The first part of this article is a solidarity statement to the six Filton 24 hunger strikers from Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey, who in April 1969 as a 21-year-old, became Britain’s youngest ever female MP, winning south Derry for the People’s Democracy party. It is followed by a report from Thursday night’s Irish Brigade protest outside Downing Street.
‘CIVIL and human rights activists in Ireland, North and South, join with those across the UK in being righteously outraged by the actions of the Labour government in criminalising legitimate protest against genocide and the government’s complicity in facilitating and financing it.
While many life-time supporters of the British Labour party find it almost beyond belief that UK citizens would find themselves imprisoned in Britain, and their fundamental rights as prisoners violated to the extent that they have determined to protest this injustice with the one thing left to them, their lives, we in Ireland, are not surprised.
We have been here, many times, under both Tory and Labour colonial governments, as has Palestine.
Following the daylight murder, in January 1972, of peaceful protesters marching against imprisonment without trial; the barbarian treatment of Irish prisoners Marian & Dolores Price, force-fed in a British prison by pouring jugs of ‘gruel’ directly into the stomach through a tube forced down the throat, to holding a pregnant woman, not even charged then or since, in solitary confinement in Belmarsh Male high security prison, right through to the hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981 in which ten prisoners, whose average age was 25 years old lost their lives, there is no barbarity, no abuse of the political system, no abuse of the law to cover their own breaches of International Law, to which a British government still imbued by Colonial entitlement and privilege would not stoop.
Our hearts break for the ‘Filton’ and ‘Brize Norton’ prisoners, their families and friends, because we have been there.
We know the price a morally bankrupt government will exact from the young idealists who, to prevent international crime, and terrorist action, took direct preventative action against the weapons of war.
This is not terrorism. This is resistance. This is direct action forced on decent human beings because the government, with whom the duty lies to resist terrorism, is complicit in it by omission and commission.
Keir Starmer is a barrister of note. He is not ignorant of the law. He is contemptuous of it as is the Home Secretary. They have abused their stewardship to fashion the law to serve the needs of their colonial project – the State of Israel – at any cost.
The courage and integrity of the Filton 24 and Brize Norton 5 stands in stark contrast to that.
It is for exposing the moral bankruptcy of the government, for resisting the abuse of power in fashioning ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation, and rendering illegal, legitimate action for the ‘crime’ of being effective.
Their purpose and intent is to terrorise people from speaking out and speaking up against the genocide of Palestinians and destruction of Palestine.
Their treatment of the Filton prisoners is to make an example of them and still they resist. The British government needs to learn from its past errors.
This policy of repression and terror does not lead to people giving up, giving in, going home, and saying nothing. A safer, better, kinder, and more equal world will not come from militarisation war and recolonisation.
The people are entitled to assume that the government knows that, and as long as it remains committed to pursuing those policies, they must resist.
I stand unequivocally with the Filton 24, with Palestine Action, and in this tormented hour, with the hunger strikers and their families and friends.
I call on every human being in the land with a conscience to do the same. They have ‘terrorised’ nobody! Nobody is afraid of them.
People are afraid for them and for others at the mercy of a Labour government that is daily abusing its power and responsibility to placate the USA and Israel and share the colonial spoils of war.
I echo to Keir Starmer the question Pearse asked of the government of his day:
‘Did you think to conquer the people, or that law was stronger than life and the desire to be free? We will have it out with you! Tyrants, hypocrites, Liars!’
‘Solidarity and Strength, Bernadette’
- A protest took place on Thursday night organised by the London Irish Brigade opposite Downing Street to show support and solidarity for the six unselfish young Palestine activists on hunger strike in British prisons.
They said: ‘As Irish people, we have have seen before when activists for justice and freedom endure inhumane conditions and have their calls to be treated fairly before the law ignored.
‘In that case, the prisoner must make a decision to accept or take control of their predicament. The hunger strikers have done the latter and they need all the support we can give them.’
Coordinator of the London Irish group addressing the protest said: ‘We are here because those six people on hunger strike are all between the age of 19 and 22, they’re kids really and why are they on hunger strike? Because across the road from you we are being led by donkeys.
‘Each and every one of them over there in Downing Street is not in control – the Zionists control this country.
‘They are political prisoners. They are being treated appallingly.
In Ireland, our first hunger strike was in 1917, and since then we’ve had 22 dying on hunger strike including three in British jails.
‘Embarking on a hunger strike is a serious decision to make.
‘We will be back here with our placards and banners for as long as it takes, it doesn’t matter if our numbers are big or small as long as we are committed.’
Steve Hedley, born in Derry, addressing the crowd said: ‘This is about criminalisation of protest.
‘These six are absolute heroes, they are highlighting here in the heart of imperialism that this government are not just enabling this genocide but participating in it.
‘When the Filton protesters went into the factory they found drones, quadcopters going to be used in Gaza to help massacre innocent women and children.
‘They were actually upholding the law because its every citizens duty to stop a genocide.’