Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance where participants fast as an act of political protest, usually with the objective of achieving a specific goal, such as a policy change. Hunger strikers that do not take fluids are named dry hunger strikers.
In cases where an entity has or is able to obtain custody of the hunger striker, the hunger strike is often terminated by the custodial entity through the use of force-feeding.
Early history
Fasting was used as a method of protesting injustice in pre-Christian Ireland, where it was known as Troscadh or Cealachan. Detailed in the contemporary civic codes, it had specific rules by which it could be used, and the fast was often carried out on the doorstep of the home of the offender. Scholars speculate that this was due to the high importance the culture placed on hospitality. Allowing a person to die at one's doorstep, for a wrong of which one was accused, was considered a great dishonor. Others say that the practice was to fast for one whole night, as there is no evidence of people fasting to death in pre-Christian Ireland. The fasts were primarily undertaken to recover debts or get justice for a perceived wrong. Legends of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, have used the hunger strike as well.In India, the practice of a hunger protest, where the protester fasts at the door of an offending party in a public call for justice, was abolished by the government in 1861; this indicates the prevalence of the practice prior to that date, or at least a public awareness of it.
Medical view
In the first three days, the body still uses energy from glucose. After that, the liver starts processing body fat, in a process called ketosis. After depleting fat, the body enters a "starvation mode". At this point the body "mines" the muscles and vital organs for energy, and loss of bone marrow becomes life-threatening. There are examples of hunger strikers dying after 46 to 73 days of strike, for example the 1981 Irish hunger strike. Hunger strikers can experience hallucinations and delirium. Death usually occurs when a hunger striker has lost about 40–50% of their pre-strike weight at about 60–70 days in. Obese individuals can last longer.Examples
British and American suffragettes
In the early 20th century suffragettes frequently endured hunger strikes in British prisons. Marion Dunlop was the first in 1909. She was released, as the authorities did not want her to become a martyr. Other suffragettes in prison also undertook hunger strikes. The prison authorities subjected them to force-feeding, which the suffragettes categorized as a form of torture. Emmeline Pankhurst's sister Mary Clarke died shortly after being force-fed in prison, and others including Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton are believed to have had serious health problems caused by force feeding, dying of a heart attack not long after. William Ball, a working class supporter of women's suffrage, was the subject of a pamphlet Torture in an English Prison not only due to the effects of force-feeding, but a cruel separation from family contact and mental health deterioration, secret transfer to a lunatic asylum and needed lifelong mental institutional care. In December 1912, a Scottish prison put four suffragettes in the 'political prisoner' category rather than 'criminal' second division, but staff at Craiginches Prison, Aberdeen still subjected them to force-feeding when they went on hunger strike.In 1913 the Prisoners Act 1913 changed policy. Hunger strikes were tolerated but prisoners were released when they became sick. When they had recovered, the suffragettes were taken back to prison to finish their sentences. About 100 women received medals for hunger striking or enduring force-feeding.
Like their British counterparts, American suffragettes also used this method of political protest. A few years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a group of American suffragettes led by Alice Paul engaged in a hunger strike and endured forced feedings while incarcerated at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia.
Ireland
Hunger strikes have deep roots in Irish society and in the Irish psyche. Fasting in order to bring attention to an injustice which one felt under his lord, and thus shame him, was a common feature of early Irish society and this tactic was fully incorporated into the Brehon legal system. The tradition is ultimately most likely part of the still older Indo-European tradition of which the Irish were part. Within the 20th century a total of 22 Irish republicans died on hunger strike with survivors suffering long-term health and psychological effects.The tactic was used by physical force republicans during the 1916–23 revolutionary period. Early use of hunger strikes was countered with force-feeding, culminating in 1917 in the death of Thomas Ashe in Mountjoy Prison. During the Anglo-Irish war, in October 1920, the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, died on hunger strike in Brixton prison. At the same time, the 1920 Cork hunger strike took place. Two other Cork Irish Republican Army men, Joe Murphy and Michael Fitzgerald, died in this protest. Demanding reinstatement of political status and release from prison, nine men undertook a hunger strike at Cork County Gaol for 94 days, from August 11 to November 12, 1920. Arthur Griffith called off the strikes after the deaths of MacSwiney, Murphy and Fitzgerald.
