Yale’s College Republicans hold BBQ near a hunger strike to increase protesters’ anguish, by Jack Smith.

Yale University’s local College Republicans chapter held a barbecue on Friday near the fasting site of campus union organizers participating in a hunger strike directed against the university. Bragging about the wafting, delicious smells on Facebook, it appears to have been a move to torment the fasting grad students, who have thus far gone days without food in a protest for their worker’s rights struggle.

The tactic drew comparisons to another recent barbecue halfway across the world, where an Israeli youth group held a barbecue outside a prison in which Palestinians were engaging in a hunger strike.

Conservative media has tried to portray it as a false, “symbolic” hunger strike, claiming that the fasters are actually just eating when they get hungry. This distortion comes from the fact that they have standby fasters available in case the participating fasters experience a medical emergency.

The fast is real and nearing its hundredth hour for the original eight fasters, all of whom are still going without food. “There are no breaks, and we don’t eat when we’re hungry,” Decker said. “We’re going to keep going until the administration comes to continue, or we can’t continue for medical reasons. I assure you, we’re very hungry.”

100 hours is a bit over 4 days — with emergency standby fasters? Peter Spencer went over 50 days, with no roster of standbys.