One of the UK’s leading human rights lawyers has criticised the government’s refusal to engage with Palestine Action-affiliated prisoners who are on hunger strike as based on “ludicrous” reasoning.
In its strongest statement yet, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said that meeting with the hunger strikers risked creating “perverse incentives” but this was roundly rejected by Michael Mansfield KC, known for his work on landmark cases such as the Grenfell Tower fire, Stephen Lawrence and the Birmingham Six.
Mansfield is not involved in the hunger strikers’ case but has sent a letter to the justice secretary, David Lammy, condemning his refusal to meet with their representatives as “utterly astonishing”.
Responding directly to the government’s claim that it would create “perverse incentives”, Mansfield told the Guardian: “The idea that people would be incentivised to kill themselves in order to get bail – put themselves at risk because that’s what they’re doing – is ludicrous. They [ministers] have to take this seriously as a genuine act of conscientious objection that they’re making. It’s not going to encourage loads of others any more than the Irish ones encouraged loads of others … it didn’t spread throughout the whole prison system.”
He said refusing food was an “extreme action” and “very few people are prepared to go this far”, adding: “It’s really a perverse argument to say, ‘Well, we’re not going to employ our policy on this occasion, because it’ll encourage others’ – then what’s the point of the policy?”
The veteran human rights lawyer also represented the Price sisters, IRA members Marian and Dolours, whose story is featured in the book and TV series Say Nothing, and who went on hunger strike in protest at being kept in an English jail but were force fed (now forbidden unless there is a lack of capacity).
He accused ministers of a “dismissive approach” towards the current protesters, suggesting it was “because of the political background”.
Mansfield urged the government to decide in the individual cases “whether it is time that they should be discharged from prison and hospital to get proper treatment under proper conditions. Obviously there would be conditions of bail, courts are used to setting lots of conditions.”
All of the original eight hunger strikers are being held in prison awaiting trial charged with offences relating to alleged break-ins or criminal damage during protest actions. Each will have already served more than a year in prison before facing trial, well over the standard six-month limit.
It was confirmed in a letter from the prisoners’ lawyers that Qesser Zuhrah, who was taken to hospital on Wednesday last week, ended her hunger strike on day 48. That leaves Amu Gib, 30, who has been refusing food for 52 days; Heba Muraisi, 31, who is on day 51; Teuta Hoxha, 29, who is on day 45; and Kamran Ahmed, 28, who is on day 44. Additionally, Lewie Chiaramello, 22, who is refusing food every other day, because he has diabetes, is on day 17.
Mansfield said the authorities appeared to have forgotten that they had not been convicted. “Their health is seriously endangered at the moment,” he said. “You’re presumed to be innocent and unless there’s very strong evidence, or even some evidence, that they are flight risks or are likely to attempt to do similar actions again within the period they’re on bail they should be granted bail. That seems to me fairly basic.”
In its response to a legal letter from the hunger strikers’ lawyers demanding a meeting with Lammy, an MoJ spokesperson said: “We want these prisoners to accept support and get better, and we will not create perverse incentives that would encourage more people to put themselves at risk through hunger strikes.”
