Guantanamo detainees on hunger strike over isolation

Miami: Terrorism suspects at a maximum-security prison at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have resumed a mass hunger strike to protest the conditions of their detention, detainees' lawyers said on Sunday.

The on-again, off-again action involving at least 20 prisoners over the past few months started in January when more than 170 of the 385 men currently detained at Guantanamo were moved to the newest and harshest facility, Camp 6.

Many of the prisoners previously had been living in 10-bunk barracks or metal-mesh cages in open rows from which they could communicate with each other, play board games across adjoining cells and exercise in a communal sports court.

Provocation

Once the majority of the detainees were moved into the tougher Camps 5 and 6, some resumed a hunger strike that had lasted from late 2005 through January 2006 "in protest of their near complete isolation," said Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, attorney for Bahraini prisoner Isa Al Murbati.

Murbati told Bryan on a recent visit that a score of prisoners had resumed the strike, even though medical personnel force-feed any prisoner who has refused food for three days or more.

That force-feeding regime, conducted while the prisoner is lashed down in a "restraint chair," broke the previous hunger strike that at its peak involved more than 100 Guantanamo prisoners.