Hunger striker for Palestine hospitalised
Posted: 27th November 2025
This week, Huda Ammori is taking the Home Office to court over the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
The three-day hearing takes the form of a Judicial Review, which allows the High Court to assess the legality of the decision to proscribe but not the merits of the decision itself.
The legal process takes place as six pro-Palestine activists are on hunger strike against their prison conditions in Britain, in what may be the largest coordinated prisoners’ hunger strike since the 1980s.
The activists, who are among 24 people accused of smashing into an Elbit Systems factory in Bristol last August, have issued a series of demands to the prison authorities.
They want to “end all censorship” so that they can “send and receive communications without restriction, surveillance, or interference from the prison administration”.
Several of the prisoners have reported that their mail has been opened, while some of their outgoing correspondence never arrived at its destination.
The activists are also asking for immediate bail. “Holding people on remand, in some cases indefinitely, is a deliberate abuse of power, used to punish prisoners before they have even faced a court or been convicted of any crime”, they say.
The first six of the “Filton 24” activists are currently on trial, but those on hunger strike will have to wait several months before their case is put in front of a jury.
Prison authorities might argue against loosening bail conditions after one of the activists, Sean Middlebrough, failed to return to prison after being temporarily released last month.
The activists’ other demands relate to the right to a fair trial, the de-proscription of Palestine Action, and the cessation of government contracts with Israel’s largest arms firm, Elbit Systems.
On Tuesday, more than five weeks after the government had been given notice of the hunger strike, one of the activists, Kamran Ahmed, was hospitalised. He had collapsed on Friday “with low blood sugar levels indicating hypoglycemia”.
“An asthmatic, Ahmed has been suffering from dizziness, breathing difficulties, and chest pains, as well as low blood sugar and dangerously high ketone levels”, according to a press release.
Ahmed’s sister declared: “All of this could have been avoided if the government would have engaged in conversations about the demands, which they are yet to respond to”.
She added: “I am angry, I am sad, I don’t think there are words to put to the pain of a sister who was in a press conference last week stating that I fear the day I get a call to say Kamran has collapsed, and now I am living my worst fear”.
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