BBC finally mentions hunger strike — but still ignores reason for it

The BBC News website has finally broken its obstinate silence about the hunger strike by anti-genocide protesters — but only as two of the political prisoners ended their strike and still ignoring almost everything else of relevance.

Mentions hunger strike obscurely

• The BBC’s article about the decision of Jon Cink and Umer Khalid to resume eating leaves out:
• The existence of the other 16 detainees of the ‘Filton 24‘ who were not on hunger strike
•  The fact that the 24 have already been in prison for up to a year and a half without trial, compared to the statutory maximum for remand of six months
•  That they are political prisoners
•  And that they were imprisoned for vandalising an Israeli weapons factory intimately linked to Israel’s genocide in Gaza
•  Any mention of the word Gaza at all.
• That the Starmer regime is using anti-terror laws to deny them bail and keep them locked up even though they are not charged with any terror offences
• The protests at the prisons where the 24 are being held – one gets a mention only because a Ministry of Justice spokesperson claims the latest one was “unacceptable”
• That Bronzefield prison only called an ambulance for Qesser Zuhrah, close to death after almost 50 days on hunger strike, after a day of protests outside the prison
• The condemnation by the United Nations and human rights groups of the Starmer government’s abuse of law and process to persecute the 24
• The fact that Starmer’s CPS involved the Israeli embassy in the decision to prosecute and imprison before trial
• And that the handful of the activists who have now gone on trial are being subjected to a travesty in which prosecution witnesses are being allowed to change their sworn evidence after video footage proved it was lies

and much more.

Starmer’s hostility ignored

It almost goes without saying that the article also makes no mention at all of Starmer’s wider war on UK free speech, democracy, rights and anti-Zionist Jews to protect Israel. The BBC and the entire ‘mainstream’ corporate media have colluded in that silence and this article is no different.

Emma Kamio, the mother of one of the political prisoners, appealed last week to the hunger-strikers to end their strike and eat because Starmer is more than willing to let them die. Nothing that has happened since does anything to change that conclusion and Skwawkbox welcomes the decision of Cink and Khalid to eat, just as it salutes the courage and resolve of those who still refuse.

Starmer and his lackeys are war criminals unfit to lace their boots.

Featured image via Barold