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| Death row inmates end hunger strike |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 02/10/2005 |
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Five death-row inmates who waged a hunger strike last week are eating again, according to the Connecticut Department of Correction. The inmates stopped accepting their meals last Wednesday, demanding to be allowed to interact with one another and calling their years of solitary confinement "inhumane and tantamount to psychological torture." Department of Correction spokesman Brian Garnett declined to identify the participating inmates, but said they began accepting food "gradually" and all five had ended the hunger strike as of lunch on Tuesday. Connecticut's eight death row inmates are alone in their cells 23 hours a day and each gets an hour of solitary recreation outside the cells. A prisoner recently described for a federal judge how those on death row communicate by talking through the air vents. In a statement released through an anti-death penalty group, the inmates had asked to be allowed to spend their recreation time with each other. "Death row inmates are extremely well-behaved and cause no problems or dangers to the correctional officers or each other," the inmates said in their statement. The inmates said their protest was not about serial killer Michael Ross, whose execution was put on hold last month to examine whether living conditions on death row could have contributed to the decision to forgo further appeals. Ross is not currently housed on death row. He is still being kept in a cell at the Osborn Correctional Institution, near Connecticut's death chamber. But his execution has been postponed indefinitely. Garnett said the department did not change any of its policies as a result of the hunger strike. |
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