Culture
14 Jan 26

Emergency Demonstration held at Dáil in solidarity with Palestine Action hunger strikers

Stand for Rafah pro-Palestine demonstration at The Dáil, Dublin. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

The demonstration starts at 5:30 today, January 14.

An emergency protest in solidarity with Palestine Action hunger strikers is being held today in front of the Dáil, at 5:30 pm.

Organisers are calling for the release of the hunger strikers Lewie Chiaramello, Heba Muraisi, and Kamran Ahmed; the end of the ban on Palestine Action; and the shutdown of Elbit Systems, an Israeli-based international military technology company.

"We stand in solidarity with the hunger strikers," said Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) chairperson Zoë Lawlor.

"We demand, along with human rights and solidarity organisations and people in England, Scotland, Wales, and throughout the world, that Keir Starmer and the British Government to take immediate steps to stop the deaths, in their prisons, of these young people. End complicity with genocide."

"The Irish Government must take immediately action to put pressure on the British Government to prevent the imminent death of the hunger strikers."

The IPSC also referenced the deaths of the 10 Irish hunger strikers during the Troubles.

"In 1981, Margaret Thatcher, presided over the death of Irish ten hunger strikers. Keir Starmer must now preside over the death in custody of Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmed, and Lewie Chiaramello," said Lawlor.

Tommy McKearney, among the strikers in 1981, is said to be one of the various speakers today.

Chiaramello, Muraisi, and Ahmed are in a critical phase of the hunger strike, being at risk of multi-system organ failure.

Lewie, who is a type 1 diabetic and therefore refusing to eat every other day, has been on hunger strike for 52 days, Kamran for 66, and Heba, who has been striking the longest, for 73 days.

Zara Sultana, a member of parliament in the UK and co-founder of the Your Party, has taken to X to express her worry about two of the strikers, Kamran and Heba, highlighting how their health has deteriorated and how the UK government is prepared to let them die.

"Their lives are in immediate danger - yet Starmer's Labour government refuses to engage," wrote Sultana. "This Labour government is prepared to let people die rather than uphold due process."