Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York have launched a hunger strike to protest eviction from their camps, demanding a new occupation campsite in an unused lot.
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© unknownOccupy Wall Street protesters say they will be on strike until their demands are met.

Protesters are seeking sanctuary on a vacant lot owned by Trinity Church in New York City, which is located at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway, ABC News reported on Saturday.

Occupy protesters in New York were evicted from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan on November 15 after almost two months of camping to protest income inequality and the influence of corporate money in US politics.

Protest organizers say the hunger strike will be continued in jails if demonstrators are arrested.

"If we do get arrested, which seems most likely like we will be, we will continue the strike in jail," protester Diego Ibanez said.

The US police have moved to break up Occupy encampments in numerous major cities during the past weeks, brutally attacking and arresting dozens of Occupiers.

On November 30, police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia moved in on Occupy Wall Street camps under darkness in an effort to clear out some of the longest-lasting protest sites.

The Occupy movement emerged in the US after a group of demonstrators gathered in New York's financial district on September 17.

Despite police harassment and mass arrests, the Occupy protests have spread to other major US cities as well as other capitalist countries such as Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal.