Free Republic

....two congressional hopefuls have gone on hunger strike to demand a debate with Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.). "The hunger has almost disappeared except when there's food around and TV ads and stuff. The Hometown Buffet commercial is one of the worst. They are an all-you-can-eat buffet," said Mike Benoit, the libertarian candidate in the three-way race. The strike started with Democrat Ray Lutz, who said he got the idea from former California Rep. Jim Bates. Benoit immediately joined in. The pair are on their fifth day of a hunger strike they started at sundown on Aug. 12. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41193.html#ixzz0wxccdx3P

SANTA CLARA, Cuba – Cuban opposition activist Guillermo Farinas ended his 134-day hunger strike Thursday, following signs the communist government is making good on its promise to release 52 political prisoners...

When some 20 UC Berkeley students announced on May 3 that they were launching a hunger strike to protest the new Arizona immigration law, they also issued a set of "demands." They demanded that Chancellor Robert Birgeneau denounce the Arizona law, rehire laid-off janitors and drop disciplinary actions against students arrested after a violent protest. You knew how the story would end before it ended. The administration would kowtow to student activists by agreeing to meet with them and behave as if their demands merited serious consideration. Most of the activists' impossible demands would remain unmet. Then - as happened...

BERKELEY — UC Berkeley protesters ended a 10-day hunger strike Wednesday with a ceremonial meal of corn on the cob. The mostly Latino group of 18 students and workers went on strike in front of the administration building May 3 demanding school Chancellor Robert Birgeneau denounce Arizona's new law that allows police to question the immigration status of anyone they stop for other crimes. They also had a host of other demands. Birgeneau denounced the new law, but stopped short of the other demands until the strikers met with him Wednesday. During the strike four students had to be hospitalized...

BERKELEY — UC Berkeley police this morning peacefully dispersed a gathering of hunger strikers who have been camped out on campus for a week, but protesters say they plan to continue their efforts. Students and others have been protesting on the front lawn of California Hall since last Monday. The 19 individuals on the hunger strike have demands of denouncing racist legislation in Arizona, creating a sanctuary on campus and ending retaliation against student and worker activists. A rally has been planned today at 3:30 p.m. to increase the pressure on the administration. In addition, regularly scheduled demonstrations have been...

Saying the University of California's sharply misguided priorities call for unprecedented and unified action, two University of California employees represented by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 have joined students in a hunger strike at the UC Berkeley campus. Today's action comes after workers last week called on prominent graduation speakers at UC campuses statewide to refuse to deliver their commencement addresses unless workers' demands are met (see list of demands below). Abel Salas, a gardener at UC Berkeley, and the latest addition to the hunger strikers, said, "It is the most important thing...

BERKELEY -- A group of UC Berkeley students started a hunger strike Monday to demand that the university oppose the new Arizona immigration law, drop disciplinary charges against protesters from the occupation of Wheeler Hall earlier this year, rehire laid off janitors and make the campus a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. Latino groups on the Cal campus called the hunger strike at noon Monday.

1700 employees of Wagon Pars Company in Arak have gone on a hunger strike to protest the company's failure to pay their wages and pension. ILNA's Kar news agency reports that this is the ninth protest organized by the employees this year. The workers have announced that if their demands are not met, they will block the highway entrance to the City of Arak. Mohammad Reza Madahi, deputy chief of the company's Islamic Workers Association announced: " 75 days of unpaid wages and retiree pensions and benefits" were the cause of the protests in the past six months. Wagon Pars...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - After more than five years, the Pentagon revealed why it is holding a Saudi nicknamed "the Professor" at Guantanamo Bay, saying he once lived with a Sept. 11 conspirator and received a stipend from Osama bin Laden. Shaker Aamer's lawyer denies the allegations, made after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week requested the release of the Saudi, who has been an unofficial leader among the detainees, and four other former residents of Britain. The Bush administration, which has been urging other nations to accept Guantanamo prisoners amid international pressure to close the military jail,...

SANTA CRUZ -- More than 100 students and staff from UC Santa Cruz gathered at the foot of campus Tuesday to launch a hunger strike aimed at urging administrators to reverse course on budget cuts that opponents say disproportionately affect students of color. About two dozen people, some attending the noon rally organized by the nascent Students of Color Collective, pledged not to take nourishment until a long list of demands is met. The demands include blocking cuts to the Community Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies departments, as well as hiring full-time directors for the American Indian Resource...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The U.S. has rejected a Guantanamo prisoner's proposal to end his 3 1/2-year hunger strike in exchange for easing his conditions at the American prison in Cuba, saying such a deal would undermine security and encourage similar protests. A federal judge in Washington had urged U.S. authorities to consider the proposed deal in the case of Ahmed Zuhair, a Saudi prisoner who has refused to eat since the summer of 2005 and is force-fed a liquid nutrient mix to keep him alive.

