Free Republic

The U.S. military says just over half of the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are on hunger strike. … Army Lt. Col. Samuel House says 16 of the 84 prisoners are being force-fed and five have been hospitalized. He says none of the hospitalized men have life-threatening conditions. …

ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago. I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity. I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial. I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I...

ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago. I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity. I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial. I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I...

Israel has rejected appeals to release a Palestinian Authority terrorist prisoner on a long-term hunger strike to the PA-assigned areas of Judea and Samaria, the PA’s prisoner affairs minister Issa Qaraqea told AFP on Saturday. Qaraqea said Israeli officials told him that Samer Issawi, who has intermittently refused food for more than eight months, "is in critical condition and might die at any moment." Issawi, 33, was first arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 26 years for terrorist activity. He was released in the Shalit deal in October 2011, but rearrested in July for violating the terms of the release...

Water and Energy Minister Uzi Landau – who has a rich defense background, having served in the past as Public Security Minister – said that Israel should respect the wishes of terrorists who preferred to starve themselves, and not try to figure out ways to convince them to eat. “This hunger strike and the riots in their wake is just another provocation by the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “We must not panic.” Speaking to Arutz Sheva Monday, Landau said that the PA was going out of its way to cause riots, as a “greeting,” and a message, to U.S. President...

Despite most of Congress leaving town for the holidays, postal workers are continuing a hunger strike protesting legislation to save the United States Postal Service (USPS) through budget cuts. The hunger strike began Tuesday and is expected to end late Saturday, according to The Washington Post. Six former and current postal workers, part of a group called Communities and Postal Workers United, are calling the strike “six days starving to save six-day delivery.” Their goal is to stop Congress from reducing postal delivery to five days a week. “We have to be on guard, to raise awareness and pressure the...

Palestinian Authority Arabs serving time in Israel for terror-related offenses are planning a new hunger strike, the PA Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs Isa Karake has announced. A previous hunger strike ended less than a month ago, when Israel caved in to several of the prisoners’ demands. The new hunger strike is to begin Monday and aims at obtaining release for three PA terrorists who never stopped the former hunger strike, Karake said. The three are Mahmoud El-Sarsak, Ikram El-Rihawi, and Samar El-Barq, who have refused to eat for 88, 60, and 40 days respectively. The PA is demanding that Israel...

The deal that ended the hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian Authority prisoners in Israel is a goodwill gesture to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the Prime Minister's Office says. Speaking for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, spokesman Mark Regev on Monday night called the deal brokered by Egyptian mediators a confidence-building gesture. The hunger strike by some 1,600 PA Arab prisoners in Israeli jails had lasted more than 40 days – and in the case of a few prisoners, past 70 days. Israeli security officials and representatives of PA terrorist organizations agreed to the deal after a meeting Monday at a...

MK Danny Danon (Likud) on Monday slammed a deal signed Monday between Israel's Shin Bet and hunger-striking Arab security prisoners being held on suspicion of terrorism. "This deal is a serious mistake," Danon said. "Rather than making things harder on the terrorists, they give them gifts." "The situation of security prisoners must be clear: no family visits, no special benefits, and key prisoners must be confined seperately," he added. "We would not allow a Hizbullah prisoner visits, and there is no reason to give Hamas prisoners visits," he said. "Both deny the existence of Israel." Danon told Arutz Sheva he...

A Palestinian Authority lawmaker says a deal has been reached with Israel to end a hunger strike by Arab prison inmates. The announcement confirmed a statement made earlier in the day by the Hamas terrorist organization that an agreement was in the process of being formulated. Hundreds of prisoners agreed Monday to end their strike after concessions were agreed to by the two sides, according to PA Minister for Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe, who spoke with reporters. The agreement, brokered by Egyptian mediators, was reached at a prison in Ashkelon, with representatives of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and...

Terrorists and security prisoners being held in Israeli jails will riot unless their demands are met immediately, MK Jamal Zahalka threatened Saturday night. Speaking at a demonstration in Jaffa in support of security prisoners who are on a hunger strike demanding that Israel end the practice of administrative detention, and allow them more family visits. The demonstration was one of dozens that took place in Israel and PA-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. Zahalka said that if Israel did not submit to the prisoners' demands, “the prisoners will soon begin to die, and we will have an intifada in the...

