The Punitive Use of Medical Restraints on Guantanamo Hunger Strikers

A partially redacted set of medical records released in the aftermath of the 2006 deaths of three Guantanamo prisoners shows that the use of "medical restraints" in the use of forced feeding of hunger striking detainees was used as a threat on hunger striking prisoners. At least one detainee was told over and over that use of "medical restraints" was due to his voluntary refusal to eat.

While Guantanamo medical authorities said the need for restraints was due to "medical necessity," such necessity was never documented. Instead, it was clear the use of restraints was punitive in nature.

The use of medical restraints in forced feeding, for which DoD uses a restraint chair, is not a normal procedure at other penal institutions. In a letter nearly one year ago from the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Feinstein noted, "When force-feedings do occur within the Bureau of Prisons, we have been told that nearly 95% of the time they are conducted with a fully compliant inmate requiring no restraints. At Guantanamo Bay, on the other hand, all detainees being force-fed—regardless of their level of cooperation—are placed in chairs where they are forcibly restrained." (Emphasis added.)

In the medical records (PDF) for Ali Abdullah Ahmed (ISN 693) in March 2006, a "Gitmo Nurse" noted in Ahmed's medical chart numerous discussions with the prisoner about his refusal to eat and the policy to feed him forcefully, a policy that insisted that the prisoner's behavior "must change":

Detainee placed in [redacted] Reason for Restraint: Medical Necessity [last two words are circled]

Detainee was advised by the Medical Staff that hunger striking is detrimental to his health. His behavior is due to his refusal to eat and not due to mental status change or illness. Medical Staff/Guards attempted to get the detainee to eat on his own. He is being offered food at every meal, yet he refuses to eat. Because the detainee refuses to eat, restraints were initiated for medical necessity for feeding. Detainee will be observed continually and he will be reminded of how his behavior must change (he must eat voluntarily) to avoid the use of medical restraints for present and future feedings. Detainee was told that he will remain in medical restraints until feed and post feed observation (60-120 minutes)

GITMO Nurse

Elsewhere in the medical notes (3/7/2006), the nurse states, "There is no evidence that medications or a medical process is causing this detainee's refusal to eat."

Other notes show that while Ahmed was kept in restraints, he remained under "Line of Sight Observation." Circulation checks were made every 15 minutes for the first hour, and then hourly thereafter. Vital signs were checked immediately after the restraints are attached, and every hour thereafter. The medical restraints order expired only after 12 hours. No reason why it is medically necessary to restrain the prisoner was ever given in the notes I saw. No evidence of opposition to the process of enteral feeding by Ahmed was ever described.

The policy of keeping Ahmed in medical restraints through his "post feed observation" was not consistent with the SOP for hunger striking as later revealed in the March 3, 2013 Standard Operation Procedure for hunger strikes and forced feeding obtained by Jason Leopold for Al Jazeera last year.

According to the portion of the policy titled "Chair Restraint System Clinical Protocol for the Intermittent Enteral Feeding of Detainees on Hunger Strike," "Medical restraints chair restraint system) should be used for the safety of the detainee, medical staff, and guard force.... Upon completion of the nutrient infusion and removal of the feeding tube, the detainee is removed from the restraint chair and placed in a 'dry cell'. The guard force will observe the detainee for 45-60 minutes for any indications of vomiting or attempts to induce vomiting."

But this is not what happened to Ahmed, who perhaps along with other detainees was kept as long as possible in a five point restraint chair, or possibly a restraint bed. The purpose of prolonging his restraints could only be punitive in nature, to teach him a lesson and get him to "change."

Only three months after the notes quoted above, Ahmed was one of three prisoners found supposedly hanged in their cells. The government maintains the three prisoners hanged themselves in an act of "asymmetrical warfare," but recent revelations by researchers at Seton Hall Law School (and Scott Horton at Harper's) show that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), charged with investigating the deaths, withheld crucial information from their report, hiding information about the deaths that came from witnesses and even the Senior Medical Officer on site which contradicted the government's own narrative.

The new information which has come to light argues that Ahmed and the two other men died with socks or rags stuffed down their throats, possibly part of an interrogation session meant to force the prisoners to turn informants for the CIA or the Department of Defense. The Senior Medical Officer (SMO) at Guantanamo who attended at least two of three high-profile “suicides” at Guantanamo concluded at the time that, contrary to the conclusions of the NCIS investigation, the detainees did not die by hanging but by “likely asphyxiation” from “obstruction” of the airway. His conclusion was never mentioned in the NCIS report, and later interventions by the Department of Justice prevented inquisitive congressional representatives from knowing that fact.

