Interview with Shahmina Alam – sister of Kamran Ahmed
On 14 January 2026, after 73 and 65 days without food, Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed (both part of the ‘Filton 24’ group of prisoners) ended their hunger strike. Since 2 November 2025 – the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration – eight people remanded in custody for actions associated with the now proscribed group Palestine Action have been on hunger strike for various periods of time, with several facing the real prospect of death behind bars as the British government has refused to negotiate with them.
A few days before Kamran Ahmed ended his hunger strike, FRFI spoke to his sister Shahmina Alam, who described how she and others had worked tirelessly to get a response to the protesters’ demands from parliamentarians such as David Lammy, who when confronted, claimed to know nothing at all about the hunger strike. She also told us about how the movement that grew up in support of the hunger strike had to push back not just against the government, police and prisons, but also against the media and the ‘official’ Palestine solidarity movement, both of which ignored the hunger strike entirely for the first six weeks.
Breaking the silence
In an attempt to break through this blackout, from mid-November the London Irish Brigade protested weekly outside both Downing Street and the BBC. On 11 December a group of protesters took security by surprise and stormed the BBC building. Shahmina told us:
I think the lack of response by the government and the lack of coverage by media outlets really propelled people, so they were willing to run into the BBC and put, their bodies on the line, just like our hungerstrikers are.
And then we saw the increase in protesters outside Downing Street. By the third and fourth week of the hunger strike, the number of people that were attending these Downing Street marches, I feel like they kept doubling.
And then the police actually shut off the whole of Downing Street. And that actually indirectly caused more coverage because the BBC, World Service reported on it despite the rest of the BBC not wanting to cover it.
Then suddenly all these big news outlets wanted to come and film us because of the fact that the police had made a scene and shut down Downing Street.
From the shutting of Downing Street, we then saw big solidarity groups, like PSC and Stop the War decide that they also needed to do something. And so, they hosted a demo which was supposed to be at Downing Street, but then a [Public Order Act] section 14 notice was placed on Downing Street, and that demo then had to move to the Ministry of Justice.
And at the MOJ that day arrests were made of people who used the word ‘intifada’. Again, another sign of the repression that we’re facing as a movement. For me, the banning of that phrase really hit me emotionally because I realised that whenever the Palestinians want liberation and whatever the liberation looks liken and their resistance looks like, it is criminalised to the point where even the words of their liberation are criminalised.
No justice in prison
Kamran has been held in HMP Pentonville in north London for the majority of his time behind bars. We spoke to Shahmina about how, although clearly the Filton prisoners have been singled out in some ways, in others they have experienced the same appalling treatment meted out to all prisoners, whether on remand or convicted.
We need to start asking the question of why do we have so many prisoners, what is feeding this on the outside in our society and allowing, people to feel that crime is what they need to resort to? And then for those that take a stand to better the world or oppose genocide, why are they criminalised so heavily? And why is the process before trial used as a way to punish them?
I think we’ve lost the whole concept of innocent until proven guilty, a concept we were taught from young that people, we should not treat them as if they had committed a crime, but rather they were innocent. And it is our job to prove or disprove, what they did or did not do.
Building solidarity
As an example of the strength of the movement that developed, Shahmina spoke about when Qesser Zuhrah, who was on hunger strike for 48 days in Bronzefield prison, became very ill in the night:
Solidarity spread across all sectors of society, and it saw an MP [Zarah Sultana] go in the middle of the night and stand outside the prison demanding an ambulance for Qesser [who].was very sick, and in a lot of pain.
And I think by the end of it, there was more than 50 to 60 people outside Bronzefield. There could have been more. People were coming in the middle of the day, in the middle of the night. I remember someone I think took a cab at like 4am to be there, and people just kept coming.
And then when she finally got an ambulance and they decided to arrest one of the protesters, who was a doctor that was advocating for Qesser, the people wouldn’t let the police leave with him. Everyone put their bodies on the line that day and there was a standoff with the police for three hours or more and to me, that was the most powerful display of solidarity.
What has been interesting is seeing the development of the Palestinian solidarity movement in the last two months. I feel like the hunger strike itself has injected a bit of energy into the movement, and this is because it’s brought it really home and showed how badly activists are being repressed in this country and the lengths that the government will go to in order to ensure the voice for Palestinian liberation in this country is silenced..
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