Dozens of detainees abandon hunger strike, U.S. military says

Detainees were trying to pressure the U.S. to release them.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees have abandoned a hunger strike, lowering the number of inmates refusing food to 18, the U.S. military said Sunday.
The strike had jumped from three participants in late May to 89 on Thursday. It was the biggest hunger strike of the year at the U.S. prison in Cuba, where about 460 men are being held on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.
"It appears that right after that peak [of 89] then people started resuming eating again," Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the base.
He offered no further details about the 71 detainees' decision to begin eating again.
He said four of the 18 hunger strikers were being force-fed.
The military has said the detainees were trying to pressure the United States to release them and Durand said the hunger strike technique was "consistent with al-Qaida practice."
Amnesty International
But human rights groups have called the hunger strike an appeal for justice.
"There's a lot of folks down there who are in their fifth year of detention without charge and without any certainty of a future, and that's not an unreasonable explanation," said Jumana Musa, advocacy director for civil-rights group Amnesty International USA.
A U.N. panel said May 19 that holding detainees indefinitely at Guantanamo violated the world's ban on torture. It said the United States should close the detention center.
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