The number of hunger strikers at the Guantanamo US "war on terror" detention camp has increased to 128 in recent days and 18 are being force-fed, the US military said Tuesday.
Sergeant Justin Behrens, a military spokesman, said 18 of the protesters were in hospital and 13 of them were being fed through tubes in the nose and five intravenously.
The military said last Thursday that 87 detainees were taking part in the hunger strike which started on Aug. 8.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit group which has provided lawyers for many detainees, said there were 210 inmates in the protest. The group did not give an update Tuesday.
According to the CCR, the detainees are protesting against allegations of beatings by guards, their conditions and the US refusal to try them in civilian courts.
There are about 505 inmates from 36 countries at the camp, which is situated at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
Most are al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects detained during the war to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001. Most have since been Guantanamo since January, 2002 without being charged or being able to see a lawyer.
The attorneys for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners argued in a federal appeals court in Washington last week that the detainees should have a chance to prove in court that they had been mistakenly labeled as "enemy combatants" and have been unlawfully detained.
"They are on a hunger strike because they want a hearing in court with a lawyer of their own. They are willing to starve themselves to death," said CCR attorney Gita Gutierrez, who represented some British prisoners since released from Guantanamo.
The Bush administration has held that the prisoners are not entitled to any constitutional due process rights because they are being held outside the US and that the US has the right to hold them in perpetuity.
The appeals court was not expected to rule until next year, and its decision was likely to be appealed to the US Supreme Court.
The Pentagon said 246 prisoners had been sent home from Guantanamo since the prison operation began, with some freed and some transferred for detention in their home countries.
Most recently, an Afghan prisoner was sent home on Monday. The US military would not identify him but Afghan state television said the man was Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan.
He became the Taliban's spokesman after the Sept. 11 attacks and held regular news conferences at his Islamabad embassy at which he tried to convince the world the Taliban's guest, Osama bin Laden, was not responsible.
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