London, United Kingdom – A professional-Palestine activist on starvation strike plans to start out refusing fluids in addition to meals, telling Al Jazeera that he hopes his “drastic motion” pressures the federal government into partaking along with his protest calls for.
Umer Khalid, a Palestine Motion-linked remand prisoner, stopped consuming 13 days in the past. He’s presently receiving fluids with electrolytes, sugars and salts however mentioned he’ll cease ingesting altogether from Saturday.
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Whereas the physique can survive for weeks with out meals, dehydration is for certain to have deadly penalties in a far shorter time.
The escalation comes days after three different hunger-striking remand prisoners affiliated with Palestine Motion ended their protests, claiming victory.
“The one factor that appears to have any affect, whether or not that’s optimistic or destructive, is drastic motion,” Khalid, 22, informed Al Jazeera from jail through an middleman. “The strike displays the severity of this imprisonment. Being on this jail shouldn’t be residing life. Our lives have been paused. The world spins, and we sit in a concrete room. This strike displays the severity of my calls for.”
Khalid is asking for instant bail; an finish to alleged censorship in jail – authorities have been accused of withholding mail, calls and books and denying visitation rights; an inquiry into alleged British involvement in Israeli army operations in Gaza; and the discharge of surveillance footage from Royal Air Drive (RAF) spy flights that flew over Gaza on April 1, 2024, when British support employees had been killed in an Israeli assault.
Brize Norton break-in
Khalid is amongst 5 activists accused of breaking into the UK’s largest airbase, RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire in June and spray-painting two Voyager refuelling and transport planes. The incident, which was claimed by Palestine Motion, brought on hundreds of thousands of kilos price of injury, in keeping with the British authorities, which later proscribed the protest group as a “terrorist” organisation.
Critics have condemned the ban as intolerant overreach, on condition that Palestine Motion’s said goal is to make use of nonviolent means to counter Israel’s genocidal battle in opposition to Palestinians and what it says is British complicity in it.
Khalid denies the costs in opposition to him of conspiracy to commit prison injury and conspiracy to enter a prohibited place for functions prejudicial to the protection or pursuits of the UK.
He’s a part of a collective of eight remand prisoners linked to Palestine Motion that started a rolling starvation strike in November. Final week, three of them – two of whom had been on the point of demise – ended their protests. Khalid is the one one nonetheless refusing meals.
These now refeeding mentioned improved jail rights signalled a concession. The UK’s reported denial of a defence contract to Elbit, Israel’s largest weapons producer, can also be being interpreted by them as a win.
All through the starvation strike, the British authorities mentioned it has no energy over the problem of bail as a result of it’s a matter for the judiciary to resolve. The federal government additionally insisted that jail welfare procedures are being adopted.
As for Khalid’s different calls for, final yr, the opposition Labour Social gathering blocked a invoice tabled by the left-wing lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn backing an official inquiry into Britain’s involvement within the battle on Gaza.
And in April, the Ministry of Defence informed The Occasions newspaper that it had video footage from an RAF surveillance aircraft that had flown over Gaza on the day of the Israeli strike that killed the help employees however couldn’t disclose any additional particulars, citing nationwide safety.
Britain has mentioned it flew spy planes over Gaza throughout Israel’s onslaught to find lacking captives, however critics have raised questions on attainable intelligence sharing with Israel.
Asim Qureshi, analysis director on the marketing campaign group Cage, informed Al Jazeera that the federal government’s refusal to fulfill with Khalid to barter on his calls for “signifies their lack of concern for the lifetime of this man, who’s performing primarily based on his ideas throughout the context of a genocide”.
The Ministry of Justice has not commented on Khalid’s imprisonment or calls for.
‘I cry myself to sleep’
Khalid’s household and buddies informed Al Jazeera that they’re notably involved as a result of he suffers with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, a situation that causes muscle weak spot and losing.
“I miss him,” his mom, Shabana Khalid, mentioned, combating again tears. “He’s beginning to really feel drained.
“My first ideas once I get up are with Umer. Some nights, I cry myself to sleep.”
As she herself recovers from most cancers and takes care of her disabled sister, travelling to Jail Wormwood Scrubs in London, 320km (200 miles) from the household dwelling in Manchester, is fraught with logistical challenges. She final noticed her son on December 26 and doesn’t know when she’s going to be capable to go to him subsequent.
She accused Wormwood Scrubs of denying visiting rights, saying she and his buddies have utilized to the jail to see him however are informed there are not any appointments for weeks.
“My worries are that he’s going to say no very, in a short time,” she mentioned.
On the time of publication, Wormwood Scrubs had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for remark.
Umer’s brother Usman, a mechanical engineering graduate, informed Al Jazeera: “When Umer says he’s going to do one thing, he means it along with his full sincerity. And as morbid and unhappy because it could be to say, I believe in his personal thoughts he’s ready to place his life on the road for this trigger.”
Usman mentioned that whereas he helps his brother’s protest calls for, “from a barely egocentric and type of private perspective, I hope he doesn’t [start refusing water].”
In keeping with the Prisoners for Palestine group, which advocates for the protesters, Umer has requested jail employees “to not intervene within the occasion he turns into unconscious”.
In December, he ended a 12-day starvation strike because of his declining well being.
His mom mentioned that earlier than coming into jail, he managed his uncommon situation fastidiously with a balanced food plan and loads of train.
“Alhamdulillah [Thank God], I’m effectively. I really feel very sturdy each mentally and bodily,” Umer mentioned. “I can normally use the jail health club as soon as per week, however I’m not utilizing it throughout my strike.”
He mentioned he passes the time by praying and studying books.
His trial date is about for January 2027, by which era he may have spent a yr and a half in jail – far past the usual six-month pre-trial detention restrict.
His pal Danyal Osman, 29, informed Al Jazeera that he feels “very anxious” however “fully” helps Umer “as a result of all of us need him to be free”.