A dozen California State University students officially ended their hunger strike today after about a week of fasting in an effort to get university officials to comply with demands such as a tuition freeze and a rollback of administrator pay to 1999 levels. At midnight Thursday, the students decided to end the strike due to health concerns, . . .

A leader with the Islamic Jihad terror group warned on Sunday that the death of any hunger-striking prisoner in Israel will start the third intifada. The official, Mohammad Al-Hindi, was quoted by the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency as having said that the “battle of the empty stomachs”, in which more than 2,000 jailed Palestinian Authority Arab terrorist prisoners are refusing food, had overcome factional divisions. “This battle will be the gateway for Palestinian unity,” Al-Hindi told supporters of the hunger-strikers at a solidarity tent in central Gaza City. He urged cross-factional demonstrations to support the prisoners even if they lead...

Terrorist Hana Shalbi, who was rearrested following her release in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, ended her 43-day hunger strike, Thursday evening at the medical center of the Israel Prisons Service. The Islamic Jihad terrorist was protesting her rearrest. She was hospitalized because of a deterioration in her condition brought on by the..."

Islamic Jihad spokesman Khader Adnan said Tuesday he is ending his 66-day hunger strike after worldwide sympathy pressured the Justice Ministry to decide to end his administrative detention two months from now. Mainstream media have turned the terrorist leader into a victim and hero as he continued his hunger strike while under care in an Israeli hospital. The Islamic Jihad has been outlawed by the United States as a terror group. Eleven people were hurt Tuesday in a protest outside his prison cell near Jerusalem while he lay in his bed in Ziv Hospital, in Tzfat in northern Israel. Israeli...

Three members of the Occupy D.C. group said they will begin a hunger Three members of the Occupy D.C. group said they will begin a hunger strike Thursday, ceasing all eating in support of “D.C. democracy” and full voting rights for District residents. But not until after breakfast. Adrian Parsons, Sam Jewler and Kelly Mears began their fast at noon at McPherson Square Park in Northwest Washington. Their last meal consisted of carrot juice, spinach juice, stir-fried vegetables and tofu. At a news conference Thursday afternoon, protesters said they will sustain their hunger strike until D.C. is granted full voting...

Thousands of Palestinian Authority terrorists in Israeli jails launched a hunger strike on Wednesday, AFP reported. The French news agency quoted the PA’s minister for prisoners, Issa Qaraqa, as having told reporters in Ramallah, “I can confirm that all the prisoners in Israeli prisons have begun a three-day hunger strike, which could be increased, as a kind of warning to the Israeli administration.” According to Qaraqa, the strike was a protest against the policy of solitary confinement, and was called in solidarity with a group of prisoners from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He said that “around...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — More than 250 immigrants began a hunger strike in Greece on Tuesday, demanding to be legalized and challenging a Greek government crackdown on migrant trafficking. Some 200 immigrants, mostly from North Africa, launched the hunger strike at Athens University Law School after taking a ferry to Athens from the island of Crete. Supporters said 50 others went on a hunger strike in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. Police are forbidden by law to enter university grounds without special permission. The Socialist government flatly ruled out considering the demands. "There is no intention and no possibility...

On a rainy afternoon in mid-October 2005, a white bus climbed the brush-covered hills near Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, carrying a group of visitors to Camp Delta, the desolate spot on the island's southern coast where the U.S. military holds more than 500 prisoners captured in the war on terror. It rolled through the detention camp's stockade-style gate and turned onto the dirt track inside the outermost of three high fences. Like others in the small group of civilian doctors, psychologists, and ethicists visiting that day, I peered through the bus's windows, eager for a glimpse of detainees. Since our arrival...

University students across Texas this week joined San Antonio students in a hunger strike aimed at pressuring U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to vote for the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for students and soldiers brought to the country illegally as children. Started two weeks ago by a dozen students at the University of Texas at San Antonio, the hunger strike spread this week to UT campuses in Austin, Dallas, Arlington, Brownsville and Edinburg, as well as the University of North Texas in Denton, according to members of DREAM Act NOW!, the UTSA student...