Free Republic

Army Private Chelsea Manning, the convicted source of the biggest intelligence leak in U.S. military history, began a hunger strike Friday over what she described as “constant and overzealous administrative scrutiny by prison and military officials.” Manning, 28, who is serving time in a federal prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, said in a statement released by her supporters that she will consume only water and prescription medicines starting Friday morning, and will forgo voluntarily cutting her hair. The incarcerated soldier said her protest is aimed at prompting officials to recognize her need for treatment, especially with respect to gender dysphoria,...

Terrorist Bilal Kayed, who was in administrative detention and is hospitalized at the Barzilai Hospital after hunger striking, has reached an agreement with Israeli authorities according to which he will be released from administrative detention and will stop his 70-day hunger strike. Kayed's lawyers reached an agreement with the state that his administrative detention will not be renewed after six months unless new information emerges which supports his staying in jail. The agreement will be brought before the High Court on Thursday as part of the petition presented by the terrorist against his administrative detention. Kayed, 35, a resident of...

<p>The Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky has been on hunger strike at his home in Cambridge for more than a week in protest at what he calls the “Kafkaesque” British judicial system.</p> <p>Bukovsky was charged last year with child pornography offences. He strenuously denies the allegations. In August he took the unusual step of suing the Crown Prosecution Service for libel: he is seeking £100,000 in damages and claims the CPS has “falsely and maliciously” hurt his reputation.</p>

A hunger-striking Palestinian security prisoner is to remain in Israeli jail despite warnings over his deteriorating health, the country's top court ruled Wednesday. The Supreme Court said it would not release Mohammed al-Qiq immediately but would follow his health on a daily basis. Qiq has been on hunger strike for 63 days over his detention under Israel's administrative detention law and his organs are at risk of failure any day, his legal team claims. The European Union on Wednesday said it was "especially concerned" about his deteriorating health. His lawyer Jawad Boulus asked the Supreme Court to release him but...

Israeli authorities said late Wednesday they had freed Mohammed Allan, a Palestinian Arab terrorist who held a two-month hunger strike in an attempt to pressure Israel to free him. "Mohammed Allan has just been released," Sivan Weizman, a spokeswoman for Israel Prisons Service, said in a message quoted by AFP. Allan's father Nasser al-Din Allan told AFP earlier that he would take his son for a hospital checkup on Thursday. Allan was arrested in November 2014 and held under a measure known as administrative detention. He first began his high-profile 65-day hunger strike in June in protest of his administrative...

Israel last August 26 ended Operation Protective Edge by sealing a ceasefire agreement with a confederation of terrorist organizations in Gaza, foremost among them Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but that deal now appears to be on the brink of collapse. Khaled Al-Batash, a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, announced his organization may soon breach the agreement, in statements made during a speech to Islamic Jihad members at an event showing support for Khader Adnan, a jailed Islamic Jihad leader hunger-striking in an Israeli prison. Al-Batash said that if Adnan dies as a result of his hunger-strike, the...

A Palestinian Arab terrorist held in an Israeli jail and on hunger strike for 53 days is in a critical condition and could die "at any moment," his lawyer said Saturday. "Khader Adnan may suddenly die at any moment, doctors have confirmed to me," Jawad Boulos, legal counsel for the Ramallah-based Prisoners Club of the Palestinian Authority (PA) told AFP. He said he received a call in the middle of the night saying "that the doctors at the Israeli hospital, where Khadar Adnan is currently held, were on alert due to the deterioration of his condition." Khader Adnan has portrayed...

Loretta Lynch is still waiting to be confirmed as attorney general, and her allies are hoping a hunger strike will do the trick. The advocacy group founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton, along with female civil-rights leaders, are launching the hunger strike – where groups of fasters will alternate days abstaining from food until Lynch is confirmed to replace Eric Holder at the Justice Department. Dubbed “Confirm Loretta Lynch Fast,” the new tactic is designed in the mold of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Cesar Chavez, organizers said.

Ebola crisis: Guinea hunger strike at village occupationA hunger strike has been launched in Guinea in protest against the military's presence in a village where an Ebola awareness team was killed in September. About 20 leaders from the southern Wome village are camping outside parliament since launching the strike. The "military occupation" of Wome had forced some 6,000 people to flee their homes, an opposition leader said. The government and military have not commented on the allegations.

Jawad Boulos, head of the legal department at the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, said that the prisoners have threatened that all political prisoners will join together in a large-scale hunger strike if Israel does not change its position on the newly passed ‘Life without Parole’ bill. At the end of his visit in the “Gilboa” Detention Center, Boulos said that the political prisoners, some of whom are already on a hunger strike, have said the strike would go on without limitations. ...

