From Times Online
January 14, 2009
One in five Guantanamo Bay detainees is on hunger strike
Guantanamo Bay
(Roberto Schmidt/EPA)
33 detainees are being force-fed
Tim Reid in Guantanamo Bay
Nearly a fifth of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay are on hunger strike with the aim of attracting the attention of Barack Obama, military officials have told the Times, with most of them being force fed.
Of the 248 inmates inside the controversial US detention facility, 44 are refusing food, and 33 of those are receiving nutrition with tubes that are forced up their noses and into their stomachs.
On election night, according to one official, news of Mr Obama’s win somehow spread across the prison facility, even though no inmates had access to television that evening, and chants of “Obama! Obama! Obama!” erupted throughout the complex.
It is the biggest hunger strike since the Spring of 2006, with the percentage of inmates now refusing food believed to be the second highest in the prison’s seven year history. Two inmates have been force fed without break since August 2005.
Human rights groups claim the total number of hunger strikers is higher. Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer for the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, says that more than 70 men held at the US Navy base in Cuba were refusing to eat. She cited reports from visiting lawyers for her estimate.
According to the official, most Guantanamo inmates are now well informed about what is happening in the outside world, through a combination of watching Arabic news programmes and through meetings with civilian lawyers and the International Red Cross, who are allowed to visit the facility.
Most are well aware of Mr Obama’s pledge to close the prison down, which received the first inmates seven years ago this week.
Asked why so many were on hunger strike, and why the number was increasing, the official said: “This is the seventh anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees and a week today is the inauguration of a new president. Hunger striking is an acknowledged form of protest.”
Under military rules at Guantanamo, a detainee is defined to be on hunger strike if they refuse nine consecutive meals. Those that do eat receive between 4,500 and 5,000 calories a day.
Once a detainee has not eaten for 21 days, or missed 63 consecutive meals - or if they drop below 85 per cent their healthy weight - and a prison doctor approves force feeding, it is imposed.
Officials at Guantanamo say the procedure is done according to standard and humane civilian techniques. The tip of a flexible tube about the width of spaghetti is dabbed with a lubricant, inserted into a nostril and pushed down into the stomach. A nutritional supplement is then administered. The inmates have no choice in the matter.
“It is our responsibility to make sure that the detainees are kept in good health,” the official said.
Aides to Mr Obama say that on his first day in office next Wednesday, he will issue an executive order to close Guantanamo down, although he conceded on Sunday that it will take time and is almost certain not to occur within the first 100 days of his Administration.
Aides have also indicated that he is likely to suspend the Bush administration’s controversial military commission system until the jail is closed.
One of the last hearings before his Inauguration on Tuesday took place today. In seven years, just 18 detainees have been charged with crimes. More than 520 have been released without charge.
At Camp Justice today, the site in Guantanamo Bay where detainees are charged and tried, Noor Ulthman Muhammed, a Sudanese man accused of being an al-Qaeda weapons trainer, appeared inside the military commission courtroom - the first time he has been seen in public in nearly seven years.
Muhammed, who according to his military defence lawyer was born in the “late 1960s” and who asked the presiding judge through an interpreter to address him simply as Noor, was arrested during a Pakistani raid of a safehouse in Faisalabad in March 2002. Detained with him was Abu Zubaidah, accused by the US of being a close associate of Osama bin Laden and one of three detainees that the Bush administration admits has been been waterboarded by the CIA.
With a greying beard, Muhammed was slouched in a leather swivel chair and wearing his white prison uniform. The colour of inmates’ uniforms vary according to their behaviour, or “compliance”, and white signals a detainee who is “highly compliant”. The worst behaved wear orange.
Muhammed’s lawyers were urged that he wear civilian clothes at his next appearance, so that his commission would not be prejudiced by his prison clothes. He requested, and was told that he could have, a Sudanese lawyer who could join his defence team as a consultant. The charges, that he was a weapons trainer in Afghan terror camps in the years before the September 11 attacks, were read to him, and, without formally entering a plea, he declared that he was innocent.
