[Ppnews] Guantanamo Detainees Stage Hunger Strike to Protest Confinement Conditions
Political Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Fri Apr 29 20:31:42 EDT 2011
Guantanamo Detainees Stage Hunger Strike to Protest Confinement Conditions
Friday 29 April 2011
by: Jason Leopold, Truthout
Within the past month, more than 15 Guantanamo
detainees protested an indefinite detention order
signed by President Barack Obama in March that
resulted in their relocation to another camp at
the prison facility - where they said the
conditions are worse - by staging a hunger strike, Truthout has learned.
Tanya Bradsher, a Department of Defense (DoD)
spokeswoman, confirmed detainees staged a hunger
strike, but she put the number at "less than ten."
However, Guantanamo guards said the hunger
strike, which ended a little more than a week
ago, also involved some of the 14 high-value
detainees who are segregated and housed in Camp
7. Their actions are considered classified and
would otherwise not be confirmed by the Pentagon, the guards said.
Bradsher said, "Detainees will hunger strike for
various reasons, but most consider it a way to
'stay in the fight,'" a line of reasoning that
serves to perpetuate the myth peddled by the Bush
administration that all of the individuals
imprisoned at Guantanamo are the "worst of the worst."
The DoD's own files on the detainees
<http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/>released [3] by
WikiLeaks last Sunday showed that a vast majority
of them were innocent and were sold to the US as bounty.
Far from being an effort to "stay in the fight,"
the hunger strike detainees waged was simply a
way for them to protest the conditions of their
confinement and the executive order signed by
Obama creating a formal system of indefinite detention.
Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, who represents Kuwaiti
detainee Fayiz al-Kandari, one of the ten who
spent the past month fasting, said his client was
on a hunger strike, "due to the fact that he was
forced to move [to a new camp] where the rules are more stringently enforced."
Wingard said al-Kandari, whose petition for
habeas corpus
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/09/22/fayiz-al-kandari-a-kuwaiti-aid-worker-in-guantanamo-loses-his-habeas-petition/>was
rejected [4] last year, went from 150 to 130 pounds during the hunger strike.
Another Kuwaiti detainee,
<http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/prisoner/232.html>Fouzi
Khalid Abdullah Al Awda [5], lost 25 pounds
during the hunger strike, according to accounts
other detainees gave to their lawyers.
Force-Feeding
Detainees who refuse nine consecutive meals are
classified as hunger strikers. It's unclear if
any of the detainees were force-fed by Guantanamo
medical personnel, a procedure that in and of
itself
<http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/06/hbc-90005110>has
been described [6] as torture. Bradsher did not
respond to specific questions about
force-feeding. Wingard said al-Kandari was able
to avoid being force-fed by earning "points" and
eating a piece of fruit, for example. Al Awda,
the other Kuwaiti detainee, was said to have
taken the hunger strike seriously, avoided all food and fainted several times.
Bradsher cited a DoD report that said if military
personnel had to resort to force-feeding
detainees, the process would be administered in a "lawful" and humane manner."
Human rights groups, however,
would<http://www.aclu.org/human-rights/aclu-calls-end-inhumane-force-feeding-guantanamo-prisoners>
beg to differ [7].
In January 2009, Jamil Dakwar, director of the
American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights
Program, sent a letter to Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates calling for an end to the Pentagon's
force-feeding policy, which requires guards and
medical personnel to strap a detainee into a
chair and secure his head to a metal restraint.
The letter was prompted by reports that about 25
to 30 detainees waged a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention.
Dakwar said, "force-feeding is universally
considered to be a form of cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment" and cited a 2006 United
Nations report that said the manner in which
detainees are force-fed, "are matters of grave
and distinct human rights concerns."
According to the 2009 DoD report, entitled
"<http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/231008p.pdf>Review
of Department Compliance With President's
Executive Order on Detainee Conditions of
Confinement [8], "The current feeding program is
being conducted solely as a medical procedure to
sustain the life and health of hunger strikers."
