systems representatives.
- Deproscribe – They demand the immediate dropping of all terror-related charges and ‘links’, and an end to the use of the Prevent strategy. Further, they demand that the British government deproscribe Palestine Action.
- Shut Elbit down – Finally, they demand that the government does not use taxpayer’s money to fund the machinery of genocide and that its contract be cancelled. Furthermore, they demand that all Elbit systems’ sites and its subsidiaries in the UK are permanently shut down.
Outside Morgan’s office yesterday, Portsmouth South constituent, Kerry Thackerberry, said, ‘Throughout history we hear stories about peace activists who have been imprisoned by the state and there’s this implication that it’s wrong to imprison peace activists and to treat them like terrorists. And yet, that’s what the Labour government is doing.’
Responding to emails about the hunger strike, Morgan has said, ‘I understand there is a clear, robust and long-standing policy in place for managing prisoners who refuse food and fluids’. He added, ‘It is not appropriate for the government to intervene in legal proceedings, which are a matter for an independent judiciary.’
But Morgan’s latter claim is questionable given that the judge presiding over the judicial review into the proscription of Palestine Action was, at the last minute, replaced by three judges with histories of working for the British state. A spokesperson for the group Defend Our Juries, who have organised protests against the proscription of Palestine Action, has called this a ‘stitch-up’.
Each day the protest outside Morgan’s office has been attended by local Hampshire Police. The protestors are asking that supporters use their toolkit to email their local MP, amongst other actions, to support the hunger strikers. They also ask supporters to join the Portsmouth Palestine Solidarity Campaign to hear about and join future protests.
For more information on the hunger strike head to the website prisonersforpalestine.org.
Picture by Habib Shipu Rahman.
