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<big><big><b><a
href="http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/04/11/the-nightmare-has-started-again-according-to-hunger-striking-guantanamo-prisoner/"
rel="bookmark"
title="Permanent Link to ‘The Nightmare Has Started Again,’ According to Hunger Striking Guantanamo Prisoner">‘The
Nightmare Has Started Again,’ According to Hunger Striking Guantanamo
Prisoner</a></b></big></big>
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<p><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/04/11/the-nightmare-has-started-again-according-to-hunger-striking-guantanamo-prisoner/">http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/04/11/the-nightmare-has-started-again-according-to-hunger-striking-guantanamo-prisoner/</a></small></small><br>
</p>
<p>A prisoner, who has been held in detention for eleven years without
charge or trial, has told an attorney that the prison authorities are
trying to “break Muslims.” He is participating in a major hunger strike
that has been ongoing since early February and shared details on his
health as a result of his participation and what is fueling the hunger
strike.</p>
<p>Clive Stafford Smith, executive director of the UK-based legal
action charity, Reprieve, <a href="http://t.co/F0cKzDRa8R">spoke</a>
with Younus Chekkouri on the strike on April 9. Chekkouri has been in
the prison for eleven years without charge or trial. He is “very, very
depressed” and misses his family.”</p>
<p>Violations of prisoners’ Qurans are believed to be what sparked the
hunger strike. The Pentagon claims there were no violations of any
Qurans. The prisoners were concealing drugs and the books needed to be
inspected. But, Chekkouri says none of the detainees hid pills in their
Qurans, as the Pentagon has <a
href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/05/3325688/qurans-at-crux-of-guantanamo-hunger.html">claimed
in unsubstantiated allegations</a>.</p>
<p>According to Smith, the inspection of Qurans, to Chekkouri, is “a
well-worn and unwise pretext for trying to impose control on the
prisoners.</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="wbq">
<p>He relayed how the ICRC had confirmed to him and others that this
was a pretext being used by the US authorities, and that it was not
based in fact. There is an Islamic advisor (he gave me the name, but I
do not include it here as I have no desire to get the man in trouble by
naming him in a public document) who has been telling the JTF-GTMO
authorities how best to manipulate the prisoners’ beliefs (about whom,
more below).</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Prisoners like Chekkouri have tried to avoid confrontation with
guards. They offered to give up their Qurans, but the guard force has
preferred to essentially ransack prisoners’ cells in searches for
“contraband”:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="wbq">
<p>Younus came back to his cell after a search to find that it
“looked like Hurricane Katrina had just been through.” The soldiers had
taken most of Younus’ ‘comfort items’, including his books, as well a
large number of his legal papers. They had been silly as well: they
took only one of his shoes, leaving him just one. He had nothing that
he had not been legally given, and taking it away seemed very wrong and
very unfair.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Chekkouri estimated that well over 100 prisoners are still engaged
in the strike. He is one of the hunger strikers and has lost thirty
pounds. Smith reports that he has “pain everywhere since he is starving
the whole time.” He told Smith, “Really, now it is just pain
everywhere. I don’t want to die in Guantánamo.”</p>
<p>The following message was offered by Chekkouri to President Barack
Obama:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="wbq">
<p>The nightmare has started again. For some time, things had got a
bit better here, some of the guards were acting like human beings. Even
if we were treated like sheep, at least we were not always mistreated.