During the early 1920s, the vessel was used as a prison ship for the holding of Irish republicans by the British. Conditions on board were "unbelievable" and there were several hunger strikes, including one involving upwards of 150 men in the winter of 1923.
Irish hunger strikes between 1923 and 1976
In February 1923, 23 women went on hunger strike for 34 days over the arrest and imprisonment without trial of Irish republican prisoners. The Free State subsequently released the women republican prisoners. Most of the male republicans were not released until the following year. After the end of the Irish Civil War in October 1923, up to 8,000 IRA prisoners went on hunger strike to protest their continued detention by the Irish Free State. Three men, Denny Barry, Joseph Whitty, and Andy O'Sullivan, died during the 1923 Irish Hunger Strikes. The strike, however, was called off by Republican leadership in the camps before any more deaths occurred.Under de Valera's first Fianna Fáil government in 1932, military pensions were awarded to dependants of republicans who died in 1920s hunger strikes on the same basis as those who were killed in action. During the state of emergency of World War II another De Valera government interned many IRA members, three of whom died on hunger strike: Sean McCaughey, Tony D'Arcy and Jack McNeela. Hundreds of others carried out shorter hunger strikes during the de Valera years.
The tactic was revived by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s, when several republicans successfully used hunger strikes to get themselves released from custody without charge in the Republic of Ireland. Michael Gaughan died after being force-fed in Parkhurst Prison in 1974. Frank Stagg, an IRA member being held in Wakefield Prison, died in 1976 after a 62-day hunger strike which he began as a campaign to be repatriated to Ireland.
Members of other movements like Holger Meins of German Red Army Faction used hunger strikes as a political weapon at this time. Meins went on hunger strike for the first time in 1973 together with other prisoners in protest against the prison conditions. The RAF prisoners wanted to be pooled together and claimed prisoner of war status. The 1.83m tall Meins still weighed 39 kg in November 1973 and died in prison.
Irish hunger strike of 1981
In 1980, seven Irish Republican prisoners, six from the IRA and one from the Irish National Liberation Army, in the Maze Prison launched a hunger strike as a protest against the revocation by the British Government of a prisoner-of-war-like Special Category Status for paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland. The strike, led by Brendan Hughes, was called off before any deaths, when the British Government seemed to offer to concede their demands; however, the government then reneged on the details of the agreement. The prisoners then called another hunger strike the following year. This time, instead of many prisoners striking at the same time, the hunger strikers started fasting one after the other in order to maximise publicity over the fate of each one.Bobby Sands was the first of ten Irish republican paramilitary prisoners to die after 66 days during the 1981 hunger strike, with Mickey Devine being the last to die after 60 days. There was widespread sympathy for the hunger strikers from Irish republicans and the broader nationalist community on both sides of the Irish border. Sands was elected as an MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone to the United Kingdom's House of Commons and two other prisoners, Paddy Agnew and Kieran Doherty, were elected to Dáil Éireann in the Republic of Ireland by electorates who wished to register their opposition to British government policies. The ten men survived without food for 46 to 73 days, taking only water and salt, before succumbing. After the deaths of the men and severe public disorder, the British Government granted partial concessions to the prisoners, and the strike was called off. The hunger strikes gave a significant propaganda boost to a previously severely demoralised IRA.
Jatin Das, Gandhi, Bhagat Singh
was imprisoned in 1908, 1909, 1913, 1917, 1919, 1922, 1930, 1932, 1933, and 1942. Because of Gandhi's stature around the world, British authorities were loath to allow him to die in their custody; Gandhi engaged in several famous hunger strikes to protest British rule in India.In addition to Gandhi, various others used the hunger strike option during the Indian independence movement, including Jatin Das, who fasted to death, and Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt in 1929.