HEBA Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed, activists linked to Palestine Action, remain on hunger strike in prison and say they will continue until their demands are met, as their health rapidly deteriorates.
Muraisi has refused food for 67 days and Ahmed for 60, as part of a rolling protest that began in November. Five of the eight prisoners who took part have ended their strikes over health fears. A third prisoner, Lewie Chiaramello, 23, continues to refuse food every other day because he has type 1 diabetes.
Muraisi, 31, has been hospitalised three times in nine weeks and is suffering muscle spasms, breathlessness, severe pain and a low white blood cell count.
Her friend Amareen Afzal said she ‘looks very pale and thin’, adding, ‘Her cheekbones are quite prominent. She looks quite emaciated.’ Afzal said Muraisi’s memory has declined and that ‘she speaks of herself as dying and she’s very aware and she is worried’, but remains ‘intent on carrying on until the demands are met’.
Ahmed, a 28-year-old mechanic from London, has lost hearing in his left ear and suffers chest pains, breathlessness, dizziness and a dangerously low heart rate that sometimes drops below 40 beats per minute.
His sister, Shahmina Alam, said he was admitted to hospital for the sixth time this week. ‘He’s skinny. I describe him a bit like a piece of paper,’ she said. ‘It feels like now every time you see him, it could be the last.’ Ahmed, she said, is aware that he could ‘suddenly pass away’ but remains determined to continue.
The prisoners are being held on remand in connection with alleged break-ins at the UK subsidiary of the Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems in Bristol and a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire. They deny the charges.
The group’s lawyers have sought a meeting with David Lammy, the justice secretary, to discuss the prisoners’ welfare.
The government has refused, saying hunger strikes are not unusual in prisons and existing policies are being followed.
