Latest Hunger strike Stories

GENEVA (Reuters) - Three United Nations human rights investigators said on Monday they could only accept a U.S. invitation to visit Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba if they are permitted to interview detainees. Nearly four years after the visits were first requested, Washington said on Friday the three envoys, including the U.N. rapporteur on torture, could visit foreign terrorism suspects because it had "nothing to hide." But although they could question U.S. military officials, the...

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. government to provide medical records on Guantanamo prisoners who are being force-fed while on a hunger strike and to notify their lawyers about forced feedings. U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler acted after lawyers representing about a dozen men held at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, expressed urgent concern over their deteriorating...

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross expressed concern on Friday about the two-month-old hunger strike by Guantanamo Bay prisoners, some of whom are being force-fed, as the U.S. military said 26 were on strike but their lawyers insisted the figure exceeded 200. The strike that began on August 8 over conditions and lack of legal rights is the most widespread of a handful of such protests since the prison camp at the U.S. naval base at...

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday that prisoners were on hunger strike at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp and that the situation there was serious. But spokeswoman Antonella Notari declined to comment on Thursday's statement by a defense lawyer that the action involved 200 of 500 prisoners and that 21 were being force-fed. The humanitarian agency, which last visited the U.S. naval base in Cuba in late...

By Gideon Long LONDON (Reuters) - More than 200 prisoners remain on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay and the U.S. military is force-feeding 21 of them, Amnesty International and a lawyer representing some of the detainees said on Thursday. The Americans are keeping the 21 alive by forcing food into their stomachs through tubes pushed up their noses, human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith told a news conference. The prisoners are shackled to their beds 24 hours a day to stop them...

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Wednesday the number of Guantanamo detainees taking part in a hunger strike that began last month had fallen by nearly three quarters, but prisoners' lawyers said they do not believe it. Thirty-six of the roughly 500 foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were on the hunger strike, down from about 130 last week, the military said. Officials did not give a reason for the decline....

MIAMI (Reuters) - Nearly one-fourth of the prisoners at the U.S. military's Guantanamo base in Cuba are on a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention, and 18 are being force-fed in a hospital, a military spokesman said on Tuesday. The hunger strike began on August 8 and 128 prisoners have since joined, said Sgt. Justin Behrens, a spokesman for the task force running the Guantanamo prison. "They want to be tried or set free," Behrens said by telephone from Guantanamo. The...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Dissident Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji has recovered sufficiently from his two-month-long hunger strike to return to prison, Iran's Justice Minister Jamal Karimirad said on Sunday. Ganji, jailed in 2000 after writing a series of articles linking senior officials to the murder of political dissidents, was hospitalized in July when his health deteriorated due to a hunger strike aimed at pressuring authorities to release him. The outspoken reporter, whose plight...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Around 250 supporters of Akbar Ganji, the Iranian dissident journalist who has been on hunger strike for 63 days, held a peaceful protest on Thursday outside the hospital where he is being held. It was the latest effort by supporters of the maverick journalist, jailed in 2000 for "acting against national security" and other crimes, to call for his release and try to persuade him to end his hunger strike. Former student activist Ali Afshari said officials prevented a...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Dissident Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji is still on hunger strike, a hospital official was quoted as saying on Wednesday, contradicting an official from the conservative judiciary who said he was eating again. Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad said on Tuesday Ganji had ended his eight-week hunger strike after calls from his family and friends, who were concerned that he could die. But Sirus Tabesh, head of public relations at Tehran's Milad hospital, said this was...