WASHINGTON, May 29 — The number of prisoners participating in a hunger strike at the Guantanamo Naval Base has gone up to 75, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed today, according to Prensa Latina.

Navy Commander Robert Durand told reporters that hunger strikers on the base, which is located on illegally-occupied Cuban territory, numbered three in February and currently number 75.

These protests reflect the degree of growing desperation among the majority of Washington’s prisoners, who have been locked up for four years without charges being brought against them or contact with the outside world, according to analysts.

Since 2002, the United States has been keeping hundreds of individuals – currently numbering 460 – in its prison on the Guantanamo Base under the pretext that they are members or collaborators of Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

The spokesman noted that on May 18, the beginnings of a riot began at the prison, with about a dozen inmates participating, six of whom were subdued with force by U.S. Army prison guards.