[Pnews] Guantánamo detainees seek court order to preserve newly-discovered videos of force-feeding

[Prisoner News]

*Detainees seek court order to preserve newly-discovered videos of 
force-feeding*

Hunger-striking detainees in Guantánamo Bay have asked a federal US 
court not to allow the prison authorities to destroy footage of them 
being force-fed.

The existence of the recordings - captured by the military - emerged 
during the course of litigation in Washington DC's Federal District 
court attempting to prevent abusive force-feeding.

The renewed legal challenge to the practice was launched after 
Reprieve's initial force-feeding case, /Aamer v. Obama/, in which the DC 
Court of Appeals cleared the way for these cases. In this litigation, 
detainees revealed a host of abuses during feeding, including being left 
to defecate in restraint chairs, the gratuitous insertion and extraction 
of long feeding tubes, and speeds of force-feeding that grossly exceed 
accepted medical procedures.

The tapes are likely to show Guantánamo's 'Forcible Cell Extraction' 
(FCE) team transporting hunger-striking detainees who refuse (or are too 
weak) to walk to the force-feeding chair. This process, in which a team 
of military police in riot gear storm a prisoner's cell and 'subdue' 
him, has long been criticized as abusive. In 2003, USAF Spc. Sean Baker 
suffered permanent brain damage during a cell extraction training 
exercise. He was playing the role of the detainee.

As part of the litigation, medical expert Professor Steven Miles, MD has 
submitted an affidavit describing the reported rates of force-feeding at 
Guantánamo as "an extraordinary departure from customary medical 
practice" reminiscent of "a practice of torture called 'Water Cure' that 
has been practiced since the Middle Ages."

It is estimated that 17 men are currently on hunger strike in the 
prison. The authorities at Guantánamo stopped releasing official figures 
towards the end of last year, while detainees' access to lawyers has 
been increasingly restricted - reducing the availability of accurate 
information on the strike.

154 men are still held at the prison, more than half of whom have been 
cleared for release by the very government that continues to hold them 
without charge or trial.

*Cori Crider, Reprieve's Strategic Director and counsel to the 
detainees*, said: "Gitmo's riot squad hauling prisoners to force-feeding 
is some of the worst that is going on there right now, and we were 
stunned to learn some of it has been filmed.  We can't let this evidence 
go the way of the waterboarding tapes -- they might well be at the heart 
of the upcoming trial of Gitmo's brutal force-feeding practices'.

*Jon B. Eisenberg, co-counsel*, said: "Right now we are very concerned 
that someone in government or the military  might be acting quickly to 
destroy the force feeding videotapes, and we have asked the court to 
make sure that doesn't happen."

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. For further information, please contact Reprieve's Press Office on: 
katherine.oshea at reprieve.org <mailto:Katherine.oshea at reprieve.org.uk> / 
+1 (917) 855 8064 in the US, or: clemency.wells at reprieve.org.uk 
<mailto:clemency.wells at reprieve.org.uk> / +44 (0) 207 553 8161 in the UK.

2. The motion is available upon request.
-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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