"The Torture Chair"

The secretive, abusive Guantanamo regime is under new scrutiny of its hunger striking procedures, thanks to a lawsuit by a Guantanamo prisoner.

According to Ben Fox at AP, attorneys for Guantanamo prisoner Abu Wa'el Dhiab have been viewing almost three dozen videotapes a federal judge ordered government authorities to turn over to the defense in Dhiab's appeal to stop his forced feeding. Dhiab is one of a number of hunger strikers currently refusing food at Guantanamo in protest of inhumane conditions and their indefinite detention.

Dhiab himself has been cleared for transfer or release from the Cuba-sited prison since 2009. The next hearing in his case is on June 18.

Due to a change in policy last December, DoD will not report the actual number of active strikers, or those refusing food, in what many believe was an attempt by authorities to reduce the political effectiveness of the prisoners' strike technique.

A lot has been written on the torture that is Guantanamo's forced feeding policy, which includes brutal beatings -- so-called Forced Cell Extractions (FCEs) -- to bring the hunger striking prisoner to a restraint chair, where he is strapped down and has liquid food put down a tube forced down his nose and into his stomach. The speed at which the liquid is forced down a prisoner's gullet is something defense attorneys have likened to the ancient "water cure torture."

The UN high commissioner for human rights, the World Medical Association, and other medical and human rights organizations have said forced feeding of prisoners amounts to torture.

In a June 3 filing by one of Dhiab's attorneys, Jon Eisenberg, wrote, Dhiab "does not object to being force-fed in order to keep him alive, as long as the force-feeding is 'civilized.' He states: 'I am willing to be force-fed in a humane manner.' His recent force-feedings, however, have not been humane. He asks: 'Is it necessary for them to torture me? Is it necessary for them to choke me every day with the tube? Is it necessary for them to make my throat so swollen every day? Do I have to suffer every day? Is it necessary for them to put me on the torture chair in order to feed me?'”

A new version of the Guantanamo SOP for use on hunger strikers, who are now called "Detainees With Weight Loss" on "long-term non-religious fasts," placed instructions on use of the restraint chair into its own new SOP. That document, like almost everything else at Guantanamo, is currently classified.

Cross-posted at FDL/The Dissenter

Health Care Professionals Urge Obama to End Forced-Feeding of Guantanamo Hunger Strikers

The following is a press release from Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), who gathered hundreds of signature and the support of other human rights associations to appeal to the President to stop the forced-feeding of hunger strikers at Guantanamo. The forced-feeding policy by the Department of Defense is blatantly against the policy of health organizations around the world, including the American Medical Association, the World Medical Association (see their Declaration of Tokyo), and the British Medical Association.

DoD is on a propaganda campaign to promote their policy (see here and here). But as this UK Guardian article notes, "Force-feeding policies have never succeeded."

Force-feeding is not a new concern. It fell rapidly out of fashion in 1917 after Irish republican Thomas Ashe unexpectedly died after being fed, and again in the 1970s following IRA hunger striker Michael Gaughan's controversial death. Then, as now, medical professionals and human rights activists raised concern about the dubious use of the stomach tube to suppress hunger strikers. The World Medical Organisation's 1975 condemnation of force-feeding as torturous and degrading seemed to signal an end to the practice. Indeed, one of the key reasons why Thatcher was left with few options but to allow IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and his fellow prisoners to starve – in the face of politically damaging controversy – was because she knew that force-feeding was no longer ethically viable.

What follows is PsySR's press release:

On August 12th, over 400 health care professionals and human rights leaders sent an urgent appeal to President Obama to order Guantánamo detention camp officials to stop force-feeding hunger strikers, immediately release the detainees approved for release, and make closing Guantánamo his first priority. Now in its seventh month, the hunger strike included 106 detainees at its peak, with as many as 46 of them force-fed.

The letter states that force-feeding mentally competent adults is a violation of medical and nursing ethics, and emphasizes that the method of force feeding in Guantánamo is “exceptionally brutal.” In describing the procedure in which the detainee is forcefully extracted from the cell by several soldiers and strapped into a restraint chair for up to two hours, the letter also notes that “Men weakened by significant weight loss are particularly at risk for serious injury during this regimen.”

Sponsored by Psychologists for Social Responsibility and signed by ten additional organizations, including the Center for Constitutional Rights and Physicians for Human Rights, the letter focuses on the ethical and professional dilemmas of Guantánamo health personnel who force-feed the detainees:

“Health care professionals, including those in the military, must maintain their licenses in good standing, and to do so they must follow standards of good ethical practice. This is not what is happening during the hunger strike.”

Because information is classified at Guantánamo, doctors, nurses and psychologists cannot honor their ethical obligations to confer with independent experts in such dilemmas, and are “constrained from securing the support of their professional colleagues if they experience reprisals for registering a complaint or refusing to participate further.”

