Hunger Strike Spreads to Half of Gitmo

84 detainees join protest
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 22, 2013 7:23 AM CDT
Hunger Strike Spreads to Half of Gitmo
This April 16, 2013 video frame grab reviewed by the US military shows live streaming video of detainees' cells at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.   (AP Photo/Suzette Laboy)

Guantanamo Bay's hunger strike is spreading fast. Eighty-four of 166 detainees are now engaged in the protest, up from 52 less than a week ago, the BBC reports. Sixteen are being force-fed and five have been hospitalized. "How can the military, even the military, hope to maintain discipline over a prison camp where there is absolutely no hope for those men confined here?" asks a US military lawyer. In the Independent, detainee Shaker Aamer puts the number striking at "well over 100." "I remember the motto on the New Hampshire license plate: Live Free or Die. I may have to die," he writes. Another striker voiced his views last week. (More Guantanamo Bay stories.)

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