What should happen about the hunger strikers?

[noblegiraffe]

There are a group of people currently on remand in prison awaiting trial for criminal activities taken in support of the (currently) proscribed terrorist group Palestine Action. Some of them have gone on hunger strike and are suffering health impacts and some have been hospitalised.

Their demands appear to be:
to be released on bail
for Palestine Action to be de-proscribed as a terrorist group
for the UK to stop selling arms to Israel

I'm seeing various MPs writing earnest letters to David Lammy as Justice Secretary, saying that he must meet with them urgently to discuss their demands.

And then what?

It should go without saying that I really don't want people to die, and I'm sure that their families must be frantic, but what is actually expected to happen here? The proscription of Palestine Action is being appealed in the courts and I don't think people threatening to kill themselves should impact the democratic process.

Being released on bail? While I agree that it is shocking that they have been held in prison for 2 years while awaiting trial, because the justice system should work faster than that, they are active members of a currently proscribed terrorist organisation. At least one of the hunger strikers took part in the attack on Elbit where a female police officer had her back broken by one of the activists who attacked her with a sledgehammer while she lay on the ground. There's plenty of video footage of this, and I don't think the hunger strikers have condemned it. If they did get bail by threatening to kill themselves, surely everyone would then give it a go?

So what should happen?

They knew the government would not give in. Otherwise they would have found another route. The aim was to draw the spotlight onto their position. And if anyone then went on to learn a bit about Ireland .... it could have been said to have worked.

It prompted me to learn about Ireland.

They have capacity to make the choice so it's their choice.

As @TexasTyson pointed out, prisoners depriving themselves of food is not uncommon, so what these prisoners are doing isn't particularly new or noteworthy. The law states mentally capable people have the right not to be force fed.
I'm not sure why the Government needs to meet with these particular prisoners representatives. What is so 'clueless' about treating them the same as every other prisoner on remand?

'It could been said to have worked' is doing a loooooot of work in that post.

The strikers got a lot of publicity but didnt ultimately get what they wanted, either in the short or long term. Later on, prison uniforms were abolished for all inmates there (would've been the sensible choice in the 1st place, but I digress).

More widely, we still don't have a united Ireland. Arguments that the negotiated political settlement wouldn't have happened without some PIRA violence are fairly mainstream, if hotly debated, but nobody seriously appears to think the hunger strikers played much part in that. The ones that died, or the ones whose families put a stop to it once they lost consciousness.

'its not all about you'. Wow
I merely pointed out that my personal memory is that of one hungry striker who died and stuck iny mind.
I am well aware of British/Irish history and The Troubles, thank you.

The not knowing what to do and recieving pressure from both sides. Maggie Thatcher had the same issue.

I think you'll find it got the Price sisters exactly what they wanted and I can tell you categorically that 50 years on they are certainly not forgotten in their homeland.

I disagree, much as this Government gets lots wrong, I think they are doing the right thing and are treating these prisoners exactly the same as the hundreds on remand for over 2 years.
I don't understand why you think 'they don't know what to do'? Where have they said that?

That they may well die.

If they are demanding ambulances and medical treatment, then it seems like death and martyrdom is not actually their aim. In which case they may have horribly miscalculated.

Their “cause” appears to be publicised as “wanting to be released on bail” and the main discussion is about remand prisoners. If they wanted to make it about Palestine then they horribly miscalculated by

1. demanding bail
2. having video footage of one of their members breaking a police officer’s back with a sledgehammer widely circulated just as the hunger strikes began,

Both these things are not garnering them much sympathy.

Interestingly, both were vehemently opposed to the peace process. In the longer term, they very much did not get what they wanted out of it.

I have no sympathy because they think they deserve better treatment than all the other remand prisoners. They can't be released as it would enable others to do the same. The government can't give in to blackmail. It is the choice of the hunger strikers to refuse food.

Yes I remember the Price sisters story and I'm not Irish. They didn't die as a result of refusing food and if I recall were force fed which is not a lawful option now, thankfully.