PARIS, France (AP) -- He helped wreck a McDonald's restaurant, campaigned for the French presidency and now is refusing food to protest genetically modified corn. Jose Bove, France's most famously militant farmer, and about 15 supporters launched a hunger strike to pressure the government to ban cultivation of genetically modified corn. "We will hold out for as long as it takes," the mustachioed sheep farmer, an unsuccessful presidential candidate last April, said Thursday. Bove, who is in his mid-50s, ate only vegetable soup for eight days before the fast to accustom his body to the lack of food,

Wearing an armband with the word "fast" on it, Sofi Shank admits that her decision to put her body on the line for her beliefs isn't sitting well with her parents. "They're really concerned about my health," said Shank, 19, a University of Minnesota freshman. "My dad hasn't been getting sleep; he's been calling me all the time." On Monday, Shank was one of 11 university students who began a hunger strike in support of striking clerical, health care and technical workers. The students -- who are also being joined by one professor and a university civil service employee --...

Marghi Dutton is 90 and losing her eyesight, but nothing was going to stop her from trekking to midspan of the Golden Gate Bridge on Sunday with the anti-war group Code Pink: Women for Peace. She joined a crowd of about 100 demonstrators dressed in hot pink hats, shirts and scarves and fought the wind to raise her sign: "Impeach Bush and Cheney!" "My arms are aching, but I'm getting energy from the drivers - so many are honking in support," she said. Code Pink, a national grassroots peace movement inspired by Bay Area women, organized the protest to call...

/begin my excerpt S. Korea: Some Hostages on Hunger Strike Al Jazeera reported on 8 o'clock news(S. Korean time?) that some S. Korean hostages are on hunger strike. James Bay, Al Jazeera's Kabul correspondent, said that the hostages are divided into multiple groups and kept separately, and some are on hunger strike, according to an Afghan official who visited one of the groups. According to the official, the hostages are on hunger strike to protest their extended captivity. /end my excerpt

Bay area CODEPINK member collapsed in Lieberman's office after 10 days of an ongoing hunger-strike to gain a meeting with the Senator. Outraged by Senator Lieberman's comments on CBS on June 15 about wanting to bomb Iran, CODEPINK member Leslie Angeline, 50, decided to start a hunger strike until she could meet with the senator. A meeting was scheduled then cancelled by Lieberman's office, resulting in over 50 members of CODEPINK and Iranian, Iraqi, Israeli and Jewish communities to converge on the Senator's office. 3 days later the Senator from Connecticut repeated his accusations and proposed military attack against Iran....

Daniel Weissman doesn't feel the hunger pains anymore, and the reddish stubble on his cheeks has stopped growing. He gets confused more easily. But the main problem is the cold. Although the temperature was a moderate 53 degrees, the 22-year-old Stanford University physics graduate student was layered in two pairs of pants, a down vest, a hooded sweatshirt, a flannel shirt, a sweater, a knit cap and fingerless gloves to keep warm on his eighth day of a hunger strike demanding the university revise its living-wage policy for low-end workers such as janitors and groundskeepers. "We'll do this as long...

When hunger pangs hit Patricia Brooks, she turns to stitching. Her needle flashes silver as she stitches squares of purple and blue, pink and red. It may also be her message of goodbye to her two granddaughters, ages 5 and 7. Brooks, 68, who lives in a subsidized senior-citizen apartment in Coupeville, Island County, has been on a hunger strike since Sept. 11. A longtime activist who joined Coupeville Peace and Reconciliation on the street corner at Highway 20 and Main Street, Brooks was frustrated over the lack of progress in ending the war in Iraq. "I have been in...

SADDAM HUSSEIN ended his 19-day hunger strike last Wednesday with a meal of beef, rice and Coca-Cola, but he had little to show for his starvation. Iraqis in particular, living day-to-day with brutal sectarian violence, viewed Mr. Hussein’s self-sacrifice as an insult. “Saddam’s hunger strike didn’t work because it came from someone who is finished in Iraq and has no political or personal value for the Iraqi people,” said Fauwzya al-Attiya, a sociologist at Baghdad University. “Most of us wish he was executed just to end this problem so we can face our other problems.” But if Mr. Hussein tarnished...

Five antiwar activists, four of whom have been on a hunger strike for 25 days, were arrested yesterday... {snip} The arrests occurred after the five blocked the entrance and ignored police orders to move..... Three of the people arrested are members of CodePink, including its co-founder, Diane Wilson of Seadrift, Tex.