More Gitmo prisoners force-fed

The number of hunger strikers being force-fed at the Guantanamo Bay prison has climbed to 41, making up a quarter of the facility’s prisoner population.

The US military also said on Thursday that 103 out of 166 prisoners are on hunger strike, a move that has entered a fourth month without any signs of abating or ending.

The strike action is widening with more prisoners refusing to be force-fed, according to The Guardian.

“The hunger strike grows for two reasons: the military’s refusal to negotiate with the men in a productive way and because the president has taken no action in spite of his words,” said Carlos Warner, a lawyer who represents several of the detainees on strike.

Closing the prison was one of President Obama’s campaign promises in the 2008 elections. In a speech on May 23, he renewed the commitment to shut the facility.

Most of the 166 detainees at the prison are Yemeni nationals.

The strike started in early February when the guard force at the prison decided to search the detainees’ Qurans, the Muslims’ holy book. The prisoners said the searches amounted to desecration.

Later the strike grew into a larger protest at Obama’s failure to close the facility.

Detainees who are force-fed are strapped to a chair twice a day and fed a liquid nutritional supplement through a tube that runs through the nose and into the stomach.