Calls for Ellie Reeves MP to act as Lewisham hunger striker 'at very high risk of death'

Unions, Green councillors, Your Party members and anguished friends of Jon Cink joined a protest opposite Reeves' surgery on Friday, appealing to the MP to exercise her duty of care towards her constituent.

They are calling on her to support Cink and his family, engage with Justice Secretary David Lammy and sign the Early Day Motion on the Palestine Action hunger strikers.

Lewisham resident Cink has now been on hunger strike for 40 days, he has been hospitalised once and returned to prison, and friends, family and supporters are desperately worried for his failing health.

Green Party deputy leader and Leeds councillor Mothin Ali was the first politician to visit the hunger strikers, on 9 December.

Ali went to HMP Bronzefield as a visitor for hunger striker Amu Gib, but also saw Cink in the visitors' hall.

Ali has spoken of the deeply distressing meeting, after which he broke down in tears. He said that Cink "looked like a skeleton".

Campaigner Nida Jafri told Salamander, "We're trying to get Jon readmitted to hospital, but it's not easy to do from a prison".

James Smith, lecturer in Humanitarian Policy at UCL and an NHS emergency physician who has been providing advice to the strikers, told Middle East Eye that after 40 days of food refusal, there is a "very, very high risk of death".

Cink is one of eight activists who have been on hunger strike since early November, after their demands and repeated requests for engagement with David Lammy were ignored.

It is the largest hunger strike in the UK since the hunger strike by IRA prisoners led by Bobby Sands in 1981, and has received little media attention.

24-year old Cink worked for a theatre company in Lewisham before his arrest and is a trans man.  He  has been held on remand at HMP Bronzefield women’s prison since late June, while his trial date is scheduled for January 2027.

He is accused of being involved in an action at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on 20 June, in which two activists sprayed red paint on two Voyager planes.

The planes fly regularly to the RAF Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus and then over Gaza.

At the time of the action, the government had admitted that over 500 RAF surveillance flights by UK aircraft had been flown from Akrotiri over Gaza.

Although the activists got away and the break-in was something of an embarrassment for the MOD, five people were later charged with security and criminal damage offences. 

Shortly after this, the government pushed through its controversial decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group, against the advice of its lawyers.

The 29 imprisoned activists associated with Palestine Action have reported that following the proscription, their conditions became worse. 

They have been denied bail, which would allow them to await trial at home. They are being held in pre-trial detention long after the legal six-month limit, and in some cases for two years.

Their communications are being censored, and there are reports of particularly brutal treatment of the hunger strikers.

HMP Bronzefield is a private prison run by outsourcing company Sodexo, where failings and mistreatment of prisoners in recent years have ended in tragedy.

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Amu "an incredible person .. still knitting"

Amu Gib is also one of the "Brize Norton Five" being held on remand at Bronzefield prison, and they also joined the hunger strike.

Jafri spoke of her best friend, who was living in Oxford before their arrest.  Gib is trans and non-binary, using they/them pronouns.

“So Amu is just an incredible person .. they're still knitting  in prison, even on low energy, and still trying to be there for other prisoners."

Jafri described her anguish as her friend and the other hunger strikers suffer, “but I’m just channelling it and campaigning.

"I'm worried about them, but also I'm proud of the mass movement that they've created, to bring UK's complicity in genocide back into the zeitgeist.”

The hunger strikers are demanding immediate bail, an end to censorship of their communications and the right to a fair trial.

They also demand that Palestine Action be de-proscribed and Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit is shut down.

Early Day Motion

Labour MP John McDonnell tabled an Early Day Motion on 1 December calling for the justice minister, David Lammy to "intervene urgently to ensure that (the
hunger strikers') treatment is humane and their human rights are upheld".

47 MPs have now signed it.

McDonnell raised in parliament on 10 December David Lammy's failure to respond to MPs who requested to meet with him to discuss the hunger strikers.

McDonnell posted on X later that day that the Ministry of Justice statement to the BBC was "just not true - I have received no reply to my emails to David Lammy's office".

Richard Burgon MP raised the issue in parliament again on 11 December, and again asked David Lammy to "urgently respond."

"These are people with a conscience"

At the picket on 12 December, Lewisham Green councillor and leader of the opposition Liam Shrivastava read from a letter that a group of councillors across London had sent to MPs that day.

Doctors have warned that the hunger strikers are "at imminent risk of death", he said.

"We are now at the point where irreversible organ damage begins. After 40 days without food, the body starts consuming heart muscle.

"We are facing the possibility of a repeat of the 1981 hunger strikes. We have only got days to prevent this.

"These are people with a conscience who have watched at least 17,000 children be killed and felt compelled to act. They targeted property, not people.

 "They sought to disrupt the supply chain of weapons, fuelling a genocide.

"Whether you agree with their tactics or not, they are clearly not terrorists, and they should not be dying in British prisons.

"Justice Secretary David Lammy has so far refused to engage.

"We urge all MPs to sign Early Day Motion 2386 immediately and publicly demand that David Lammy intervenes to ensure justice and that human rights are upheld."

The protest opposite Ellie Reeves' surgery will continue every Friday at 5.30pm at 43 Sunderland Road SE23 2PS.

You can write to your MP urging them to support the EDM, using the PSC form or your own words.

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