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Hunger Strike

Hunger Strike: Yemeni People Are Being Starved

May 8, 2021 Loretta Graceffo, Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
During the early days of the war, when Iman Saleh called her family in Yemen, they would lie to reassure her they were safe. “They would always say, ‘Don’t worry, it’s happening far from us,’” Saleh said. “It felt like I was becoming a burden to them, because now they were trying to make me feel better, on top of trying to survive.” Now, when Saleh calls her family in Yemen, she simply asks how their day is going. For the past six years, the 26-year-old organizer from Detroit has struggled with survivor’s guilt, watching her homeland ravaged by a war between the U.S.-backed Saudi coalition and the Houthi rebels. As a founding member of the Detroit-based Yemeni Liberation Movement, Saleh works to educate and mobilize the Yemeni diaspora for an end to the war.

US Army Corps Of Engineers Permit Big Oil To Dredge Mercury-Contaminated Matagorda Bay

April 30, 2021 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Texas shrimper, fisherwoman and internationally known environmentalist Diane Wilson is on Day 22 of her hunger strike to gain national solidarity and publicity for pressure on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rescind its permit for big oil to dredge a channel in mercury laden Matagorda Bay, Texas.  The dredged channel would allow massive oil tankers into the bay to take on crude oil that will be exported from the U.S. “I am risking my life to stop the reckless destruction of my community. Oil and gas export terminals like the project I am fighting pollute our air, water, and climate — only to pad the pockets of fossil fuel CEOs,” said Diane Wilson. “The Biden Administration needs to stop the dredging and stop oil and gas exports.”

72-Year-Old Fisher Hunger Strikes For Crude Oil Export Ban

April 24, 2021 Candice Bernd, Truthout. , , ,
Texas - Seventy-two-year-old, fourth-generation retired shrimper Diane Wilson has been without food for 16 days. Her 1995 red Chevy, nicknamed “Rosie,” has become a mobile campsite, and each morning she posts up on a causeway at the waterfront of Texas’ Lavaca Bay, expending just enough energy to switch out a sign displaying the number of days she’s been on hunger strike and drape a banner off the side of the truck blaring the message: “STOP THE DREDGING. STOP OIL EXPORT.” She hopes her hunger strike will draw enough attention to pressure the Biden administration stop Houston-based oil and gas firm Max Midstream’s plans to invest $360 million to deepen and widen the Matagorda Ship Channel by 2023.

Hunting In Yemen

April 14, 2021 Kathy Kelly, Counterpunch. , , ,
Since March 29, in Washington, D.C., Iman Saleh, age 26, has been on a hunger strike to demand an end to the war in Yemen. She is joined by five others from her  group, The Yemeni Liberation Movement. The hunger strikers point out that enforcement of the Saudi Coalition led blockade relies substantially on U.S. weaponry. Saleh decries the prevention of fuel from entering a key port in Yemen’s northern region. “When people think of famine, they wouldn’t consider fuel as contributing to that, but when you’re blocking fuel from entering the main port of a country, you’re essentially crippling the entire infrastructure,” said Saleh  “You can’t transport food, you can’t power homes, you can’t run hospitals without fuel.”

Government Offices Occupied Across Nova Scotia

April 1, 2021 Robert Devet, Nova Scotia Advocate. , , ,
Kjipuktuk (Halifax) – After 23 days Jacob Fillmore is ending his hunger strike in support of a temporary clearcutting moratorium on Nova Scotia Crown lands. He made the announcement during a well-attended rally at Province House, the third one in as many weeks. “I am feeling increasingly weaker, especially mentally things are getting harder and harder,” he told an appreciative and grateful crowd. This fight is far from over. As I take a step back folks across the province are stepping up,” he said.  “If asking politely doesn’t work, we are not afraid to resort to peaceful nonviolent direct action. When I started my hunger strike, I was in despair. I saw the destruction of the environment happening around me and I could not figure out how to change it.

I’m On Hunger Strike In Guantánamo

February 27, 2021 Ahmed Rabbani, Truthout. , , ,
There are very few freedoms at Guantánamo Bay prison, where I have been held without charge or trial — referred to as Guantánamo ISN 1461 — for over 16 years. The right to starve myself is one of them, but even then, they force-feed me, to spare themselves the embarrassment of my death. Back in Pakistan, before I was kidnapped and tortured and flown halfway around the world in chains, I loved cooking. There is nothing more satisfying than preparing a hot meal for your family and sharing it with them. Here, I am allowed to cook for my fellow prisoners, but only in a microwave, and the guards could take even that away at any time. I never eat the food myself. I have been on hunger strike for seven years in protest at my indefinite detention.

Hunger Strike, Activists Take Fight Against Scrapper To City Hall

February 27, 2021 Maxwell Evans, Block Club Chicago. , , ,
Chicago - Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) announced Tuesday he will join 10 hunger strikers fighting to block another polluter from receiving the city’s approval to operate on the Southeast Side. As the Pilsen alderman joined the strike, United Neighbors of the 10th Ward member Breanna Bertacchi, Southeast Youth Alliance founder Oscar Sanchez and George Washington High School teacher Chuck Stark wrapped up their 20th day without food. They’ll complete their third week Wednesday. The three initial strikers and eight others who have joined the fast in recent weeks are demanding the Chicago Department of Public Health deny an operating permit to Southside Recycling, a metal scrapper planned for 11600 S. Burley Ave. in East Side.

