Frankie Boyle On Hunger Strike For Prisoner Jul 20th 2013, 00:38
Comedian Frankie Boyle has started a week-long hunger strike to show his support for the last British detainee at Guantanamo Bay.
The 40-year-old Scot is one of several people taking part in a campaign to highlight the plight of Shaker Aamer, who has been held at the detention centre since 2002.
Writing on Twitter, he said the first few hours of his protest had not been "too bad" before joking: "Let's remember who's really suffering - my local pizza shop."
Later, he added: "Day two of hunger strike feels a bit like being drunk. Feel pretty good, but no doubt I'll wake up to find myself in bathroom eating soap."
Boyle takes over from Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of Reprieve, a charity which campaigns for the release of Guantanamo prisoners.
Writing for The Huffington Post, the lawyer, who also went without food for a week, said Aamer was "really taken aback, really grateful" for Boyle's support.
Aamer, who grew up in Saudi Arabia but is a permanent UK resident and married to a British national, was arrested in Afghanistan in 2011.
The 46-year-old has never been charged with a crime and has been abused and subjected to extended isolation while at Guantanamo Bay, according to Reprieve.
More than 110,000 people signed an online petition demanding his urgent return to the UK.
Aamer has been on hunger strike since March, along with an estimated three-quarters of the 166 men still held at the Cuban base.
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