But the individuals make up the majority and the majority of British people under 50 won’t have the faintest clue who Bobby Sands is, let alone his comrades. Anyway there’s a big difference between the Irish hunger strikers and the Palestine mob regardless of whether you sympathise or not - the Irish strikers actually strikes. They intentionally and straightforwardly starved themselves to death, they didn’t fanny around asking for ambulances, they rejected medical care because they were on hunger strike.

These idiots want the threat of being on hunger strike without properly striking. They’re posers, they’re agitators and they’re just a bloody nuisance.

Yes that posters is mistaking no action with inaction.

Not acting is a response in itself, it’s not a sign of dithering or uncertainty.

The British government have a 100% success rate of not acting and allowing people to starve themselves to death. The strikers have never achieved even a single goal.

I’m English but of (recent) Irish heritage and Catholic, which I think sometimes gives me a bit of objectivity in seeing both sides but the Irish horribly miscalculate the British government in almost everything they do. They will not do anything they do not want to do, they have complete sovereignty in the UK and things like bombs, hunger strikes, threats etc will not work. They often forget the UK was, in fairly recent history, subject to a massive aerial bombing campaign and the serious threat of invasion (long before the US and USSR support) and that didn’t for one moment make them consider capitulation.

I don’t think it’s the British govt that ‘aren’t learning’ in all fairness.

Well said.

Let them make themselves sick. It's their choice and just another manipulative blackmail technique.

Yeah seems like another case of FAFO for this lot

I agree that inaction is the chosen response. I believe it is also the right response, because if there were any other response it would prompt more hunger strikes - so in my opinion, inaction is the moral response.

I do wonder if the hunger strikers have found themselves in a bit of a bind, similar to the (now-unfashionable?) suicide bombers. After a suicide bomb attack, the video made by the bomb-carrier would be released where they chanted all the slogans justifying their action. At the time, I wondered if those videos were made to hold over the heads of the prospective bomb-carrier, rather than to ensure the propaganda would be propagated. To ensure they would actually do it, that they would feel there is no going back, they would be shamed in their community, that they had to now do it regardless if they now realised that no, they didn't want to die. The people behind the camera recording those videos - they took no risks, carried no bombs themselves, just sent out the young / gullible / idealistic / malleable (delete as appropriate) to die.

So looking at these young / gullible / idealistic / malleable (delete as appropriate) hunger strikers, I am struck by the same thoughts. All the publicity about the hunger strikes, the calls for the Government to respond (even as they know the Government absolutely will not) - it all serves to back them into a corner. A corner that their youth /gullibility etc. ensures they stay in, regardless of whether they now, realising that they will die if they continue, still really want to put their life on the line for The Cause. How much actual 'choice' do they see themselves as having now, with MPs standing vigil outside their prison and all the myriad of cheerleaders 'behind them'? And those cheerleaders / MPs are just the same of the people behind the cameras making suicide bomber videos - taking no personal risks, but ultimately responsible for those risks being taken by others.

Totally agree.

The hunger strikers get far too much publicity

Zarah Sultana has just posted a disgusting tweet claiming that the woman who was taken to hospital is both safe and continuing her hunger strike.

This cannot possibly be true. And celebrating someone continuing a hunger strike when that morning you were seriously worried for her health and demanding an ambulance, and blaming others for her imminent death is psychopathic. Cheering her on to death safely from the sidelines is exactly it.

So now we have:

1. 2 hunger strikers who gave in to Just Eat
2. A type 1 diabetic who was allegedly refused his medication despite the fact without it he would most certainly be dead (he isn’t), and withholding needles and potentially lethal insulin from prisoners unless supervised is likely a typical prison policy
3. Another hunger striker who is allegedly close to death yet has been discharged from hospital within a matter of hours to continue what is apparently their mechanism of suicide, and is ‘perfectly safe’
4. Allegations of ambulances being refused despite the fact hunger strikers are supposed to be risking their lives as.. that’s the whole point..
5. The above ambulances now being blamed on ‘worried family’ to save the blushes of the strikers

What have I missed?

Bonkers. If she’s continuing her hunger strike then medical care is pointless. I may be wrong (and I’m not bothered if I am) but I’d be amazed if any of them actually die. To me it seems like yet another publicity stunt. With a bit of intermittent fasting thrown in.

People being arrested for assaulting police officers outside the prison.

And ££££££££££ of public funds wasted