The hunger-strike man Anna Hazare deployed it again,the Aam Aadmi Partys Gopal Rai tried unsuccessfully to share his pangs till booted out,and Devyani Khobragades father has now threatened to go on one. Even if Irom Sharmila now fasts almost in the shadows,clearly the hunger strike,or its more extreme form fast unto death,is the easy mode of choice in India when it comes to getting instant attention and almost-instant moral high ground,given the long association of hunger strikes with Mahatma Gandhi. However,it isnt just back home that people have realised this. Some publications have even noted that 2013 was the year of the hunger strike: Israel Alaa Hammad,the Israeli prisoner with Jordanian citizenship,has carried on an open-ended hunger strike in an Israeli prison since May 2. After a brief suspension,he resumed it on December 9. Denied family visits for seven years,he was originally on hunger strike along with four other prisoners. There were several reports of Israeli prison guards brutally attacking the already weak strikers. After severe health consequences,the other four ended their strikes. Hammad suspended his strike after the prison agreed to facilitate visits. His aunts and uncles visited on December 8,but no progress was made to allow his wife and children to visit. Hammad was arrested while visiting relatives in the West Bank in 2007 and is serving a 12-year prison sentence for resisting the occupation. United Kingdom In early November,a former soldier in the British Army serving as a Gurkha in Hong Kong,Gyanraj Rai,vowed not to eat until his fellow UK-based Nepali soldiers were treated and compensated the same as other British veterans. The 55-year-old veteran fasted for 14 days right on Prime Minister David Camerons doorstep. Rai finally broke his fast on November 21 after it was announced that a parliamentary inquiry would be held into grievances of Gurkha veterans,regarding pension rights,adult dependents,compensation,equal treatment for widows and free medical aid in Nepal. The inquiry will take written and oral evidence and is expected to present its report in the spring. United States September saw the end of the largest hunger strike in California prison history. Some 30,000 inmates refused meals for months to call for an end to indefinite solitary confinement. The practice of prolonged isolation has become a norm in America: 81,622 prisoners are in solitary confinement according to the most recent data the federal government released California prisons alone house 11,730 of them. Long-term isolation has been deemed to be torture by the international community and human rights organisations. Because of the prisoners widespread hunger strike which began on July 8,they were promised legislative hearings. Iran On September 1,52 people loyal to the Irans main opposition party,Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MeK),were shot dead at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. All were unarmed and seeking medical attention; many had their hands tied when they were killed. These executions were carried out by Iraqi Special Forces which are also responsible for taking seven hostages (one man and six women) from this outpost. The hostages remain in Iraq,according to reports from Amnesty International. The attack triggered a mass fast at Camp Liberty,the former US military base that now houses 3,000 Iranian exiles,in Iran. Hundreds of people joined in on the hunger strike from around the world,protesting the lack of action by the international community. They have collectively stated that the hunger strikes will continue until the hostages have been released. Guantánamo Bay In March 2013,reports of a hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay,the US detention camp in Cuba,began to surface. Although hunger strikes have been employed by prisoners there since it opened in 2002,human rights groups,lawyers and the media have usually used the number or fasters as a measure of discontent. This year,of the 164 men at Guantánamo,106 detainees went on strike. The prison has a history of force feeding inmates through nasal tubes,or giving fluids intravenously. On December 5,Associated Press reported that the US military will no longer disclose to the media and public whether prisoners are on a hunger strike. Last disclosed figures in December showed numbers of hunger strikers at 15,with all being tube fed. The strikes resulted in two men being release to Algeria in August the first such transfers in a year. Russia Maria Alyokhina,one of three Pussy Riot members imprisoned for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred,stopped fasting when officials at her prison in the Ural Mountains ended the security crackdown pegged to her parole hearing,which,she said,had turned fellow prisoners against her. Her bandmate,Nadezhda Tolokonnikova also went on a fast. She wrote a letter in September from her prison in Mordovia,detailing the reasons for her fast: 17 hour workdays,filth,sadistic prison guards,collective punishment. I demand that we be treated like human beings,not slaves, she wrote. The government acceded to one of her demands by transferring her,but to a prison in Siberia.