The signers urge President Obama to “act immediately before more prisoners die” and argue that as Commander-in-Chief he has the power to immediately stop the force-feeding, release the detainees approved for release, and make closing Guantánamo his top priority.

The full text of the letter with the list of all signers is available online at www.psysr.org/GTMO-Letter.

Andy Worthington on Obama's False Guantanamo Promises (Video)

Andy Worthington has posted a video at his website highlighting his comments at a recent rally to free Shaker Aamer. The July 18 rally, called by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, was held outside the UK Parliament building in London.

Besides talking about the just cause of discharging Shaker from Guantanamo, the last British prisoner held at the US military prison, who has been cleared by two administrations for release, yet still held indefinitely with dozens of others similarly cleared, Worthington concentrated on the recent promises Obama made to address the prisoners' situation.

Worthington wrote:

It is, of course, outrageous that Shaker is still held, as he was cleared for release under President Bush in 2007, and again under President Obama in January 2010, along with 85 of the other 166 men still held. Opportunistic opposition to the release of prisoners by lawmakers in Congress, and shameful inaction on the part of President Obama are responsible for keeping these 86 men in Guantánamo.

Moreover, there are still no signs that any of the men will be released, even though they have been on a hunger strike to highlight their plight since February, and two months ago President Obama, responding to unparalleled criticism internationally and domestically, promised to resume releasing prisoners.

I can scarcely express my disappointment with President Obama, who should not have promised to resume releasing prisoners if he had no intention of doing so, and who will be remembered for his cowardice and hypocrisy unless he is true to his word.

Andy's disappointment at the machinations over Shaker and the rest of the prisoners, and the ongoing obscenity that is Guantanamo is shared by many human rights workers and attorneys, but evidently not by the Obama administration, which has been been talking a good game (when pinned down) about closing Guantanamo and the need for humane treatment, but since taking over the reins of the prison from the Bush/Cheney administration in January 2009 has done next to nothing to act upon their empty rhetoric.

Here's Andy's video:

Hunger Striker Younus Chekhouri Describes the "Nightmare" Inside Guantanamo

The following is reposted with permission from Andy Worthington's blog. They represent notes from an attorney for the UK charity Reprieve, taken while on the telephone approximately three weeks ago with Younus Abdurrahman Chekhouri, a Moroccan detainee held without charges at Guantanamo since 2002.

In a previous article, Worthington described Chekhouri's background:

Chekhouri is accused of being a founder member of the Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group (or GICM, the Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain), who had a training camp near Kabul, but he has always maintained that he traveled to Afghanistan in 2001, with his Algerian wife, after six years in Pakistan, where he had first traveled in search of work and education, and has stated that they lived on the outskirts of Kabul, working for a charity that ran a guest house and helped young Moroccan immigrants, and had no involvement whatsoever in the country’s conflicts. He has also repeatedly explained that he was profoundly disillusioned by the fighting amongst Muslims that has plagued Afghanistan’s recent history, and he has also expressed his implacable opposition to the havoc wreaked on the country by Osama bin Laden, describing him as “a crazy person,” and adding that “what he does is bad for Islam.”

Chekhouri has with 84 others been cleared for release from Guantanamo, yet he remains incarcerated indefinitely due to current U.S. policy that appears stuck on maintaining the status quo at the U.S. military prison, which has long been associated with abuse and torture of prisoners. A hunger strike against conditions at the camp has been going on for months now, with over 100 of the 166 detainees participating, and dozens being force-fed. The force-feeding continues even though the AMA and world medical associations condemn this action as unethical.

Indeed, the World Medical Association states, "Forcible feeding is never ethically acceptable. Even if intended to benefit, feeding accompanied by threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment. Equally unacceptable is the forced feeding of some detainees in order to intimidate or coerce other hunger strikers to stop fasting."

In his phone call with the Reprieve attorney, Chekhouri describes what happened on April 13 when Guantanamo guards raided the prison's Camp 6, where many prisoners had been living communally, to force them into isolation cells as punishment for the hunger strike. Guantanamo authorities have said they had to do this because of acts of resistance from prisoners, such as covering up the omnipresent video cameras. Pentagon officials stated there were "clashes" with prisoners.

The following notes present a voice from within Guantanamo itself, so that the world can hear what is happening. Meanwhile, Andy Worthington reminds us, "If you have not done so, please also sign and share the petition to President Obama on Change.org, launched by Col. Morris Davis, which has secured over 185,000 signatures in just over a week!"

