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A REFUGEE has been on hunger strike for 12 days in protest at conditions at a Stockport hotel run for the Home Office by disgraced outsourcing firm Serco.
Manchester-based refugee support group Rapar (Refugee and Asylum-seeker Participatory Action Research) reported that it had investigated the hotel and found shocking conditions, including inedible food, skin diseases, abuse by staff and rubbish piled up on landings.
Serco and the Home Office denied that such conditions existed, but Stockport Council said that it shared Rapar’s concerns about the hotel.
As Palestine Action prisoners go weeks without food, alleging dangerous neglect and detention without trial, campaigners warn that a near-total media blackout is hiding a crisis that could turn fatal – and fuel a growing wave of public anger. ELIZABETH SHORT reports
For those in the West, hunger is often just the familiar feeling of a growling stomach between meals — in Gaza, it has become a strategic weapon of slow, systematic and deadly destruction, writes MARC VANDEPITTE