Hunger Strikes At Three New Jersey Prisons

January 9, 2021 Sara Flounders, Workers.org. , , ,
The filthy conditions, indefinite incarceration and escalating COVID infections have touched off desperate hunger strikes at three New Jersey county jails. Each  jail operates as a prison-for-profit, renting space at $120 a day for ICE to jail out-of-state migrant detainees. The N.J. counties use the contracts to generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue annually. Immigrant detention has become a moneymaking “cash cow” raising more than $87 million in revenue. There are four immigration detention facilities in New Jersey — Bergen, Essex, and Hudson County jails, and the Elizabeth Detention Center, run by CoreCivic, the private prison-for-profit company.

Prison Strikers Suspend Starvation, Continue Work Strike

December 4, 2020 Oakland Abolition and Solidarity. , , ,
Corcoran, CA - CDCr’s negligent and careless response to the COVID-19 outbreak at CSATF has now killed at least three people. Active cases at the prison continue to hover near 1000 and now over half of the facility has contracted the disease. Guards and staff members are still failing to follow safety protocols and continue to move people around the facility creating more and more exposure. The hunger strikers in D have decided to suspend their starvation in order to recover their health for an ongoing fight.

Hunger Strike Enters Third Week At California’s Largest Prison

November 18, 2020 Ryan Fatika, Perilous Chronicle. , , ,
In the southern part of California’s Central Valley, about halfway between Bakersfield and Fresno, sits Corcoran, California—a small farming town surrounded on all sides by acres of cotton and tomato fields. Perched at the town’s southern tip are two of the state’s largest prisons. Together, their denizens make up about 33% of the population of Corcoran. One of the facilities, the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (CSATF), is the state’s single largest, housing 4,481 prisoners, about 130% of its intended capacity.

Palestinian Maher al-Akhras Wins Freedom After 103 Day Hunger Strike

November 7, 2020 Almasdarnews.com. , , ,
The Palestinian Prisoner Club said in a statement on Friday, “After 103 days of the heroic hunger strike by the prisoner Maher Al-Akhras, which brought the issue of the captive movement and administrative arrests back to the fore, as this strike was accompanied by a popular mass movement in all places of our Palestinian people. The statement continued: “In light of the orientation of our people, the prisoner movement and leaders of our people, and with the efforts of the Palestinian National Authority and the brothers in the Supreme Follow-up Committee for the Arab masses at home and...

The Pseudo-Judicial Execution Of Maher al-Akhras

November 3, 2020 Yoav Haifawi, Mondoweiss. , , ,
Tuesday, November 3, will be the hundredth day of the hunger strike of Maher al-Akhras. That is, if he will still be alive. His body, deprived of all the vital ingredients for life except for water, is betraying him ever more. He shivers and trembles, suffers from all kinds of pains and sometimes loses his consciousness. Israel is now waging a deadly campaign, over al Akhras’ decaying body, to rob the Palestinians of their weapon of last resort – hunger strikes. This weapon, which involves endless suffering and dangers, is anyway only used against the harshest and most brutal cases of injustice, like, in al-Akhras’ case...

How Maher al-Akhras Is Resisting Israel’s Administrative Detention

November 2, 2020 Neve Gordon, Middle East Eye. , , ,
Facing imminent death, 49-year-old Maher al-Akhras has been refusing to eat in prison for more than three months. The Palestinian father of six has been protesting his repeated arbitrary arrests; he is currently in administrative detention, without charge or trial. Like many hunger strikers before him, Akhras does not seek death, although he is evidently prepared to die. The hunger strike is his way of refusing to become a modern-day Sisyphus, completing one administrative detention only to begin another. Reclaiming his body from the hands of Israeli authorities, he now wields his own life as a card to make a straightforward and just demand: Put me on trial or release me.

IADL Demands Immediate Release Of Palestinian Maher al-Akhras

October 27, 2020 the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. , , ,
IADL calls for the immediate release of Maher al-Akhras, a Palestinian man and father of six, jailed by Israel without charge or trial. As IADL convenes its Council, al-Akhras has been on hunger strike for 91 days to protest his arbitrary detention and demand his freedom. His health condition is increasingly critical and his life is at grave risk. Al-Akhras is jailed under Israel’s policy of administrative detention, used routinely against Palestinians. These detention orders may be issued for up to six months at a time, and they are indefinitely renewable.

Life Of Palestinian Hunger Striker In Immediate Danger

October 25, 2020 Yoav Haifawi, Mondoweiss. , , ,
Maher al-Akhras, who has been on a hunger strike since his administrative detention on July 27, is waging a battle against the mighty Israeli occupation apparatus.  Every day brings him closer to death, as Israel seems to be trying to prove through his case that the life of Palestinians, like their freedom and human rights, are worth nothing. But the formidable insistence of his hunger strike against the principle of administrative detention, and his determination that the strike will end only once he is free or becomes a martyr, is mobilizing more and more people to his support.
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