The force-feeding policy parallels the Federal
Bureau of Prisons policy and has been upheld by
federal courts. The 81-page report describes how
detaineed are force-fed and says it is considered
"a medical procedure with the sole purpose of
preserving life and health, and in accordance
with Common Article 3 and DoD policy."
Enteral feeding is the process of providing
nutritional support for a patient by passing a
tube through the nose into the stomach (a
nasogastric feeding tube), through which
nutritional supplements, such as Ensure Plus or
Boost Plus, can be infused. This is a common
medical procedure used to safely provide
nutrition to a patient who is not taking food by
mouth, but whose intestinal function is intact
(e.g., a patient whose jaw is wired shut). The
nasogastric tube used is size 10 or 12 French,
which would be 3.5-4.5 millimeters in diameter
(slightly larger in diameter than a piece of
cooked spaghetti but less than a pencil eraser).
The tube should be well lubricated (viscous
lidocaine should be offered, but some patients
prefer other lubricants). After insertion of the
tube, its placement in the stomach is confirmed
prior to allowing the nutritional supplement to
flow in from a hanging bag by gravity. This
procedure usually takes about an hour, after
which the feeding tube is removed. Once
stabilized, most patients can be sustained on two feedings per day.
The DoD report was based on a two-week
investigation of conditions at Guantanamo, which
was conducted "to ensure all detainees there are
being held 'in conformity with all applicable
laws governing the conditions of confinement,
including Common Article 3 of the Geneva
Conventions,' pursuant to the President’s
Executive Order on Review and Disposition of
Individuals Detained at the Guantánamo Bay Naval
Base and Closure of Detention Facilities, dated January 22, 2009."
The review concluded that the "conditions of
confinement at Guantanamo" were in compliance with Common Article 3 of Geneva.
Stripped of Privileges
For people who take for granted the small
luxuries in life, the complaints raised by the
detainees may seem trivial and petty. But the
little things are all these detainees have left to hold on to.
A majority of the detainees who staged the hunger
strike had been housed at Camp 1 since at least
2008 and had become accustomed to certain living
conditions, such as keeping their cell doors open
while they prayed, having meals prepared with at
least a minimum amount of care and being treated
with some respect by the military guards.
Camp 1 closed down, but a single cell block
remained open to accommodate ten detainees who
spoke English, were well-educated and whom the
DoD had segregated because the agency believed
they were "troublemakers" and an "influence" on
other Guantanamo prisoners, according to several Guantanamo guards.
The detainees who remained at Camp 1 included UK
resident Shaker Aamer, an "enemy combatant" who
has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since 2002
without charge and was brutally tortured and
placed in solitary confinement for at least a
year, according to an account he provided to one
of his attorneys who repeated the statements in a
sworn declaration released by the DoD in 2006.
An
<http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/prisoner/239.html>assessment
[9] on Aamer prepared by a military analyst in
November 2007 and released last weekend by
WikiLeaks portrays the man the government claims
was a close associate of Osama bin Laden as a
mythical figure. The military assessment, the
veracity of which is questionable, states that
Aamer controls other detainees, has the power to
call on detainees to commit suicide, is
"extremely egotistical," "manipulated debriefers
and guard staff" and, on the advice of his
attorney, Clive Stafford Smith, led a hunger
strike in 2005 involving more than 100 detainees.
Smith has vehemently denied the assertion.
Aamer did not participate in the hunger strike
that began in early March and ended about a week
ago, according to two Guantanamo guards currently
stationed at the prison who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Consolidating Detainees
The circumstances behind the hunger strike
unfolded in January and February, weeks before
Obama issued his indefinite detention order, when
Guantanamo officials began the process of
permanently shuttering camps 4 and 1 and moved
all of the detainees interned there to camps 5 and 6.