A federal judge has lifted a temporary restraining order that had stopped the U.S. military from force feeding a hunger-striking prisoner at Guantanamo Bay naval base, saying the man’s life hangs in the balance. Late Thursday night, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said the military must be allowed to carry out force feeding in the case of Abu Wa’el Dhiab because of the “very real probability that Mr. Dhiab will die.” …

Beijing - Furious Chinese families threatened on Tuesday to go on hunger strike until the Malaysian government tells them the truth about the fate of their relatives aboard a Malaysia Airlines flight which went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Ten days after the airliner vanished an hour into its flight, hundreds of family members are still waiting for information in a Beijing hotel. Around two thirds of the 239 passengers on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are Chinese. :snip: Speaking to reporters, a woman who had led the chanting held up a piece of paper with slogans...

Up to 130 hunger strikers protesting for a fourth day against US deportations and conditions at a Washington State immigration facility were being evaluated by medical officials on Monday and could be force-fed, a federal agency said. Force-feeding "only happens when it is absolutely medically necessary," Andrew Munoz, an ICE spokesman in Seattle, told Reuters. "The main concern is to ensure [the hunger strikers] remain healthy." Some 130 immigrant detainees out of a total of about 1,300 were refusing food at the privately run Northwest Detention Center, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement. It added...

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik threatened to go on hunger strike for better video games and other perks to alleviate his "torture"-like prison conditions, in a letter received by AFP Friday. The right-wing extremist -- who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting rampage on July 22, 2011 -- enclosed a typed list of 12 demands sent to prison authorities in November. He also demanded the replacement of a PlayStation 2 games console for a more recent PS3 "with access to more adult games that I get to choose myself" "Other inmates have access to adult games while I...

OJ Simpson has gone on hunger strike in prison, saying, 'I used to live my way, and now I'm going to die my way,' sources have claimed. The jailed former football star, who is serving out a kidnapping, assault and robbery sentence in a Nevada prison, is reportedly so depressed that he wants to 'just sit down in a corner and die'. Sources spoke to the National Enquirer about Simpson's hunger strike and worsening health. His attorneys have yet to respond to a request for comment. The source claimed that Simpson, 66, who is eligible for parole in 2017 after...

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) called for the recapture of Samer Issawi, the jailed terrorist who was released Monday after a 266 day hunger strike. Just after his release, Liberman notes that Issawi called for the kidnapping of IDF soldiers, saying "the release of prisoners will only be achieved through kidnapping and prisoner exchange deals, nothing will be achieved without that." ..... In 2002 Issawi was sentenced to 26 years in jail for terrorism, going free after a mere 10 years in the deal to free Gilad Shalit. After signing a promise not to return to terrorist activities, Issawi...

A terrorist prisoner who went on a hunger strike in order to pressure Israel to release him was released on Monday from an Israeli prison. According to The Associated Press (AP), Samer Issawi returned home to a joyous welcome from friends and family. Issawi’s on and off hunger strike lasted for more than eight months, until he agreed to a deal with Israel last April. Issawi agreed to serve eight months for violating bail conditions and then be freed to his Jerusalem home. On Monday evening, he underwent a medical exam in an ambulance parked outside the prison in northern...

U.S. military officials at the Guantánamo Bay prison announced Monday that they will stop releasing daily hunger strike updates because they say the number of protesters has steadily dropped to a core group of 19 defiant prisoners. For months, the U.S. military has issued reports each day listing the number of hunger strikers during one of the most sustained protests at the prison on the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The prison opened in January 2002 to hold “enemy combatants” in the early days of the war in Afghanistan. …

District of Columbia prosecutors say a German man charged with killing his elderly wife is forfeiting his right to be present for his own trial by engaging in lengthy hunger strikes, and a judge would be authorized to proceed without him. Albrecht Muth is awaiting trial in the August 2011 strangulation and beating death of his 91-year-old wife Viola Drath, a fellow German expatriate and journalist, inside the couple’s Georgetown row home. His periodic bouts of starvation, and resulting physical weakness and hospital stays, have delayed court proceedings and exasperated the judge and lawyers on both sides. …

A federal judge dismissed a suit from a Guantanamo detainee who argued that the government will infringe upon his religious freedom by force-feeding him during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which begins Tuesday. Jihad Dhiab, a Syrian detainee who was cleared for release by the Guantanamo Review Task Force in 2009 but has remained imprisoned, sued with three other detainees over the military's policy of forcibly feeding detainees who are on hunger strike and lose a certain amount of their body weight ... U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia does...