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This is an incomplete list of recent hunger strikes and people who have conducted a hunger strike.
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This is an incomplete list of recent hunger strikes and people who have conducted a hunger strike.
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance where participants fast as an act of political protest, usually with the objective of achieving a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not solid food. Hunger strikers that do not take fluids are named dry hunger strikers.
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976 when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. In 1978, the dispute escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to leave their cells to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement. In 1980, seven prisoners participated in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days.
Events from the year 1920 in Ireland.
Terence James MacSwiney was an Irish playwright, author and politician. He was elected as Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence in 1920. He was arrested by the British Government on charges of sedition and imprisoned in Brixton Prison. His death there in October 1920 after 74 days on hunger strike brought him and the Irish Republican campaign to international attention.
The blanket protest was part of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners held in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. The republican prisoners' status as political prisoners, known as Special Category Status, had begun to be phased out in 1976. Among other things, this meant that they would now be required to wear prison uniforms like ordinary convicts. The prisoners refused to accept the administrative designation of ordinary criminals, and refused to wear the prison uniform.
Mary MacSwiney was an Irish republican activist and politician, as well as a teacher. MacSwiney was thrust into both the national and international spotlight in 1920 when her brother Terence MacSwiney, then the Lord Mayor of Cork, went on hunger strike in protest of British policy in Ireland. Mary, alongside her sister-in-law Muriel MacSwiney kept daily vigil over Terence and effectively became spokespeople for the campaign. Terence MacSwiney would ultimately die in October 1920, and from then on Mary MacSwiney acted as an unofficial custodian of his legacy, becoming a dogged and zealous advocate of Irish Republicanism. Following a high-profile seven-month tour of the United States in 1921 in which she and Muriel raised the profile of the Irish independence movement, Mary was elected to Dáil Éireann amidst the ongoing Irish War of Independence. During debates of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, a proposed peace deal between the British and the Irish, MacSwiney was amongst the most outspoken advocates against it. During the ensuing Irish Civil War, MacSwiney supported the Anti-Treaty IRA and was imprisoned for it, resulting in her partaking in two hunger strikes herself.
Seán McCaughey was an Irish Republican Army (IRA) leader in the 1930s and 1940s and hunger striker.
Patrick Quinn was a volunteer with the 1st Battalion, South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
Laurence McKeown is an Irish author, playwright, screenwriter, and former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
Joseph Patrick Murphy was one of 22 Irish Republicans who died on hunger strike in the 20th century. He was an Officer in the Irish Republican Army who died as a result of his participation in the 1920 Cork hunger strike at Cork Gaol.
Denis "Denny" Barry was an Irish Republican who died during the 1923 Irish hunger strikes, shortly after the Irish Civil War.
Sebahat Tuncel is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin, women's rights advocate, former nurse and member of the Parliament in Turkey. She was elected a member of parliament while being in prison.
Robert Gerard Sands was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland. Sands helped to plan the 1976 Balmoral Furniture Company bombing in Dunmurry, which was followed by a gun battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Sands was arrested while trying to escape and sentenced to 14 years for firearms possession.
The 2011–2012 Kurdish protests in Turkey were protests in Turkey, led by the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), against restrictions of Kurdish rights by of the country's Kurdish minority's rights. Although they were the latest in a long series of protest actions by Kurds in Turkey, they were strongly influenced by the concurrent popular protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and the Turkish publication Hürriyet Daily News has suggested that the popularly dubbed "Arab Spring" that has seen revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia may lead to a "Kurdish Summer" in the northern reaches of the Middle East. Protesters have taken to the streets both in Istanbul and in southeast Turkey, with some demonstrations also reported as far west in Anatolia as İzmir.
Jordi Sànchez i Picanyol is a Spanish political activist from Catalonia, who was president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) between May 2015 and November 2017.
In October 1923 mass hunger strikes were undertaken by Irish republican prisoners protesting the continuation of their internment without trial. The Irish Civil War had ended six months earlier yet the newly formed Provisional Government of the Irish Free State was slow in releasing the thousands of Irish republican prisoners opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
Michael Joseph Whitty was the youngest of the 22 Irish republicans who died while under on hunger strike in the 20th century. Decades after his death another Volunteer also died on 2 August during the 1981 Irish hunger strike. Volunteer Whitty fought with the IRA in the Irish War of Independence, on the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War and died while under internment by the Irish Free State government.
Abdullah Öcalan has been imprisoned on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara since February 1999. He is serving a life sentence for violating article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code. Initially he was sentenced to death but the conviction was commuted to a life sentence in October 2002.
The 1920 Cork hunger strike occurred in late 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, when 65 men interned without trial in Cork County Gaol went on hunger strike, demanding release from prison, and reinstatement of their status as political prisoners. Beginning on 11 August 1920, they were joined the following day by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney. A week into the hunger strike, all but 11 of the hunger strikers were released or deported to prison in England, with MacSwiney being among the latter.
Several hunger strikes were undertaken in Turkey from 2016 to 2017.