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.
Mohandas Gandhi engaged in two famous hunger strikes. The first protested British rule of India; the second, autocratic rule in the newly self-governed India.
Bobby Sands was one of ten Irish nationalist prisoners who died due to a hunger strike in 1981. This hunger strike was a protest against the revocation by the British of a prisoner of war-like Special Category Status for paramilitary-linked prisoners held in Northern Ireland.
In a hunger strike beginning on August 15, 2004, 2,264 of 3,800 Palestinian prisoners in jails run by the Israeli prison service are now limited their food intake to liquids only. The strike was declared on Sunday to protest against conditions for Palestinians held by Israel. Support has been given my Yasser Arafat.
Israel has vowed not to give way, calling the protest a ploy to secure easier communication between prisoners and militant allies waging an uprising against Israeli occupation since 2000.
Many of the prisoners have either been convicted by Israeli courts of (or are awaiting trial for) violent acts against Israel (some have been convicted of attacking civilians) or for involvement with outlawed militant groups. A thousand or more prisoners are being detained indefinetly without charge, trial or POW status as administrative detainees or internees.
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