But now it has changed again. And now 86 of us have been cleared for
release and we are still here. Let us leave Guantánamo with clear
hearts, and without hatred. Hatred is evil, and it harms the person who
is hating as well as the person who is hated.”</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>A “supposed Islamic expert” is apparently behind the change in
treatment of prisoners. He is offering advice on “how to break
Muslims,” according to Chekkouri.</p>
<p>“There is one man who is giving Islamic advice, who pretends he is a
Muslim, and thinks he understands our minds, our diverse culture, our
souls, everything,” Chekkouri stated. To which, Smith added,
“Apparently the leadership in Guantánamo is back to trying to break
them, as they might break an animal or abuse a child, thinking that
this is the way to treat prisoners, even people who have long since
been cleared for release.”</p>
<p>Hillary Stauffer, Reprieve deputy director, <a
href="https://twitter.com/hilarystauffer">reports</a> (in a series of
tweets) on an unnamed prisoner participating in the hunger strike, who
says, “I’m being punished for speaking out. After my call with my
lawyer, they took everything.”</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="wbq">
<p>When I got back to my cell, everything had been tossed around,
like garbage…They had taken everything, my legal materials, my kids’
drawings were ripped off the wall…I am being FCE’d (subjected to a
Forcible Cell Extraction) for almost everything now…For three days now
if I say I want more water – they FCE me just to give me
water…Yesterday, they FCE’d me to bring lunch, even though I am on
hunger strike & won’t eat…I have had almost no water for 24 hours
as they would not bring bottled water…I have not showered for more than
9 days. They say they are busy….I will have to [bathe] from the toilet
as I was forced to one time before…I am not able to get medical
attention without being beaten up [FCE'd]…My legs & arms are
bruised from where they carry me.I bruise easily b/c I am not eating….I
can’t read. I am dizzy & fall down all the time. I don’t call them,
it is humiliating.When they call Code Yellow, they step on your
fingers, your hands, they scratch you….You live in fear when they say
they are treating you….Yesterday they tied me on a board & threw me
in a cell b/c the medical people were busy….Code Yellows (when a
prisoner collapses) in Camp V are now happening 10 – 15 times a day…In
the night people are dying from cold…In the day they are dying from the
heat…It’s hard to keep calm. They are killing us, so it is hard to keep
calm.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Just over a week ago, British prisoner Shaker Aamer <a
href="http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/04/02/the-guantanamo-hunger-strike-through-the-eyes-of-british-prisoner-shaker-aamer/">reported</a>
on the Emergency Reaction Force that has been carrying out brutal
“Forced Cell Extractions” (FCE) on prisoners in their cells. A night
shift has also grown increasingly obnoxious and oppressive, as they
make loud noises while prisoners are trying to sleep.<br>
<span id="more-14426"></span><br>
Guantanamo defense attorneys and British prisoner Shaker Aamer have
both contended 130 prisoners have been on strike. The Pentagon,
however, has maintained the number of prisoners striking is much lower.
First it was 14 prisoners. Then, it was somewhere around 30 or so
prisoners. Now, <a href="http://t.co/ituF5jJwEj">the number is 40
prisoners</a>. (It was not until mid-March the Pentagon acknowledged
publicly that a strike was even being carried out by prisoners.)</p>
<p><strong>*</strong></p>
<p>As this major hunger strike continues, Pentagon officials have been
accused by a Guantanamo defense attorney of “mishandling” hundreds of
thousands of defense lawyer emails and monitoring the Internet searches
of attorneys preparing their cases.</p>
<p>The <em>Associated Press</em>‘s Ben Fox <a
href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/10/3336085/pentagon-accused-of-data-breach.html">reports</a>
“500,000 defense lawyer emails” were affected in a major “Pentagon
computer server failure”:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="wbq">
<p>Richard Kammen, a member of the team representing an alleged
senior al-Qaida figure facing a war crimes tribunal at the U.S. base in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also said officials mishandled more than 500,000
defense lawyer emails and appear to be monitoring their Internet
searches as they prepare their cases.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>As a result, according to the <em>Miami Herald</em>‘s Carol
Rosenberg, the hearing for Nashiri was <a
href="https://twitter.com/carolrosenberg/status/322362503403294720">postponed</a> so
“compute confidentiality” issues could be resolved, as Kammen had
essentially urged.</p>
<p>Rosenberg also <a
href="https://twitter.com/carolrosenberg/status/322345334745485314">reported</a>
that the chief Guantanamo defense counsel, Air Force Colonel Karen
