Hunger strike

From Freepedia

A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest or to achieve a goal such as a policy change.

Contents

Mahatma Gandhi

In 1922, 1930, 1933 and 1942 Mahatma Gandhi was sent to prison. The British authorities could not let him die as Gandhi was very well known and Britain’s reputation would have suffered. Gandhi would not martyr himself without reason. He knew how to sacrifice in ways which had political value.

Mohandas Gandhi engaged in two famous hunger strikes. The first protested British rule of India; the second, autocratic rule in the newly independent India.

Irish republicans

Bobby Sands was the first of ten Irish republican paramilitary prisoners to die during a hunger strike in 1981. This hunger strike was a protest against the revocation by the British government of a prisoner-of-war-like Special Category Status for paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland. There was widespread support for the hunger strikers from Irish republicans and the broader nationalist community on both sides of the Irish border. Some of the hunger strikers were elected to both the Irish and British parliaments by an electorate who wished to register their disgust at the intransigent attitude of the British government. The men survived without food for ten weeks on average, taking only water and salt. After the deaths of the men and following severe public disorder, the British government granted politically motivated prisoners Special Category Status. The hunger strikes gave a huge propaganda boost to a severely demoralised IRA. The tactic was not new, having been used by republicans from 1917 and subsequently during the Anglo-Irish War in the 1920's, most famously by the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney, who died on hunger strike in Brixton prison in 1921. Earlier hunger strikes had been countered by force-feeding which culminated in 1917 in the death of Thomas Ashe in Mountjoy Prison.

Political prisoners in Turkey

Inspired by the Irish Republicans, Turkish political prisoners developed a tradition of hunger strikes, which continues to this day. After the suppression of rising civil socialist movements by a military coup in 1980, many militants as well as civil activists were imprisoned under highly inhumane conditions. In response to torture and mistreatment of political prisoners, the first hunger strike was launched in 1984, taking the lives of 4 Dev-Sol militants, Abdullah Meral, Haydar Başbağ, Fatih Öktülmüş and Hasan Telci.

In the following years, socialist movements have been increasingly marginalized and moved underground. However, many militant Marxist/Leninist groups have survived. For this reason, the number of political prisoners has always been high. In 1996, when the nationalist minister of the Islamist/conservative government launched a policy on segregation of political prisoners from each other, another hunger strike broke down, with the participation of several leftist militant groups. The strike lasted 69 days, took 12 lives, and the indifferent attitude of the government provoked a strong public protest. As a result, with the initiative of intellectuals including Yaşar Kemal, Zülfü Livaneli, and Orhan Pamuk, a deal was achieved between the government and prisoners. The prisoners took most of their rights back, which they recall as a victory.

The last wave of hunger strikes in Turkey, which has become chronical in recent years, was started against F-type prisons, which were designed for efficient segregation of political prisoners. The project was developed starting in 1997, and the strike was started on October 20, 2000, demanding F-type prisons not to be opened, by a large coalition of militant groups, this time including the Kurdish-separatist militants of PKK. The result was tragic, on December 19, 2000, the now democratic left-extreme nationalist coalition decided to break the strike using force, which was named "Back to life" operation. The operation was faced by a well-organized resistance of prisoners, resulting in the death of 28 prisoners and 2 soldiers. Since then, both F-type prisons and related hunger strikes has become an issue of daily life. According to the organization of prisoner relatives, 101 prisoners have died and above 400 hundred have suffered from unrecoverable disease, particularly Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. The governments have been consistently denying claims about mistreatment of prisoners, and president Ahmet Necdet Sezer has been pardoning diseased prisoners, only to be critisized by extreme-right, since many of the released militants have been caught or killed in clashes with security forces. The government maintains that 189 hunger strikers received presidential pardons since 2000.

British suffragettes

In the early 20th Century suffragettes frequently endured hunger strikes in British prisons. Marion Dunlop was the first in 1909. She was released as the authorities did not want her to become a martyr. Other suffragettes in prison also undertook hunger strikes. The prison authorities subjected them to force-feeding, which they categorised as a form of torture. Mary Clarke and several others died as a result of force-feeding.

In 1913 the Prisoner's Temporary Discharge of Ill Health Act (nicknamed the "Cat and Mouse Act") changed policy. Hunger strikes were tolerated but prisoners were released when they became sick. When they had recovered, the suffragettes were taken back to prison to finish their sentences.

Gwynfor Evans

In 1980, the Welsh nationalist politician Gwynfor Evans threatened to go on hunger strike in order to hold the newly-elected Conservative government to its election promise to set up a Welsh-language TV channel. The government capitulated and the channel was on air by the end of the year.

Animal rights

British animal rights activist, Barry Horne, died in November 2001 after a series of four hunger strikes, the longest of which lasted 68 days.


Akbar Ganji

Akbar Ganji is an Iranian journalist imprisoned in Evin prison since April 22,2000. Ganji has been on a hunger strike since May 19, 2005 [1] except for a 12-day period of leave he was granted on May 30, 2005 ahead of the ninth presidential elections on June 17, 2005. He is represented by a group of lawyers, including the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Shirin Ebadi. While on hunger strike Ganji wrote two letters to the free people of the world: 1 2. On July 12, 2005 the White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in a statement that the US president, George W. Bush, called on Iran to release Ganji "immediately and unconditionally." "Mr. Ganji is sadly only one victim of a wave of repression and human rights violations engaged in by the Iranian regime," "His calls for freedom deserve to be heard. His valiant efforts should not go in vain. The president calls on all supporters of human rights and freedom, and the United Nations, to take up Ganji's case and the overall human rights situation in Iran." "Mr. Ganji, please know that as you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you," the statement said.

Guantanamo Bay hunger strikes

During the summer of 2005 the security detainees the United States is holding in their prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base, initiated two widespread hunger strikes.

The first hunger strike ended on July 28, 2005, when prison authorities agreed to make concessions. According to some accounts half a dozen detainees were then close to death. According to some accounts so many detainees were being forced to receive intravenous rehydration that the prison's well-equipped infirmary was overwhelmed and detainees had to be transferred to the Naval hospital.

According to human rights workers the prison authorities had a "waiver form" they called upon detainees to sign if they wanted to refuse intravenous rehydration. But the detainees have all been advised, by their lawyers, not to sign anything their lawyers haven't reviewed.

One concession the American authorities acknowledge making was to supply the detainees with a bottle of clean water to drink with each meal.

The detainees reported, to their lawyers, that the prison authorities had agreed that they would begin to treat them in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions. And when, a week later, it was obvious that the prison authorities were not abiding by their commitment, they initiated a second hunger strike in early August.

One of the hunger strikers, 18 year old Omar Khadr, has told his lawyer that other triggers for the hunger strike include the detainees ongoing concerns that the guards are showing disrespect for their religion, including turning on loud fans, playing loud music, and whistling, to informally disrupt the detainees' prayer meetings. Khadr reports that the prison authorities are not honoring their obligation to broadcast the call to prayers five times a day, but rather only four times a day. Khadr reports that many of the detainees resent that the prison authorities are delegating female GIs to broadcast the call to prayer.

DoD spokesman Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico asserted on July 21, 2005 that only 50 detainees were involved in the first hunger strike. DoD spokesman Brad Blackner asserted on September 2, 2005 that 76 detainees were participating in the second hunger strike. Human-rights workers estimate that both hunger strikes have between 150 and 200 participants.

Reference

External link

Retrieved from "http://en.freepedia.org/Hunger_strike.html"


Views
Personal tools
In other languages
Similar Links