Councillor goes on hunger strike over Filton 24 political prisoners

Islington councillor Ilkay Cinko-Oner is holding an individual vigil and 24-hour fast today, 16 December 2025, outside her Labour MP’s office in solidarity with hunger-striking anti-genocide activists held as political prisoners without trial by the Starmer government – particularly hunger-striker Kamran Ahmed, who is imprisoned in the constituency.

Solidarity with the political prisoners on hunger strike

Cinko-Oner, leader of the Independent and Green group and independent councillor for Laycock Ward where Pentonville prison is sited, began her vigil outside former front-bencher Emily Thornberry’s constituency office this morning.

Ahmed is on the 38th day of his hunger strike in protest. Like the other seven prisoners refusing to eat, he is protesting at his imprisonment for almost eighteen months – three times the usual statutory limit and with potentially a year or more still to go before hope of a day in court. He and other strikers have been repeatedly hospitalised – and stubbornly ignored by both the government and the ‘mainstream’ media, despite the danger of death that they face and the mistreatment they have endured from the authorities, including denial of essential medicines and medical attention.

Cinko-Oner says that Thornberry has ignored her letters appealing for help and attention on the case. ‘Justice secretary’ David Lammy has also refused to meet either the strikers’ legal representatives or their MPs, and even tried to deny he had even heard of their case when confronted by protesters.

Another of the hunger-strike prisoners, Amu Gib, lives in Islington North constituency next door and is represented by Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn’s attempts to engage with Lammy or his boss have also been rebuffed, despite his letter demanding action and meetings being signed by 51 MPs and peers.

‘Lawfare’

Human rights groups, which have already slammed the Starmer regime’s ‘lawfare’ war on anti-genocide protest and particularly the political imprisonment of the ‘Filton 24’ group of activists of which the hunger-strike prisoners are members. Amnesty International has now also warned Starmer that his intransigence risks killing people who do not deserve to be detained under the anti-terrorism laws that the government is using against them. Amnesty’s campaigns director Kerry Moscogiuri said:

This is crisis point for these activists – prosecutors must drop the allegations of a ‘terrorism connection’ in these cases and end any excessively lengthy pre-trial detention. Those on hunger strike are victims of the UK’s excessively broad terrorism laws which have been misused to escalate ordinary criminal prosecutions of direct-action protesters into terrorism cases.

In her letter, Cinko-Oner told Thornberry:

As your constituent and local authority Cllr I plead and urge you to ask the government to meet with the hunger strikers, give them the medical care they require, and end the UK’s complicity in genocide.

Featured image via the Canary