Mayberry, “issued a cease and desist order” last night <a
href="https://twitter.com/carolrosenberg/status/322343487192309760">ordering</a> ”defense
lawyers to stop doing privileged work on Pentagon computers.”</p>
<p>It has become <a
href="http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/02/15/the-continued-subversion-of-attorney-client-privilege-at-guantanamo-bay-prison/">increasingly
evident</a> in recent months that the Pentagon is violating defense
attorneys’ privileged communications with their clients.</p>
<p>In February, lawyers found the FBI had bugged facilities they use to
meet with clients with listening devices that looked like smoke
detectors. During a January 2012 “proffer session,” which involved the
“prosecution and defense were meeting on a potential deal,” Captain
Thomas J. Welsh saw a “law enforcement official on headphones
listening” in to a meeting. The official was an FBI agent. An order was
apparently issued in February to disconnect all eavesdropping equipment.</p>
<p>Also, in February, it was reported that the guard force at
Guantanamo Bay was going through legal bins prisoners have of
attorney-client privileged communications. They seized already stamped,
cleared and approved documents relating to the defense from 9/11
defendants.</p>
<p>On January 28, an original classification authority (OCA)—most
likely with the CIA—was found to have access to a button that could be
used to censor military commission proceedings. Navy Commander Walter
Ruiz, representing one of the 9/11 terror suspects, expressed concern,
“Before we proceed any further, we can only assume that maybe they are
monitoring additional communications, perhaps when we are at the
counsel table. We know we have green lights that have the ability to
record.” He urged the court to get defense lawyers answers on what the
body monitoring proceedings was capable of doing. (Subsequently, Pohl <a
href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/31/3210054/guantanamo-judge-unplugs-hidden.html">ordered</a> outside
“censor buttons” to all be unplugged.)</p>
<p>There have been problems with attorney-client privilege between the
Pentagon and Guantanamo Bay defense attorneys for years. In December
2011, Rear Admiral David Woods <a
href="http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/12/ap-guantanamo-bay-defense-lawyers-irate-new-rules-122711/">issued
an order</a> indicating privileged communications between lawyers and
their clients in the prison were going to be subject to security
inspections by Defense Department and law enforcement officials. It
prompted outrage from the American Bar Association, which <a
href="http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/uncategorized/2011/gao/2011dec21_guantanamoattcltpriv.authcheckdam.pdf">declared</a>
it was “deeply troubled to learn that a new policy at Guantanamo Bay
appears to violate both the letter and spirit of the attorney-client
privilege.”</p>
<p><strong>*</strong></p>
<p>A “day of action” is <a
href="http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/guant%C3%A1namo-hunger-strike-continues%2C-activists-rally-nationwide-%E2%80%9Cday-of-action-close-guant%C3%A1namoquot%3B">being
held</a> today in the United States. Organizers of the protests—which
include the Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International,
Witness Against Torture and World Can’t Wait, declared, “The vast
majority of the 166 men still trapped at Guantánamo have been held for
more than 11 years without charge or fair trial. The Obama
administration must take swift measures to humanely address the
immediate causes of the hunger strike and fulfill its promise to close
the Guantánamo detention facility.”</p>
<p>None of the men in the prison want to have to starve themselves to
be freed, but <a
href="http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/01/10/hunger-striking-is-the-only-hope-guantanamo-prisoners-have-for-release/">only
when prisoners have engaged in hunger strikes</a> have they ever won
anything like access to water or better treatment from prison
authorities.</p>
<p>In order regain dignity, a life where he is treated respectfully and
freedom from detention without charge or trial, prisoners like
Chekkouri feel they must resist in one of the few ways prisoners can
resist in the prison. If there is any hope that he will return to his
family, it lies in striking at Guantanamo.</p>
<p>Chekkouri is one of 86 prisoners, who have been cleared by President
Obama’s administration for release. They are completely innocent and
have been found to pose no threat whatsoever. They have not been
charged with committing crimes nor have they been put on trial. They
are in indefinite detention and most are convinced they are never going
to be set free. And, they know that without the support of the human
rights community and others from around the world, they are likely to
die from the “nightmare” that is being imprisoned at Guantanamo.</p>
</div>
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