Topic: Gitmo Hunger Strikers' Ranks Thin Out

New York Daily News
April 10, 2007

SAN JUAN - A long-running hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison gained several participants in recent weeks, but a spokesman at the U.S. military base said yesterday that the protest appeared to be losing steam.
All were being force-fed through tubes inserted into their noses, said Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, a Guantanamo spokesman. The strike, which began in 2005, has had as many as a dozen participants in recent months but reached 17 in the days before the trial in March of David Hicks, the Australian detainee whose case marked the first U.S. war crimes conviction since World War II. Hicks pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism and was sentenced to nine more months in prison.
Durand suggested the prisoners were trying to gain the attention of the dozens of reporters covering the trial at Guantanamo, where about 385 men are imprisoned on suspicion of links to AlQaeda or the Taliban.
"As soon as the media left, the number of hunger strikers has been steadily dropping," Durand said.
--Associated Press