Since the start of the Zionist genocide in Gaza in October 2023, the British state has upped its punishment of activists who take a stand on the side of the Palestinian people. Thousands of people have been arrested and 33 are currently held in prison on remand pending trials, some of which are not scheduled to take place until 2027. Rather than remain passive in the face of their criminalisation, or simply wait for the multiple legal processes in the criminal and civil courts to run their course, pro-Palestine prisoners have now taken the initiative.
On 20 October Prisoners for Palestine announced that from 2 November – the anniversary of the Balfour declaration, which signalled British imperialism’s decision to create the Zionist state – incarcerated activists would begin an indefinite hunger strike. Their demands are:
- An end to all prison censorship of their mail and communications
- Immediate bail
- The right to a fair trial, in particular the disclosure of documents relating to meetings between British and Israeli state officials, the British police, the attorney general, Elbit Systems etc.
- The deproscription of Palestine Action
- The closing down of Zionist weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems British factories
There are currently six prisoners across four prisons refusing food with more set to join. On 15 November, FRFI comrades will be joining a day of prison protests in solidarity with these activists. The hunger strike has attracted international attention, with recently released veteran Lebanese prisoner Georges Abdallah saying ‘In light of the repression faced by the activists of Prisoners for Palestine, I wish to express my full solidarity with the comrades taking part in the hunger strikes.’
FRFI has a long history of supporting prisoners, dating back to the Irish struggle of the 1970s and 1980s. Over the past two years, we have used our newspaper to amplify the voices of those incarcerated for pro-Palestine activities, publishing many of their writings. One of the accounts we printed was by Sean ‘Shibby’ Middleborough, an activist well known to our comrades in Liverpool. Shibby was arrested in October 2024, in the second wave of arrests of the Filton 24. All the Filton prisoners have repeatedly been refused bail by the courts on spurious grounds that their criminal damage charges, which predate the proscription of Palestine Action, are terrorism-related. However, at the end of October, Shibby was unexpectedly granted temporary release to attend a family wedding. He did not return to custody.
Employing the age-old dictum that the first responsibility of a political prisoner is to escape the clutches of the enemy, Shibby is now ‘at large’. He told Electronic Intifada ‘I am not on the run. I am merely being sensible, refusing to be held as a prisoner of war of Israel in a British prison… Outrageously, 23 of my heroic and honourable co-defendants remain in prison following our kidnapping by counterterrorism police.’
The first Filton 24 trial begins at Woolwich Crown Court on 17 November, while a judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation will be heard on 27 November.
To find out more about the hunger strike, including details of the prisoners participating in them and ways to show solidarity go to https://prisonersforpalestine.org/
