On hunger strike to fight for dad’s rights

BY TOBY PORTER
toby@slpmedia.co.uk

A father has been on hunger strike for six weeks in protest at what he sees as the law being tilted towards mothers in divorce – but he sees little chance of a change before he dies.

Archi Ssan has climbed buildings before in protest at the current state of custody law and how some mums turn their children against the other parent.

But now he says he is ready to make the ultimate sacrifice over what he calls the injustice in the system.

He wants what he calls “Parental Alienation” to be turned into a crime – he calls it “brainwashing by the custodial parent”. He said: “It is the same level as spiritually raping your own child for totally selfish reasons.

“Children are brought up to be little gladiators for the mother. The institutions of society are against men and fathers.

“If I fail to change the law, I will die. I am not prepared to tolerate injustice any more. It is a child alienation holocaust, because it is so wrong.”

The 56-year-old, from Grayscroft Road, Streatham, stopped taking anything other than water and vitamin supplements on November 19 – he has lost 16 kilos or two-and-a-half stone since then.

“I am putting my life on the line,” said the former member of the Community Party who was an active anti-racism campaigner in the 1970s.

He classifies himself as “high achieving autistic”.

“I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s in South London as a black man – I know what prejudice can do.

“In our society, every concern is given to the needs and convenience of the woman. Parental alienation is a greater crime than rape. I want society to take it seriously.

“But we are not deranged women haters – I don’t like bad fathers just as much.

“There are deadbeat fathers and walk-away fathers.

“Too many people in South London do not know their fathers.

“I have met three woman who were raped who also support this campaign – they all say child alienation is worse. I hate injustice and I am willing to die to change it.”

He is losing a kilo every two days and weighed 50 kilos at his last measurement. But Archi is adamant he will die if he cannot change the law with his protest.

The former president of the student union at South Thames College, who also admitted he was once involved in the extremist Red Army Faction and was imprisoned for his activism for five years at the age of 19, is drinking water and herbal teas and Dioralyte, which amounts to little more than six calories a day.

He said: “I don’t intend to be a purist about this.

“Calories, if I ingest them come from herbal teas, of which I may have two or three a day, so it’s tiny.

“I probably get some calories from the two chewable vitamin C pills I nibble on over the day too, and in the last two weeks I also took rehydration salts containing six calories each day.

“With all of that I wonder that my calorific intake may have gotten up to double figures.

“I am rather skeletal, and feel my organs are complaining a bit, particularly the developing aches in my kidneys. I took a supplement, Spirulina, which stopped it for 10 days but it is back again.

“It contains protein which 1 also acknowledge, but I really don’t care.

“I don’t care because I define my hunger strike, not some politician, journalist, scientist, personal hater of mine or whatever – it’s my decision and my body I risk, so I define how I do and apply my protest.

“I’m serious about what I’m doing and not trying to die, so now I know my organs are being damaged and consumed, I want to minimise that effect so I can remain functional and so express myself reliably for longer.

“I am certainly not trying to be a disgruntled martyr.

“ I normally actually embrace life quite strongly, know how to do it and have always loved to live for it.

“My son understands what I am doing. Like me, he is autistic. We cannot talk about anything serious. We get on well, on a superficial level.

“I have every reason to get on with my wife. But it is men’s attitudes which are the foundation of feminism. Gender dynamics are creating a society of biased families.

“I have experienced racism and this is institutional sexism, and it feels the same. Fathers are branded as the bad guys whatever they are like.”