MIAMI -- The Guantanamo Bay hunger strike is apparently still on despite President Barack Obama's renewed vow on closing the prison on the U.S. base in Cuba.

A U.S. military spokesman says there are still 100 prisoners refusing to eat as of Wednesday. Lt. Col. Samuel House says 23 are being force fed to prevent starvation.

House said the prison camps appeared calm a day earlier as word spread that Obama had said at a news conference that he would try to persuade Congress to end the restrictions that have prevented his administration from emptying the prison that now holds 166 men.

A lawyer visiting the camps this week tells The Associated Press that he doesn't think the hunger strike will end until the U.S. resumes transferring prisoners out of Guantanamo.