Elaine Bradley: There is a photo taken a couple of hours ago of hunger-striking journalist Mohammed Al Qiq. He is lying on a hospital bed, mouth open, face sunken, eyes shut, hands enfolded on his chest poking out from the hospital bed clothes. The Q’ran is beside his bed. He looks frail, looks like a dying man. He is a dying man. Every now and then amidst all the horror and injustice that is Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, something stands out – not because it is more awful than other things, perhaps instead because it epitomises all the other things. This time a 33 year old journalist, father of two, held without charge – not for the first time: tortured, force fed, slandered in courts that are accountable to none, is starving himself to death – refusing food is the only power left to him in a system that denies him every human dignity, and he is taking that power. Death or freedom is his cry. It looks like it is going to be death. Meanwhile the EU, UN and all the usual suspects issue statements about their concern, but they won’t do anything meaningful. They never do.
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