More Guantanamo inmates on hunger strike MORE prisoners have joined a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention at the US-run Guantanamo military prison, with 97 out of 166 detainees refusing food. Among the strikers, 19 have been given feeding tubes, and five of those are hospitalised but do not have life-threatening conditions, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House said in a statement on Friday. The rapidly growing protest movement began on February 6, lawyers for the detainees said. Prison authorities began releasing figures on the strike on March 11, saying nine inmates were participating. Lawyers for the detainees say the official numbers are too low and that around 130 inmates are observing the hunger strike. The strikers are protesting their incarceration without charge or trial at Guantanamo in the 11 years since the prison went into use for terror suspects detained in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The hunger strikes began when inmates claimed prison officials searched their copies of the Koran for contraband.