Notes from a phone call with Younus Chekhouri, April 18, 2013

“What has happened here now is real nightmare. Nobody dreamed that what has happened would happen. After our peaceful demonstration, on Sunday morning the guards came in with guns. They used shotguns and three people were injured. Used gun with small bullets.”

“The guards came in, closed all of our cells, [removed us from our cells and] told us to get on the ground. We lay there on our belly for three hours or more. They took everything. Cells empty, nothing left. They moved us into another empty block and after a while they gave us blanket and that is all. They said it’s punishment.”

“History repeats itself, like it was seven years ago. [All we can have now are] blankets and clothes [on our backs]. [The cell I am in now] is really cold.”

Younus said he is now in pain as a result of having to sleep on the concrete floor: “Pain starts immediately when I’m on the floor. Pain in my neck, pain in my chest. No pillow. Punishment for everybody. Punishment because we hide cameras in cell and so this is what happened. They took everything, left cell empty.”

Younus is still not eating. He has Ensure and Metamucil but that is it. He said others who are worse off than him are getting nothing at all.

When asked to give a chronology of how things happened on Sunday, Younus said: “I was sleeping on Sunday. At almost 5am guards came in with shotguns. There was no confrontation that prompted it. When I woke up I heard them using guns on the detainees in the block next door. The detainees didn’t have anything. The guards used force to control some of the detainees, to force them out of the cells. Used tear gas [as well]. 5-6 ERF team would come in and throw detainees to the floor.” [Note: ERF is a reference to the Extreme Reaction Force, an armoured five-man team responsible for punishing infringements of the rules -- or perceived infringements of the rules].

“[For hours on Sunday morning the detainees were forced to lay on their stomachs]. We had no right to move, no right to go to the bathroom.”

They shackled detainees’ hands and feet and moved them into individual isolation cells. “Finally at night they gave blankets. It was very cold in the empty cells.”

In terms of the number of guards that “invaded” the block: “More than 50 came in on my block and there were only 13 detainees on my block. Nobody [no detainees] thought to fight. What do we have to fight with? [Plus] we were outnumbered. Guards were scary, they were ready to use guns, use force. It was very scary.”

More about how Younus was awoken on Sunday: “Sunday I was sleeping. I heard people yelling outside, so I came outside of cell. Then I saw guards closing outside doors and the guards with guns. They used tear gas to keep detainees away. Heard sound of gun next door. Said three were injured: one on belly, one on hand, one on body. They were taken to hospital. Not sure how they are doing. Everyone is traumatized by what happened.”

“To be treated this way after 11 years is not right. They are using the same rules as first day of opening Gitmo.”

“Water now is privilege. There is no right to have water and they tell you that they can cut it at any time. I suffer all day. We don’t know when this will end. They said this is just the beginning. We were calling for things to get better, but things are worse.”

Younus is still in Camp 6, but in isolation.

“Nightmare has started again. I feel distress, anxiety, disease, anger. In the future no one knows what could happen, what to expect now that this has happened. Camp 6 now isolation. Everyone in his cell. Only 2 detainees can have rec at a time. Same rules as when Camp 6 was opened for first time in 2007. It’s like we are starting again from the beginning, like a game.”

Younus would like to “thank everyone who can save me from this hell. I have German connection. I would be grateful for them to help me be free. I am in a helpless place, I have lost hope in the democracy of the United States. I thought my torture had ended, but what is happening now is horrible. I feel like a slave in Gitmo. Thank anyone who can do anything to help people in Gitmo. I really need your help. My wish is that nice people around the world can help.”

On conditions now in camp 6: Younus is sleeping on “concrete, hard floor, very cold. Knees, head, body hurts. No pillows, hard to sleep. My shoes are my pillows. Pains in back. Cannot move, cannot pray, cannot get to toilet because I am in pain.”

“My dream is one day I will leave this place.” Younus seemed very anxious because of what happened Sunday and said that he’s “afraid that I will be punished and they will take everything I have now.” A blanket is all he has.

They have gone “back to 2002-2003.” Younus believes they did this so that detainees would “stop complaining or requesting things to be better.” He said they said: “You have no right to ask for your release and better treatment.”

Younus knew they were using the detainees blocking the cameras as a so-called justification for the raid because “when they invaded the block, they told us get on floor, lay on belly, don’t cover camera. Now using old rules, start practicing old rules. When you ask why, they say it’s because people were hiding cameras. They say they don’t know when things will get better.”

“No one [guards] will give answers why this [Sunday’s raid and loss of everything] has happened. Will it stay forever, or short time? No one says anything, just that this is punishment for hiding cameras. No way to negotiate now, we just have to obey.”

“People are old, sick and they cannot deal with this.” He said in many ways it’s worse now than when these same tactics were used 11 years ago because the men have aged and have been through hell in Gitmo all these years. “Unfair that they are back to treating us like animals.”

