Meaning of Hunger Strike (What is it, Concept and Definition)

What is a hunger strike:

As hunger strike we call the voluntary measure of a person not feeding himself in order to put pressure on an authority to this meets your demands and requests .

As such, hunger strikes are a tool for peaceful social struggle , although extreme, whose fundamental objective is to demand compliance of any right or the elimination of rules or norms that, from the striker's point of view, are unfair or arbitrary.In this sense, one of the reasons that motivate someone to opt for this protest instrument is to highlight a situation of injustice.

The strike consists in voluntary abstinence from consuming food for a time that can be defined or undefined (depending on the magnitude of the requirements), to persuade the authority that, driven by humanitarian feelings, attend the case in question.

Strikes of hunger are constituted by the striker or strikers , and, ideally, by a support group responsible for collaborating and taking care of the good development of the measure, and a technical team , composed of different health professionals, who monitor the conditions of the strikers.

The hunger strike, as such, is the most dramatic type of strike , because it involves undermining one's own health, by subjecting the organism to a progressive deterioration that can lead to death by starvation in case of prolonging more than is due.In this sense, it is a measure that demonstrates that a person is willing to die if you do not get what you propose.

Among the most famous hunger strikes in the world, we can mention the seventeen that Mahatma Gandhi did throughout his life In Latin America, in recent times, we can mention that of Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, Ingrid Betancourt , Colombian politics, and Leopoldo Lopez, Venezuelan politician.