[Pnews] Guantánamo prisoner Ahmed Rabbani joins legal challenge to force-feeding abuse

[Prisoner News]

*Guantánamo prisoner Ahmed Rabbani joins legal challenge 
to force-feeding abuse*

A father of three from Pakistan will today join historic litigation 
demanding that a US court of law intervene to halt prisoner abuse at 
Guantánamo Bay.

Ahmed Rabbani, who has been held without charge or trial since 2005, is 
being abusively force-fed and harshly disciplined as part of the 
military's efforts to break his year-long hunger strike. He suffers from 
serious medical problems as a result.

Unlike prisoners held on US soil, Ahmed has previously been barred 
from challenging the legality of the methods by which he is force-fed 
at Guantánamo Bay. Last month, he was granted the right to do so by DC's 
federal court of appeals, and on March 11 fellow prisoner Imad Abdullah 
Hasan filed the historic first challenge to the procedure. Today, 
Ahmed will file his own claim in federal court, and the military will be 
required to answer to a judge on his daily ordeal.

The mounting litigation against the regime at Guantánamo exposes the 
daily brutality of the force-feeding process, which the military has 
rendered progressively more painful in order to break hunger strikes at 
the camp.

Ahmed's legal team will add their argument to growing evidence 
that Guantánamo's force-feeding of peaceful protesters  amounts to 
torture.  Ahmed's motion to enjoin his abusive force-feeding will be 
filed in the DC District Court today (Thursday March 27) by Eric Lewis 
of Lewis Baach, Jon B. Eisenberg and Alka Pradhan of Reprieve US.

*Alka Pradhan, Reprieve US counsel for Ahmed Rabbani, said: */"Under the 
guise of keeping them alive, Mr Rabbani and his fellow hunger-strikers 
are being abused and degraded simply for exercising their right to 
peaceful protest. They have suffered enough. At the very least, the 
court must order the inhumane Guantanamo force-feeding practices to 
follow those used on US soil."/

*Jon Eisenberg, pro bono counsel for Mr Rabbani, said:* /"It is sadly 
ironic that, while Washington debates torture by the CIA a decade ago, 
it is happening right now at Guantanamo Bay on President Obama's watch."/


ENDS

1. Once filed in court, the full pleadings in /Mohammad Ahmad Gulam 
Rabbani v Barack Obama /may be downloaded at reprieve.org. For more 
information and to arrange interviews with the legal team or 
medical experts please contact Katherine O'Shea (US) 
katherine.oshea at reprieve.org or +1 917 855 8064.

2. Reprieve US opened in New York City in February 2014. A partner 
organization to Reprieve UK, Reprieve US provides advocacy and 
litigation aimed at stopping abuses in the death penalty and in 
counter-terrorism. For information about the work of Reprieve US please 
visit reprieve.org or contact Katherine O'Shea 
on katherine.oshea at reprieve.org or +1 917 855 8064.
-- 
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