Many Walpole state prison inmates refused to eat Thanksgiving dinner to support a hunger strike which began earlier this month, the assistant director of a prisoner's rights group said yesterday.

The fast followed the return Tuesday night of four striking inmates who spent four days in Shuttock Hospital in Jamaica Plain, where they were fed intravenously.

Hospital workers wanted to put the four men on a special diet to return them to eating solid food, but the State Correction Department sent the prisoners back to prison, where they continued refusing food, Susan Jacoby, assistant director of Family and Friends, Inc., said.

Josephy Landolfi, public relations representative at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute of Walpole, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

No Turkey

Of the ten solitary-confinement prisoners who started the hunger strike November 4, only these four have continued refusing solid food. But Jacoby said the Thanksgiving occurrence shows that "they do have a lot of support from inside."

The striking prisoners take a cup of water each day and survive "by will," she said. She added that past hunger strikes have involved inmates who refused to eat for more than 40 days.

Cold Turkey

Inmates began the strike to protest the prison's alternative cold food program. Landolfi explained earlier this month that the prison instituted the new program because inmates had repeatedly flung hot meals at the guards.

Jacoby said the food program is being improperly used as a disciplinary mechanism.