Media release – The Cangelosi Firm, Logan & Partners, 6 March 202

ALI ALISHAH — HUNGER STRIKE UPDATE

Our client is starving.

7 days have now elapsed since our client declined food. It is not presently clear how long this can last.

Our client is an epileptic, and it is presently the opinion of medical staff at the Risdon Prison Complex infirmary that he is likely to begin to experience seizures within the next 24-48 hours.

Despite that, our client has time. What does not have time is Tasmania’s native habitat and ecology.

Our client, a member of Tasmanian Labor, and former Chair of the Labor Environmental Action Network, had this to say in relation to the policy released by the State Parliamentary Labor Party on 4 March 2024:

“Tasmanian Labor’s stated intent to review management of the native forest and plantation estates is an admission that the current regime is untenable.

To continue like this would be unconscionable; however, any paradigm that is contingent on the destruction of irreplaceable ecologies, or that seeks to counterbalance the presence of Borneo destroyers Ta Ann and Shin Yang in Tasmania, both legacies of the failed Tasmanian Forest Agreement, is unacceptable.

Labor has effectively declared that it intends to abandon the TFA.

The environment groups — Environment Tasmania, Australian Conservation Foundation, Wilderness Society — who were signatories to the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, must do the same immediately.”

Our client reiterates his requests:
(1) A commitment from all Tasmanian political parties to end native forest logging in Tasmania.
(2) A commitment from all Tasmanian political parties to fund the Supreme Court of Tasmania and the Magistrates Court of Tasmania to ensure that remandees do not have to wait for long periods to have their matters heard and determined.
(3) A commitment from all Tasmanian political parties to resource correctional services adequately across all security classifications.
(4) Tasmania Police to stop purporting to grant bail to protestors who do not seek bail and who indicate that they will not comply with bail conditions.