To the government of the United Kingdom:We, the undersigned, write to you today as survivors of state violence.We are a collective of former hunger strikers from Palestine, Ireland and Guantánamo Bay. Hunger strikes end only when power intervenes, or when people die. We learned, through pain, permanent damage, and watching our comrades fall, how states behave when prisoners have no choice but to refuse the only right afforded to them: food.As such, we write in uncompromising solidarity with the hunger strikers held today in British prisons: Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmed, Teuta Hoxha, Jon Cink, Lewie Chiaramello, and Muhammad Umer Khalid. They are imprisoned on remand, without trial and without conviction. For some, their remand has lasted over a year, and for most, they will not see trial for two.The UK government has chosen prolonged remand, isolation and their censorship. It has chosen to restrict their contact with loved ones, allow medical neglect, and deployed the language of terror in an insidious attempt to deliberately strip these prisoners of public sympathy and basic rights before any trial takes place.We cannot forget what the hunger strikers today stand for. They stand for Palestine. They stand for dismantling the infrastructure of weapons that kills P …