Younus has “now lost 35 lbs. Going down. Taking Ensure but weight is still going down.” He will continue to take Ensure himself because he “doesn’t want tubes in nose.”

Again, before the call ended, Younus wanted to “please say thank you to everyone out there.”

Also posted at The Dissenter/FDL

Violence at Guantanamo? Detainees Desperately Fight for their Humanity

The headlines were ablaze with stories regarding the outbreak of violence at Guantanamo, as on April 13 the military mounted raids in the dead of night to force hunger-striking prisoners from the communal living in the prison's Camp 6 into solitary confinement isolation cells in the hated confines of Camp 5.

Considering the way the military has handled the situation at Guantanamo -- forbidding reporters at the island, making nice to the ICRC only to conduct violent raids on detainees as soon as Red Cross officials leave, force-feeding hunger-striking detainees against all medical ethics and protocols -- you'd think the Pentagon thought they had another Koje-do prison camp rebellion on their hands.

Apparently the White House was notified in advance of the nighttime raids on the debilitated hunger strikers, who according to military accounts (which one must take with maximum suspicion), fought back with mop and broom handles and plastic water bottles.

Whatever military police met in terms of opposition, what they certainly encountered were emaciated prisoners, worn down by years of interrogation, isolation, brutality, and now hunger, as they wield the only real weapons they know, their very bodies, choosing death over the hopelessness and torture that is indefinite detention.

The claims of recent violence miss something that is greater than nuance, they miss the total reality of the situation.

Guantanamo is one ongoing violent governmental atrocity, from the ever-present raids of the Emergency Reaction Force (ERF), who forcibly remove detainees from their cells by beating them violently, to violence done to body and spirit by chaining men, submitting them to sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, forced drugging (detainees "chemically restrained"), and subjecting them to interrogations according to an Army Field Manual condemned for human rights abuse by nearly human rights group around the world.

Judge Denies Bid for Relief from Abuse

Meanwhile, according to an account in this morning's New Zealand Herald, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan denied an emergency motion for relief from Yemeni prisoner Musa'ab Al-Madhwani. Al Madhwani had said he was being denied safe drinking water by Guantanamo authorities, and being subjected to "extremely frigid" temperatures. A military psychiatrist who knows the situation at Guantanamo very well, retired Brigadier General Stephen Xenakis, told the court the treatment Madhwani was receiving at Guantanamo was threatening Al Madhwani's very life.

Xenakis wrote that after being treated with intravenous fluids following a collapse last week, the prisoner was placed in solitary confinement and has not received daily monitoring of his medical condition.

"Given the gravity of his condition, these failures constitute deliberate indifference to his obvious serious medical needs," Xenakis wrote.

But Hogan denied the motion for judicial relief, saying his hands were tied by the Military Commissions Act and he did not have jurisdiction in the case. You could almost hear Hogan's sneer as he maintained Al Madhwani's health problems were "self-manufactured."

According to the Herald story, "When one of al-Madhwani's lawyers, Darold Killmer, mentioned the alleged mistreatment of other detainees, Hogan responded, 'This is not a class-action.'"

At the hearing Obama's DOJ attorney maintained that no hunger striker had ever died at Guantanamo. He evidently forgot to mention that nearly all of those who have died at Guantanamo in the past seven years had been hunger strikers, all of them supposedly "suicides": Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, and Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani in 2006; Abdul Rahman Al Amri in 2007; Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi in 2009; and Adnan Farhan Abd Al Latif in 2012. The government has yet to release details of the investigations into all but one of these deaths.

Meanwhile, in an eerie parallel to the struggle by the detainees, defense attorneys for accused 9/11 prisoners on trial at the military commissions have met an Orwellian barrage of double-talk and obstruction. Jason Leopold has a nice summary of the latest news on this front. But whether it is the unprecedented government access to hundreds of thousands of defense emails, monitoring of attorney-client communications, or the disappearance of defense files from government computers, the assault on basic norms of lawful procedure and democratic rights at Guantanamo continues.

What's perhaps worst is the fact that this all happens under the auspices not of the much-maligned Bush-Cheney administration, but under the leadership of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Eric Holder. They are able to do this in part because of the obscene silence emanating from the liberals and Democrats that had spoken out against the Bush regime's abuse of prisoners only a few years ago.