January 14, 2009
One in five Guantanamo Bay detainees is on hunger strike
Guantanamo Bay
(Roberto Schmidt/EPA)
33 detainees are being force-fed
Tim Reid in Guantanamo Bay
Nearly a fifth of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay are on hunger strike with the aim of attracting the attention of Barack Obama, military officials have told the Times, with most of them being force fed.
Of the 248 inmates inside the controversial US detention facility, 44 are refusing food, and 33 of those are receiving nutrition with tubes that are forced up their noses and into their stomachs.
On election night, according to one official, news of Mr Obama’s win somehow spread across the prison facility, even though no inmates had access to television that evening, and chants of “Obama! Obama! Obama!” erupted throughout the complex.
It is the biggest hunger strike since the Spring of 2006, with the percentage of inmates now refusing food believed to be the second highest in the prison’s seven year history. Two inmates have been force fed without break since August 2005.
Human rights groups claim the total number of hunger strikers is higher. Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer for the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, says that more than 70 men held at the US Navy base in Cuba were refusing to eat. She cited reports from visiting lawyers for her estimate.
According to the official, most Guantanamo inmates are now well informed about what is happening in the outside world, through a combination of watching Arabic news programmes and through meetings with civilian lawyers and the International Red Cross, who are allowed to visit the facility.
Most are well aware of Mr Obama’s pledge to close the prison down, which received the first inmates seven years ago this week.
Asked why so many were on hunger strike, and why the number was increasing, the official said: “This is the seventh anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees and a week today is the inauguration of a new president. Hunger striking is an acknowledged form of protest.”
Under military rules at Guantanamo, a detainee is defined to be on hunger strike if they refuse nine consecutive meals. Those that do eat receive between 4,500 and 5,000 calories a day.
Once a detainee has not eaten for 21 days, or missed 63 consecutive meals - or if they drop below 85 per cent their healthy weight - and a prison doctor approves force feeding, it is imposed.
Officials at Guantanamo say the procedure is done according to standard and humane civilian techniques. The tip of a flexible tube about the width of spaghetti is dabbed with a lubricant, inserted into a nostril and pushed down into the stomach. A nutritional supplement is then administered. The inmates have no choice in the matter.
“It is our responsibility to make sure that the detainees are kept in good health,” the official said.
Aides to Mr Obama say that on his first day in office next Wednesday, he will issue an executive order to close Guantanamo down, although he conceded on Sunday that it will take time and is almost certain not to occur within the first 100 days of his Administration.
Aides have also indicated that he is likely to suspend the Bush administration’s controversial military commission system until the jail is closed.
One of the last hearings before his Inauguration on Tuesday took place today. In seven years, just 18 detainees have been charged with crimes. More than 520 have been released without charge.
At Camp Justice today, the site in Guantanamo Bay where detainees are charged and tried, Noor Ulthman Muhammed, a Sudanese man accused of being an al-Qaeda weapons trainer, appeared inside the military commission courtroom - the first time he has been seen in public in nearly seven years.
Muhammed, who according to his military defence lawyer was born in the “late 1960s” and who asked the presiding judge through an interpreter to address him simply as Noor, was arrested during a Pakistani raid of a safehouse in Faisalabad in March 2002. Detained with him was Abu Zubaidah, accused by the US of being a close associate of Osama bin Laden and one of three detainees that the Bush administration admits has been been waterboarded by the CIA.
With a greying beard, Muhammed was slouched in a leather swivel chair and wearing his white prison uniform. The colour of inmates’ uniforms vary according to their behaviour, or “compliance”, and white signals a detainee who is “highly compliant”. The worst behaved wear orange.
Muhammed’s lawyers were urged that he wear civilian clothes at his next appearance, so that his commission would not be prejudiced by his prison clothes. He requested, and was told that he could have, a Sudanese lawyer who could join his defence team as a consultant. The charges, that he was a weapons trainer in Afghan terror camps in the years before the September 11 attacks, were read to him, and, without formally entering a plea, he declared that he was innocent.
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