Mick Hartley

The Times, profiles hunger striker Amy Gardner-Gibson, one of “the Bronzefield Six”…..as no one to my knowledge has yet called them, but it’s surely only a matter of time.

In a prison voicemail from HMP Bronzefield, Surrey, Gardiner-Gibson made a new list of demands including access to entertainment and distance-learning classes.

The inmate, who is non-binary and goes by the name Amu, goes on to demand “BDS compliant products”.

Amu presumably being non-binary for Amy.

These are items that are not made by companies said by activists to be “complicit in Israel’s treatment of Palestinians”, which can include Nestlé coffee or Cadbury chocolate.

The demands were made in addition to 24-hour care in hospital while they are refusing food, immediate bail and the de-proscription of Palestine Action.

“Give us access to Al Jazeera TV, give us access to books, CDs, DVDs, the same as outside without censorship or limitation,” Gardiner-Gibson said. “Give us access to BDS products on the pod, including hot chocolate.

“Give us access to a kettle, a TV with a DVD player and a remote. Give us access to education and distance learning with lectures by favourite writers.”

The self-regard, the entitlement, is off the scale. Clearly these people are saints, not criminals.

Gardiner-Gibson, who has been visited in prison by Corbyn and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, grew up in a £1.5 million house in north London and has two sisters.

The queer activist, who denies charges of conspiracy to enter a prohibited place and conspiracy to commit criminal damage, has been training to be an ambulance driver, according to a friend.

At the time of arrest, police recorded Gardiner-Gibson as being “of no fixed abode” but on company records submitted this year, the 30-year-old listed their parents’ five-bedroom house in Islington, London.

They were briefly a director of the Peasant Evolution Producers’ Co-operative, a collective of small-scale organic farmers in the south-west of England.

What – her parents were? Or they as in her as non-binary? Phew.

Gardiner-Gibson, one of three sisters, attended City and Islington sixth form college, then briefly studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) but dropped out.

Since then, they have worked as a bike mechanic and a masseuse, according to a close friend, and enjoyed periods travelling in South America, becoming fluent in Spanish.

Other hunger strikers are less diligent.

Lewie Chiaramello, 22, who is being held at HMP Bristol, is said to be refusing food on alternate days due to his diabetes.