Guantanamo Bay hunger strikes

Captives who will not comply with their force-feeding have their arms, legs and head restrained in a feeding chair. They remain strapped in the chair until the nutrient is digested, to prevent induced vomiting.

File:ISN 00239, Shaker Aamer.jpg

Shaker Aamer organized and participated in the 2005 hunger strike

Guantanamo Bay hunger strikes began during the middle of 2005, when detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp initiated two hunger strikes. The detainees organized several widespread hunger strikes to protest their innocence, and the conditions of their confinement. Other captives, such as the men camp authorities asserted committed suicide in June 2006, had committed themselves to long-term hunger strikes, which were not shared by the other captives. Widespread hunger strikes recurred in 2013.

2005 hunger strikes

According to Andy Worthington, the weight of at least eighty captives dropped to below 100 pounds (45 kg) each.

Camp authorities responded by force-feeding captives, according to the camp's Standard Operating Procedures. They had started isolated cases of force-feeding, called "re-feeding", early in the camp's history. Human rights workers, and Physicians' professional associations, have criticized the use of force-feeding on mentally competent patients at Guantanamo.

The American Department of Defense (DoD) spokesman, Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico, said on July 21, 2005 that 50 detainees were involved in the hunger strike. The first hunger strike ended on July 28, 2005, when prison authorities agreed to bring the camp into compliance with the Geneva Conventions. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, the strike had become so widespread that medics could not manage the needs and elected to stop making their regular medical calls. The prisoners spent 26 days without food.

According to human rights workers, the prison authorities had a waiver form they asked detainees to sign if they wanted to refuse intravenous rehydration. The detainees had all been advised, by their lawyers, not to sign anything which their lawyers had not reviewed.

One concession the American authorities acknowledge making was to supply the detainees with bottles of clean water to drink with each meal.

The detainees reported to their lawyers that the prison authorities had agreed that they would begin to treat them in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions. A week later in early August 2005, when the prison authorities were not abiding by their commitment, the detainees started a second hunger strike. By September 2, the DOD spokesman Brad Blackner said that 76 detainees were participating in the second hunger strike. Human-rights workers estimate that both hunger strikes had between 150 and 200 participants.

Many of the individuals captured in Afghanistan had been taken into detention at Guantanamo Bay without trial. These individuals were termed as “enemy combatants.” Until July 7, 2006, the United States administration under President George W. Bush had treated these individuals as outside the Geneva Conventions. Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that international law applies to enemy combatants. The Prisoner - Moazzam Begg

Eighteen-year-old Omar Khadr, one of the hunger strikers, told his lawyer that other catalysts were the detainees' concerns that the guards were not showing respect for their religion, as they sometimes turned on loud fans, played loud music, and whistled to disrupt their prayer meetings. Khadr said the prison authorities broadcast the call to prayers only four times daily, rather than the required five for religious obligations. He also reported that many of the detainees resented when women GIs broadcast the call to prayer.

In September 2005, the New York Times reported that as many as 200 prisoners, a third of the camp, had taken to hunger striking, and that at least 20 of them were being force-fed through nasal tubes and given fluids intravenously. Major Weir, a spokesman at the base, said "We will not let them starve themselves to the point of causing harm to themselves."

On October 26, 2005, a federal judge ordered the Government to provide information about the condition of detainees to lawyers representing the hunger strikers. The Government has contested the detainees' claims of rough treatment during forced feeding. The court's decision reflects major changes from the early years of the camp's operation, when almost no information was obtainable by attorneys. The Government did not immediately announce whether it would appeal the judge's ruling.

On November 4, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated at a Pentagon news conference that he would not permit United Nations investigators to interview the striking detainees. He said the International Committee of the Red Cross would continue to have unlimited access to interview them.

On December 30, 2005, the military reported that there were 84 strikers as of Christmas Day, with 46 having joined that day. In the April 14, 2008, edition of the New Yorker magazine, Jeffrey Toobin reported that there were about ten hunger strikers at Guantanamo. The overall population had declined markedly, as many detainees had been repatriated or transferred to detention in other countries.

2013 hunger strike

A new wave of the hunger strike arose in early 2013. At its peak in July, 106 of the 166 detainees were on hunger strike, with 45 of them being force-fed.

On December 4, 2013, the US military announced that it would no longer disclose information about the hunger strikes, explaining that "The release of this information serves no operational purpose".

The last disclosed figures in December showed numbers of hunger strikers rising to 15, with all being force-fed.

External links

• Carol Rosenberg, "Ramadan at Guantanamo Bay includes nightly force-feedings", Miami Herald, 24 August 2010
• Alex Stonehill, "Mos Def Force-Fed in Solidarity with Guantanamo Hunger Strikers", The Seattle Globalist, 9 July 2013