Ghaleb Al-Bihani on Retribution for Speaking Out

In closing, here is an April 15 statement from Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Senior Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei. Kebriaei has recently talked to her client Ghaleb Al-Bihani about the hunger strike and his experience of a forced move to solitary confinement:

Rather than deal with the reasons for the hunger strike – the immediate trigger of the searching of Qurans and the long-term desperation caused by more than 11 years of indefinite detention without charge or trial – the government responded over the weekend by escalating violence and retaliation. Rounding up the men in pre-dawn raids and forcing them into single cells is consistent with other tactics the government is using to pressure men to break the strike as well as to stem the flow of information out of the prison. If the men are kept from one another, they cannot report on the situation as a whole to their attorneys and the only means available to tell their side of the story is cut off.

I spoke with my client, Ghaleb Al-Bihani, one of the men on hunger strike, on Friday. When we met at Guantanamo last week, he had lost over 40 pounds and was visibly weak. On the phone, he sounded muted. He told me that he had been forcibly moved from Camp 6, the communal camp where he had been held for years, to Camp 5, a solitary confinement facility, a few days before. He said it was worse in Camp 5 “because of the MPs.” The “MPs” – military police – are the guards used to maintain “order” in the camps, including by forcibly, physically extracting hunger strikers from their cells for force-feeding.

When I asked Ghaleb why he had been forcibly moved, he said it was because he had spoken out about conditions in the camps. The week before, he had given me a declaration to use in the case of another man, Musa’ab Al Madhwani, who has filed an emergency motion about the withholding of clean drinking water from hunger strikers. A federal court in Washington is hearing arguments in that case today.

The forced move, my client said, was because “I spoke to you about Musa’ab’s problem.” He has stayed in his cell since to avoid confrontation with the MPs. He said he didn’t feel comfortable telling me more about the situation in the camps over the phone. He is worried about retaliation.

Instead of pre-dawn raids, violence, brutal force-feeding and withholding safe drinking water, the administration should direct its energy to closing the prison by appointing an official to lead the effort forward and releasing the men it never intends to charge, beginning with the 86 men the administration has itself approved for transfer. There is no more time to waste by pointing fingers and laying blame. President Obama can and should act on his promise to close the prison and finally turn the page on this dark chapter of history.

Cross-posted from The Dissenter/FDL

Human Rights Activists Fast in Solidarity with Gitmo Hunger Strikers

The following press release is from Witness Against Torture:

As Men at Guantanamo Hunger Strike, Human Rights Activists Respond with Fast and Demonstrations

For Immediate Release: March 26, 2013
Witness Against Torture (www.witnesstorture.org)

Contact: Jeremy Varon, 732-979-3119, jvaron@aol.com; Christopher Knestrick, 216-496-2637, cknest11@gmail.com

On Sunday, March 24 human rights activists throughout the United States began a seven day fast and series of actions in solidarity with the men currently on hunger strike at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Dozens of men, according to detainee lawyers, are entering their seventh week of a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention and a new wave of alleged abuses. The U.S. Navy now reports that three hunger strikers have been hospitalized and that ten are being force fed — a practice condemned by human rights organizations and used in efforts to “break” prior hunger strikes at Guantanamo. Attorneys also report that some hunger strikers have lost consciousness and are experiencing severe drops in body weight.

Already, Witness Against Torture (WAT) has demonstrated in locations large and small —from New York City, to Chicago, to Perrysburg, Ohio. At least 80 people nationwide are participating in the fast, with more joining each day. Activists are also writing letters to the detainees and reaching out to the White House, U.S. Southern Command and the Department of Defense with newly urgent calls that the notorious prison close.

In New York City on Sunday, Witness Against Torture created dramatic images in front of the Times Square military recruiting station, juxtaposing the iconic orange clad, black hooded figures with the advertisements for the Navy and Marines.

“It is tragic,” says New York City WAT organizer Jeremy Varon, “that the men at Guantanamo should have to risk death through hunger to protest the denial of their basic rights. The hunger strike signals the colossal failure of the Obama administration, which promised to close Guantanamo, and of Congress, which has placed enormous barriers to ever shuttering the prison. If the hunger strikers start dying, we know where the blame for their deaths lies.”

In Chicago, protestors gathered on Sunday in front of President Obama's private home, reading the names of all 166 men still held at Guantanamo. Pat Bronte, an attorney for several detainees in Guantanamo, told the protesters how much it means to them to know that Americans are standing with them in their pursuit of justice.

Chicago’s Jerica Arents, a teacher at DePaul University, says, “Participating in the fast serves as a physical reminder to me that there are men languishing in Guantanamo, refusing food because it is the only means they have to protest their indefinite detention.”

“More than four years after President Obama promised to close Guantanamo,” says WAT organizer Frida Berrigan, “the U.S. government is investing tens of millions of new dollars in the prison facility. I can understand why the detained men feel so helpless about ever leaving Guantanamo and being reunited with their families. We have not forgotten them, and continue our struggle to close the prison.”

