Parliament hunger-striker 'close to death'

Wednesday, 29 April 2009 12:01 AM

By Alex Stevenson

A Tamil protestor on hunger strike in Parliament Square could die within the next few days, his fellow demonstrators fear.

Today is the 23rd day Prarameswaran Subramaniam, 28, has gone without food. His fellow protestors are increasingly concerned for his life after he stopped drinking water on Sunday.

Doctors had said the student could survive for over a week if he continued taking fluids but his refusal to do so is drastically shortening the time he can survive.

"He has stopped taking the water and his body is very weak," Ram Sara, one of the protestors outside parliament, told politics.co.uk.

"I talked to a doctor, he said his condition is very critical."

Ram explains why he supports the hunger strike:

NHS medics are continuing to visit 'Praram', as he is known by his fellow protestors, on a daily basis. He is lying on a makeshift bed in a tent close to Winston Churchill's statue.

Praram is also receiving regular visits from a father at nearby Westminster Abbey.

His fellow protestors threatened to leave him in a bid to get him to abandon his hunger strike.

Mr Ram said he refused and that, while they were concerned about one life, he was concerned about many thousands.

The Tamils are protesting against the treatment of civilians trapped in fighting between the Sri Lankan government's military and the separatist Tamil Tigers, who are fighting their last stand as a 20-year conflict draws to a close.

The hunger-striker in Westminster has said he will only abandon his protest if an "immediate and permanent ceasefire" was achieved.

Although Mr Ram has pleaded with him to give up, he admitted admiration for Praram.

"When a community or when a person is suppressed or oppressed he can take any means to tell other. So I think this is one of the ways he thought would bring attention," he added.

"I believe, yes, it could be. Because in past years we have done, as a Tamil community, a lot of protests in the UK and all over the world but it hasn't been mentioned in any media.

"But today. they are ready to do live telecasts from this place to tell other people about this community. So I feel proud of him and I feel it is the best way to get the message across the world."

Other demands by the protestors in Parliament Square include immediate and continuing access to all parts of Sri Lanka by internationals organisations and press.

They also want an opportunity for a referendum to freely express their opinion about their future.

In the last two years 250,000 people have been caught up in areas of Sri Lanka where intense fighting has occurred.

On Monday the Sri Lankan government agreed to cease bombing and shelling, but is continuing its ground offensive.

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