Hunger striking has long history

The problem of hunger-striking prisoners has always been a thorny issue, although in Canada — as a judge remarked this year — the right to die is generally recognized.

THE SUFFRAGETTES

In the early 1900s, members of the Women’s Suffragette movement — women campaigning for the vote — were arrested and imprisoned for violent or disorderly conduct in Britain and the u.S. When they went on hunger strike in prison, they were force-fed but this caused public outrage. The British government passed the Prisoners Temporary discharge of Ill Health Act, or the Cat & Mouse Act as it became known. Hunger strikers would not be force-fed, but when they became extremely weak, they would be released. Police had the power to re-arrest them when they recovered, and the process was often repeated.

IRA

In 1974, Michael Gaughan, a member of the Irish republican Army, died after being forcefed in a prison in england. Prison authorities said he died of pneumonia after the forcefeeding tube pierced his lung. The controversy and medical outrage caused Britain to abandon its policy of force-feeding hunger strikers. In March 1981, IrA prisoner Bobby Sands went on hunger strike in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. The IrA inmates wanted the right to be treated as political prisoners. He died after 66 days, the first of 10 prisoners to starve themselves to death. With the government refusing to give in to demands, the families of the remaining strikers authorized doctors to begin intravenous feeding when the men lost consciousness.

EUROPEAN COURT

In 2007, the european Court of Human rights found the force-feeding of an imprisoned Moldovan politician amounted to torture. The court ruled the procedure was not medically necessary, and the use of handcuffs, a metal mouth widener and the force employed were more about stopping the protest. It did not rule out the “therapeutic necessity” of forcefeeding prisoners to save their lives. In an earlier case, the court ruled a medically necessary procedure — such as forcefeeding — could not, in principle, be regarded as inhuman and degrading.

CANADA

In March, a yukon Supreme Court judge ordered a prisoner who had been living on nothing but liquids for five months could be forcibly moved to hospital if authorities believed his life was in danger. However, the man told the judge he was willing to comply with an order to begin eating solids. during the hearing, Judge ron Veale told the prisoner, “The right to die is generally recognized.” The Correctional Service of Canada website says: “The Service shall not direct the force-feeding, by any method, of an inmate who had the capacity to understand the consequences of fasting at the time the inmate made the decision to fast.”