Candace Gorman, an attorney who represents an
Algerian detainee named Abdal Razak
Ali,<http://gtmoblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/guantanamo-prisoners-protest-their.html>
noted [10] on her blog on February 13 that in
January, the military closed Camp 4, "the least
restricted of the Guantanamo camps and moved all
of the men to either camps 5 or 6. Both supermax
facilities of the worst order."
"The men know that this is just the latest sign
that the Obama administration has no intention of
closing Guantanamo," wrote Gorman, whose client's
petition for habeas corpus was recently denied by
US District Court Judge Richard Leon.
In January, detainees at camps 5 and 6 marked the
ninth anniversary of Guantanamo's opening by
<http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/guant%C3%A1namo-prisoners-organize-peaceful-sit-protest-indefinite-imprisonment-a>staging
[11] a "sit-in."
"After seeing reports of the uprisings in Tunisia
the men started their own protest by putting up
signs everywhere they had access," Gorman wrote.
"Examples of some of the signs: 'where are the
courts?' 'what about our rights?' 'where is
democracy?' All very good questions."
Guantanamo officials told the ten remaining
detainees in Camp 1 in February that they were going to be moved to Camp 5.
"They were told [Camp 5] would be better," said
one Guantanamo guard. "They were told they could
bring nonessential items they collected. But
after they were transferred, those items were
confiscated. They were essentially lied to.
Overall, they just felt the living conditions were worse at Camp 5."
Being relocated to a new camp meant the detainees
were now under the purview of a new camp
commander, new guards and new rules. That meant
they had to start over as if they had just arrived at Guantanamo.
"The guards were not treating them well when they
got to Camp 5," said a military official
knowledgeable about the detainees' relocation,
who requested anonymity in order to speak openly
about the issue. "They were restricted from going
outside. Their mail was being opened. They asked
that their food not be thrown together. These are
the only things they have left to hold on to.
This isn't how it was for them at Camp 1."
The detainees protested, but they were ignored.
So they stopped eating. The hunger strike lasted about a month.
A little more than a week ago, it came to an end
after Guantanamo officials agreed to some of
their requests, which included meals that were
carefully prepared, additional recreation time
and the ability to pray together.
Wingard said al-Kandari is still hoping for
justice, despite the fact that he lost his habeas
case and will likely spend the rest of his life in Guantanamo without charge.
He said the former aid worker told him that,
"Back in the Bush days, they would torture us,
but at least we had a shot at eventually being
released. Now, with Obama, they beat us up
psychologically and make sure you know that no
one is ever going to leave Guantanamo."
**************************************
Source URL:
<http://www.truth-out.org/guantanamo-detainees-hunger-strike-protest-confinement-conditions/1304092655>http://www.truth-out.org/guantanamo-detainees-hunger-strike-protest-confinement-conditions/1304092655
Links:
[1] http://www.truth-out.org/print/1675
[2] http://www.truth-out.org/printmail/1675
[3] http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/
[4]
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/09/22/fayiz-al-kandari-a-kuwaiti-aid-worker-in-guantanamo-loses-his-habeas-petition/
[5] http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/prisoner/232.html
[6] http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/06/hbc-90005110
[7]
http://www.aclu.org/human-rights/aclu-calls-end-inhumane-force-feeding-guantanamo-prisoners
[8] http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/231008p.pdf
[9] http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/prisoner/239.html
[10]
http://gtmoblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/guantanamo-prisoners-protest-their.html
[11]
http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/guant%C3%A1namo-prisoners-organize-peaceful-sit-protest-indefinite-imprisonment-a
[12] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/
[13] http://twitter.com/share
[14] http://www.truth-out.org/content/jason-leopold
[15]
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6694/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=2160
[16] http://www.truth-out.org/user
[17] http://www.truth-out.org/user/register
[18]
http://www.truth-out.org/?q=wilkerson-cheney-bush-aware-guantamamo-detainees-were-innocent58446
[19]
http://www.truth-out.org/?q=cia-psychologists-notes-reveal-bushs-torture-program68542
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