With all the national headlines over the last week — bombings and a manhunt in Boston, explosions in Texas, and the Senate’s great debate over gun control — a growing hunger strike by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay escaped most Americans’ notice.
The U.S. military says that 94 prisoners are now on a hunger strike at the detention facility, and the military is force feeding 17 of them. The prisoners’ attorneys dispute that number, stating that 130 of the 166 captives joined the strike two months ago. The Miami Herald’s website has an interactive graph tracking the U.S. military tally of hunger strikers at Guantanamo.
Miami Herald correspondent Carol Rosenberg recently returned from Guantanamo with the latest on the growing hunger strike and the prisoners’ demands.