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09-01-2026
LONDON: Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed, Palestine Action-linked British activists on the brink of death, are determined to keep up their prison hunger strike until their demands are met, their friends and relatives have told media.
They have refused food for 67 and 60 days, respectively, as part of a rolling protest that began in November. Five of the eight individuals who have participated overall have ended their hunger strikes over health fears. Lewie Chiaramello, who turned 23 on Thursday, is the third prisoner also refusing food.
Muraisi, the longest fasting member of the group, “looks very pale and thin”, said her friend Amareen Afzal, who visited the 31-year-old on Wednesday. “Her cheekbones are quite prominent. She looks quite emaciated.”
Muraisi, a Londoner who had worked as a florist and lifeguard, is reportedly suffering from muscle spasms, breathlessness, severe pain and a low white blood cell count. She has been admitted to hospital three times over the past nine weeks. Afzal has also noticed the decline of Muraisi’s memory and said it is now “more difficult for her to stay engaged conversationally”.
“She speaks of herself as dying and she’s very aware and she is worried,” Afzal said but Muraisi is “intent on carrying on until the demands are met”, she added.
The group of remand prisoners are being held in various jails over their alleged involvement in break-ins at the UK subsidiary of the Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems in Bristol and a Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Oxfordshire. They deny the charges against them.
Their protest demands include bail, the right to a fair trial and the de-proscription of Palestine Action, which the UK in July designated as a “terrorist organization”, putting it on par with ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda. They are calling for all Elbit sites to be closed in the UK and have demanded an end to what they call censorship in prison, accusing authorities of withholding mail, calls and books.
All eight individuals will have spent more than a year in prison before their trials take place, well beyond the UK’s usual six-month pre-trial detention limit.
At the time of publishing, the Ministry of Justice had not responded to media’s request for comment.
‘It feels like now every time you see him, it could be the last’
Ahmed, a mechanic from London, has lost hearing in his left ear, suffers with chest pains, breathlessness and dizzy spells, and has a low heart rate that intermittently drops below 40 beats per minute, said Shahmina Alam, who visited her 28-year-old brother on Sunday.
He was admitted to hospital on Tuesday for a sixth time since he began refusing food in November, she said.
“He’s skinny. I describe him a bit like a piece of paper,” she told media. “Where his body’s lost a lot of weight, he’s a bit hunched over.
“His cheeks are sticking out. … When he got up to leave, it’s really like slow steps, and you can tell it takes a lot of energy to lift his legs.
“It feels like now every time you see him, it could be the last.”
She feels anxious as “the more time that’s going, the more resolved he is to continue it and ensure that his demands are met.”
Ahmed is “aware that at this stage he could suddenly pass away”, she said, but “he’s still determined.”
The group’s lawyers are calling for a meeting with David Lammy, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, hoping to discuss the prisoners’ welfare. Despite criticism from doctors, United Nations experts, some politicians and leading barristers, the government has refused, saying hunger strikes are not unusual in prisons and policies regarding food refusal are being followed. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
