A restaurant owner who has been on a hunger strike for six days says he will not give up "even if he dies".

Imal Akbar, 22, started a hunger strike on January 16 after he was banned from video streaming platform Twitch for violating data protection rules.

Mr Akbar, a mathematics university student and a Leytonstone restaurant owner, has vowed not to eat again until his account is reactivated.

He used Twitch to livestream his gaming of fantasy game called RuneScape.

He had around 1,000 followers and made around £390 a month on the platform, but his popularity was growing.

He had recently invested £2,500 in new equipment for streaming his games.

Mr Akbar was banned from the platform after a telephone number of a friend was accidentally shown on the site.

Someone reported him for sharing personal data and Twitch banned him from the platform on November 4.

Mr Akbar appealed the decision on multiple occasions but the ban was not lifted.

He said: “Despite my efforts to contact Twitch staff and appeal the decision to ban me I felt like I was not being heard so on January 16 I decided to go on a hunger strike.

“I will stay on this hunger strike until they un-ban me. It was a huge part of my life and they can’t just take it away over something so small.

"A normal suspension for something like that , for a first time offender like me, would usually be a month-long suspension.

“I really need to get unbanned. When I was first banned - I was so desperate. The first few nights were horrible - I slept in my bed for 24 hours at a time.

"There was even one night when I was at work at the restaurant when I pretty much had a mental breakdown - I started chucking things around.

"I feel tired all the time - it's very tough. But I'm not going to give up. I will go for as long as it takes, even if I die, this is something I am very serious about."

Mr Akbar claims to have informed Twitch about his hunger strike, but says they first threatened him with legal action and then told him that they could not un-ban him because it would set a precedent that others would copy to get their accounts reactivated.

He adds that Twitch then wrote a letter of appeal for him to send - he sent it on but it was again rejected.

He said: "Believe it or not, it has been six days and I have not eaten anything at all.

"I have only had water and one anti-oxidant drink over the past six days."

To accommodate for the lack of nutrition, Mr Akbar is currently drinking around four litres of water a day.

He added: "I've been a gamer since I was about five years old and it's something I'm passionate about and so I really need to get it back and this is the only way I think I can do it."

"It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to get unbanned."

"It's particularly hard because I work with food: preparing food and serving it makes it much more difficult."

Mr Akbar has recorded videos on each day of his hunger strike.

He said: “Live-streaming my games really meant a lot to me and being banned for something so small is very upsetting.

"I'm not trying to do this for personal gains alone, I want to spread awareness of what Twitch is doing, banning all of these small channels.

"Hopefully they will un-ban me soon, but I have no plans to stop the hunger strike until that happens."

Twitch declined to comment: “out of respect for the privacy of our users, we do not comment on terms of service violations.”