Guantanamo hunger strike grows

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – More Guantanamo Bay detainees have joined a hunger strike, raising the total to 89, and six of them were being force-fed, the U.S. military said Thursday.

The strike – which last weekend jumped from three participants to 75 – is now the biggest of the year at the U.S. prison on Cuba, where about 460 men are being held on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

The U.S. military said the detainees were trying to pressure the United States to release them.

But Ben Wizner, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who has been to Guantanamo Bay, said the growing hunger strike appears more like a call for help.

A U.N. panel said May 19 that holding detainees indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay violates the world’s ban on torture. The panel said the United States should close the detention center.

Ten Guantanamo detainees have been charged with crimes. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in June whether President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering the detainees to be tried by U.S. military tribunals.