Actions in New York, Illinois, California, Connecticut, Ohio, and other locations will continue throughout the week and can be viewed at www.witnesstorture.org/events/

166 men remain imprisoned at Guantanamo. 86 have been cleared for release. All are subject to indefinite detention and held at a cost to U.S taxpayers of $800,000 per year per man.

It's a very good thing we have groups like Witness to Torture. I admire the way they stand up for what they believe.

The abandonment by Democratic Party liberals of the detainees at Guantanamo, other detainees held by DoD, JSOC, or the CIA at various secret sites around the world (and even at sea!), and the issue of torture and interrogation as a whole, is mind-boggling in its embrace of near-term societal amnesia and politically-motivated forgetting or ignorance.

My thanks to Witness to Torture and their supporters for putting their bodies as well as their beliefs on the line.

"A growing feeling here that death is the road out of Guantanamo"

"What would you do if your brother or uncle was kidnapped, sold, and beaten in a prison for 11 years without charge?"

So says the question prominently posted at a Facebook site ("Free Fayiz and Fawzi") dedicated to the two remaining Kuwaiti prisoners at Guantanamo, 36-year-old Fayiz Al-Kandari and 35-year-old Fawzi Al-Odah. Both men have been in Guantanamo for over ten years. Neither of them have ever been charged in any court with any wrongdoing. Both men were doing charitable work in Afghanistan when they were caught up in the chaos after 9/11 and the subsequent U.S. attack there.

Both men are on a hunger strike, reportedly along with many others at Guantanamo. Both have endured harsh interrogation and torture during their years in U.S. custody.

Air Force JAG, Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, military attorney for Fayiz, has been in Guantanamo for the past week or so, and has seen first hand the effects of the hunger strike on his client. Wingard, who understandably is quite concerned for his clients, told The Dissenter al Kandari has lost "substantial weight," over 23 pounds in the last three to four weeks, or since the hunger strike began. He said Fayiz is now down to 120 pounds, and Fawzi weighs 123.

March 4, Kevin Gosztola explained in The Dissenter the details surrounding the current hunger strike at Guantanamo, the biggest in years.

The news of the hunger strike has hit the mainstream media, as exemplified by this report in The Atlantic. According to a story by Carol Rosenberg in the Miami Herald, military authorities state six of 166 prisoners are on hunger strike currently. Five are being force-fed. DoD spokespeople deny any widespread strike.

According to a March 5 article by Reuters, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez reports "the Obama administration showed no sign of reversing its position and allowing him access to terrorism suspects in long-term detention at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp." In this, the Obama administration follows the policy of its predecessor, George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, Rosenberg in a new story yesterday describes a previously unreported incident of a non-lethal shooting of a detainee last January.

As a March 4 letter from Center for Constitutional Rights and numerous Guantanamo detainee attorneys to Rear Admiral John W. Smith, Jr., Commander, Joint Task Force Guantánamo and Gitmo's Staff Judge Advocate Captain Thomas J. Welsh states, the hunger strike began after prison authorities began confiscating detainees’ personal items, restricting exercise, and "searching the men’s Qur’ans in ways that constitute desecration according to their religious beliefs." The letter also charges "guards have been disrespectful during prayer times."

DoD denies any Qur'ans have been treated disrespectfully, or for that matter, any differently than they have been for years.

"Stress, Fear, and Despair"

Besides the alleged search of Qur'ans by guards, according to one entry at the Facebook page for Al-Kandari and Al-Odah, guards -- whether under orders or not -- were up to other shenanigans as well: "In response to the hunger strike, soldiers opened containers of food so the smell could fill the prison. The prisoners were then asked if they wanted one or two servings of food. The response with a big smile: 'Do you really think the smell of your food is stronger than our religion?'"

The CCR letter noted, "The practices occurring today threaten to turn back the clock to the worst moments of Guantánamo’s history, and return the prison to conditions that caused great suffering to our clients and were condemned by the public at large. If prior experience serves as any guide, the current practices risk dire consequences and will only invite outside scrutiny."

The letter detailed "reports of men coughing up blood, being hospitalized, losing consciousness, becoming weak and fatigued, and being moved to Camp V for observation. Detainees have also expressed feeling increased stress, fear, and despair."

Wingard told The Dissenter, "A larger issue is that there is a growing feeling here that death is the road out of GTMO."

Certainly Wingard is cognizant of the fate of another hunger striking detainee, Adnan Latif, who was found dead in his cell last September. Latif's death was quite mysterious, and the government has ruled it a "suicide" by drug overdose, complicated by pneumonia. However, Latif was "medically cleared" and returned to his cell less than 48 hours before he died. No authority has yet explained how he could have hidden drugs in a facility under constant surveillance and as a prisoner privy to numerous searches.

