It's very hard to effectively protest something that doesn't command positive action on your part. What else would you suggest?
Something like civil disobedience only really makes sense when you're supposed to do something and you refuse to do it. Rosa Parks refused to move, for example. It's about daring the authorities to punish you in a way that will look wildly disproportionate to a mass audience.
Civil disobedience is a lot less effective when you can't easily disobey the particular thing you want to protest. You can't really protest the government shutting down a public library by blocking a highway. Yes, you get attention, and that helps to some degree, but nobody thinks it's wrong of the police to make you stop blocking the highway. You're getting publicity, but it's not necessarily good, and in fact you're probably annoying a lot of people. This can easily backfire. Occupy Wall Street had big issues with this; their methods of protesting were often counterproductive despite being awareness-raising.
So the goal becomes to find some way of getting attention without making yourself look bad, and preferably while making yourself look good. Hunger strikes are arguably a reasonable way of doing that - they don't hurt anyone else, they attract attention, and they show how deeply you care.
