What is a Hunger Strike?
Hunger strikes in prison are dangerous for both prisoners and jailers, but they are often the only way, or the last resort, for prisoners to protest the conditions of their confinement. Hunger strikes in prison can result in death when the government refuses to either negotiate or force-feed; this happened to members of the Irish Republican Army who went on a hunger strike in the Maze Prison in the early 1980s and to hunger strikers in Turkish prisons in 1996 and from 2000 to 2003.14 Hernan Reyes of the International Committee of the Red Cross has written the most authoritative article on hunger strikes, which he also terms “voluntary total fasting.”15 According to Reyes, fasting, voluntariness, and a stated purpose are all needed before a prisoner can be said to be on a hunger strike. Simply refusing to eat as a reaction to a specific situation, whether in frustration or anger, for example, does not qualify as a hunger strike. Thus, the initial rounds of fasting at Guantanamo in early
