“The number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners taking part in a nearly five-month-long hunger strike has surged to 84 since Christmas Day, the US military says. Forty-six detainees at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, joined the protest on the key Christian holiday last Sunday, said Army Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin, a military spokesman. … ‘There’s been a significant increase in the number that have been added to the hunger strike,’ Martin said. Lawyers for some of the detainees call the strike a protest of the conditions in which the prisoners are being held and their lack of legal rights. Medical personnel were force-feeding 32 of the hunger strikers with plastic tubes inserted into the stomach through the nose, the military said.” (12/30/05)