But today, lawyers for Abu Wa'el Dhiab, a 43-year-old Syrian national who has been held captive at Guantanamo since 2002 — he has been cleared for transfer out of the detention facility since 2009 — are arguing in US District Court in Washington, DC that Guantanamo's new force-feeding protocols are particularly abusive, and specifically designed to deter detainees from participating in the hunger strikes.

It's a historic case that could force military officials to radically change the way detainees who engage in the protests are treated by their captors.

The roots of the legal challenge date back nearly 13 years. Weeks after the first "War on Terror" captives were transferred to Guantanamo in January 2002, a handful of men refused to eat, claiming they were on hunger strike to protest the desecration of a Qur'an by a guard.