How did the jailed suffragists protest the arrests they saw as illegal, and what was the result of their action?

The jailed British suffragists of the early twentieth century were famous for going on hunger strikes to protest their arrests. They simply refused to eat. This upset the jail authorities. The women were then force fed in often brutal and barbaric ways. Since this method was normally used only on people unable (not unwilling) to feed themselves, the feedings garnered much negative publicity and helped gain sympathy for the suffragettes.
Some British newspapers, such as the Illustrated London News, focused on this unpleasant topic. In the link below, a very prominent suffragist named Sylvia Pankhurst described her experience with force feeding, offering a number of gruesome details:




Then I felt a steel instrument pressing against my gums, cutting into the flesh, forcing its way in. Then it gradually prised my jaws apart as they turned a screw. It felt like having my teeth drawn; but I resisted—I resisted. I held my poor bleeding gums down on the steel with all my strength. Soon they were trying to force the india-rubber tube down my throat.




I was struggling wildly, trying to tighten the muscles and to keep my throat closed up. They got the tube down, I suppose, though I was unconscious of anything but a mad revolt of struggling, for at last I heard them say, "That's all"; and I vomited as the tube came up.




Pankhurst noted that the procedure was not only painful, but degrading, humiliating, and psychologically draining. Overall, the publicity helped the suffragist cause in the court of public appeal.