Hunger strike presses on, awaits chancellor’s return
Posted on10 May 2010.
By Katrina Escudero
Daily Californian, U. California-Berkeley via UWIRE
Instead of securing last-minute graduation tickets and dealing with frantic relatives before graduation like most U. California-Berkeley seniors, Horacio Corona and Alejandro Lara-Briseno are enduring the hunger pangs of going without food for more than 168 hours.
For one week, about 18 hunger strikers from the “Hungry for Justice Coalition” have been camped out in front of California Hall, awaiting the return of Chancellor Robert Birgeneau from Europe.
The strikers are demanding Birgeneau publicly denounce a recent Arizona immigration law, make UC Berkeley a sanctuary campus and provide extended protections for undocumented students, drop all student conduct charges against activists, stop cuts to low-wage employees, suspend conduct procedures and initiate a democratic, student-led process to review the code, as well as commit to using nonviolent means to ensure safety at demonstrations.
Concern for the strikers’ health has caused campus administrators to announce new initiatives as incentives to end the strike, but demonstrators say they are determined to continue despite impacts to their health.
“It’s hard to focus because of a lot of sleep deprivation since we are sleeping outside,” Corona said.