- Caspar Turner | Staff
- Sep 3, 2025 (DailyCal.org)
UC Berkeley firebombing suspect Casey Goonan, along with their cellmate, began a hunger strike last Tuesday in solidarity with Teuta “T” Hoxha, a prisoner in the United Kingdom who has been on a hunger strike since Aug. 11.
Goonan is currently imprisoned at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California. Goonan has been in custody since their arrest in June 2024 on multiple charges of arson, including three small fires on the UC Berkeley campus, as well as the firebombing of a UCPD vehicle.
In January, Goonan pled guilty to a federal charge relating to the firebombing incident, in which they lit a bag of Molotov cocktails under a UCPD vehicle outside Sproul Hall. In exchange, all other charges were dropped. The crime itself carries a penalty of up to 20 years in federal prison, but Goonan also agreed that the court should apply the “terrorism enhancement” in determining sentencing.
In a statement published on the Instagram account for the Casey Support Committee, or CSC, Goonan characterized both Hoxha and themself as “people facing repression for their support for Palestine.” Hoxha was arrested for allegedly taking part in a raid on an Israeli weapons company’s factory in the UK on Aug. 6, 2024, with 23 other members of the British protest group Palestine Action.
Hoxha’s hunger strike initially aimed to satisfy three demands: the restoration of her library job and recreational classes, an end to censorship of her mail and the release of previously withheld mail addressed to her.
According to Goonan, the first two of these demands have been met, but the third, the release of Hoxha’s mail, has not. Goonan wrote that they plan to maintain their own hunger strike until Hoxha’s mail is released.
“The Palestine solidarity movement in the west cannot abandon people like her who have risked their lives and continue to do so in resistance to the intolerable condition of genocide,” Goonan wrote in their statement.
On community news website Indybay, the site where Goonan allegedly posted about their Molotov cocktail attacks on UC Berkeley campus, authors from the Casey Support Committee claim Goonan has organized hunger strikes before.
In July 2024, Goonan fasted for a week, consuming only liquids in an attempt to secure better housing conditions for individuals in their jail unit. The report claimed Goonan is diabetic, which complicated their fast; only some of their demands were ultimately met.
Goonan was originally scheduled for a sentencing court hearing in April, but this has been pushed back a number of times, and they are now set to be sentenced on Sept. 23. The latest rescheduling was supported by both Goonan’s defense and the prosecuting attorney because certain medical records relevant to sentencing have not yet been provided to the court.
According to the CSC in a post on the Anarchist Black Cross Federation website, Goonan has been struggling with health issues, as well as the mental toll of their sentencing hearing being repeatedly rescheduled. The Transgender Law Center, a national group that advocates for the legal rights of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals, was also recently added as an interested party in the case and has been advocating on Goonan’s behalf.
“As captives imprisoned for our participation in the Palestinian liberation movement in the west, we have a responsibility to each other across borders to pursue our lives in prison with the same steadfastness as the Palestinian Prisoners movement held captive in Israeli prisons,” Goonan wrote.
