More than 100 days have passed since the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay started, and with no progress being made, an American minister has joined the strike.
On Sunday, May 12, Timothy Murphy began a fast of solidarity with the Guantanamo inmates who are on a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention. Murphy is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); knowing the suffering of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, he felt spiritually called on to participate in the hunger strike.
On a diet of only water, Murphy plans to stay on strike as long as he is physically able or until the Obama administration begins taking action to address the grievances of the Guantanamo inmates. The 100 prisoners on a hunger strike, some of whom have been force-fed against their wishes, have been going for over 100 days now. Murphy has been on strike for 9 days and has already lost 7-percent of his body weight and gets dizzy when standing.
“Many Americans,” Murphy said, “tend to think of the Guantanamo prisoners as ‘the worst of the worst.’ It’s easy to not pay attention to their plight, regardless of whether they die of hunger, have tubes shoved down their esophagus for force feeding, or languish in Guantanamo permanently—even the prisoners who have already been determined not to have been enemy combatants.”
Murphy urges other Americans to join in the hunger strike in the hopes that the government will address and resolve the situation with haste and decisiveness. Every day of the strike he is calling his senators and representatives to inquire about what they are doing and encourage swift action.
“I don’t know for how long I will do this,” he told Carlos Warner, attorney to some of the inmates, “but if nothing else, I want the men in Guantanamo to know that myself and others care about their situation enough to act in support of them so that the Obama administration responds to their grievances.”
Read more about the Guantanamo Bay hunger strike on The Good Men Project:
If They Were Somebody, They Are Somebody
NEW REPORT: Updated Guide to Guantanamo Force-Feeding
UN Declares Force-Feeding Breach of International Law
Photo: Evan Vucci/AP
