Canadian teenager Omar Khadr has been on a hunger strike since July at the detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Khadr, a terrorism suspect, and dozens of other detainees were hospitalized as a precaution after starting the strike to protest against conditions in the prison, according to The Globe and Mail.

The newspaper reports that American lawyers who visited Khadr in July claim he's starving himself "to protest the military's disrespect of Islam."

The prisoners say guards turn on fans, turn up the radio and whistle during the prisoners' prayers.

Khadr, 18, is accused of killing an American soldier with a grenade during a gun battle in Afghanistan in July 2002.

He's been at Guantanamo Bay since that battle, in which he was shot.

The teenager hasn't been formally charged by the U.S., and is making a bid to end his legal limbo.

According to documents filed in court, Khadr has become a spiritual leader in his cell block, where he leads prayers.

Khadr was born in Toronto and is the son of the late Ahmed Khadr, a Canadian Islamic extremist who was close to Osama bin Laden.

A decade ago, Khadr's father staged a hunger strike when he was jailed in Pakistan on suspicion of financing a deadly al-Qaeda-style bombing.

Then-prime minister Jean Chretien intervened, and the elder Khadr was released.

He returned to Afghanistan. The family fled that country after the U.S. invasion in 2001.

The elder Khadr was later killed by the Pakistani army.