Wingard continued:

The last releases of any size occurred under the Bush administration. I think the prisoners correctly note that less than 20 will ever get trials. For those without evidence, President Obama in March of 2011 announced many will be indefinitely detained without ever having stepped into a courtroom.

For my Kuwaitis its especially bitter since the Kuwait has demanded the return of its sons, built a rehabilitation center at the behest of the Bush administration, currently hosts 13k US troops in Kuwait and purchases billions in military from the US. Certainly if Kuwait is not getting it two remaining sons Fayiz al Kandari and Fawzi al Ohda, then what country will?

Another pointed entry at the Free Fayiz and Fawzi Facebook page quotes Wingard: "Fayiz and Fawzi are on a hunger strike with other prisoners. I request a Kuwaiti delegation to immediately visit Guantánamo Bay. It is not enough to have secret delegations between two allies."

Another attorney for Fayiz, Adel Abdul Hadi said, "I blame the Government of Kuwait for not taking genuine steps to have the boys released. The unanimous recommendations of the Kuwait parliament ratified in 2012, condemning GTMO and demanding the return of the boys have been ignored by the government."

The "last Egyptian detained" at Guantanamo

The hunger strikers are not the only detainees whose lives are reportedly in danger. Fifty-five year old Tariq al-Sawah, "the last Egyptian detained in the US Guantanamo Bay facility," is in very poor and "deteriorating" health, "morbidly obese."

According to a June 3 story in the Egyptian Independent, Sawah's "military-appointed lawyer, Lieutenant Colonel Sean Gleason, has said three former Guantanamo commanders have provided letters indicating that he 'is not a threat and recommending he should be released'.... Beset with respiratory and heart complications, he is 'at significant risk' of death, according to a doctor. Authorities have refused him appropriate treatment, according to his doctor and lawyers, and continue to withhold his medical records."

In May 2011, another middle-aged obese detainee, Awal Gul, collapsed and died of a heart attack at Guantanamo. Questions have arisen about his death recently, as Jason Leopold at Truthout reports.


One could also ask how it is in such a controlled environment as Guantanamo that a prisoner could become "morbidly obese," having reportedly doubled his weight while imprisoned.


ICRC Rebukes Obama on Detainee Review

Along with Obama's March 2011 announcement of holding detainees indefinitely, the President also issued and executive order regarding a new review process for detainees held at Guantanamo. Obama said, referring to detainees that he indicated "in effect, remain at war with the United States," "We must have a thorough process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified."

But according to an article late last year at the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration has failed in the past two years to institute any "process of periodic review." Article authors Julian E. Barnes and Evan Perez wrote, “The Obama administration has failed to re-evaluate the threat posed by dozens of prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, putting it at increasing odds with political allies who are angry with the president’s lack of action on the US terrorism-detention system.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recently raised the issue of the lack of a review process "senior US officials at recent meetings in the US and in Geneva." According to Barnes and Perez, the ICRC "also has acknowledged its concerns publicly, a rare rebuke from an agency that usually works under strict neutrality and in confidence.”

As Andy Worthington pointed out in an article on February 28, "an unnamed senior official added, 'The detainees likely to be held long-term without trial pose a significant risk, and the threat they pose isn’t likely to have diminished since the initial review by the administration, meaning the delay in beginning the reviews hasn’t been consequential.'"

Worthington commented, "That is particularly disgraceful, because it indicates an acceptance, within the administration, of information that is fundamentally unreliable."

In fact, the Obama administration has shown that it has zero interest in administering justice for detainees at Guantanamo. It has publicly justified the indefinite detention of prisoners on hearsay evidence. It retired its Guantanamo special envoy, Daniel Fried, and then announced it had no intention to replace him. It continues to pursue deeply flawed military commissions trials, the laughing stock of the world, where even the judge in charge doesn't know who is in control of his courtroom, as the sudden suspension of audio feed to the press proved some weeks ago.

Disturbingly, last month, according to a report by Josh Wirtshafter at The Public Record, "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and two of his co-defendants, had returned to their cells after yesterday’s session to find their attorney-client mail ransacked— and much of it seized."

Detainee's Father: "this is illegal and against human rights"

A few months before the crackdown on prisoners at Guantanamo and the subsequent hunger strike, Fayiz told Al Jazeera what it was like for him at the U.S.-based Cuban prison camp: "I pray, I read the Qur’an, I work out two hours every day, and I socialize with other prisoners. Because of the insignificant medical care in Guantanamo Bay, I cannot afford being ill. I am already plagued with serious medical conditions such as permanent damage in my cervical spine. Therefore, I regularly practice physical exercise to boost my immune system and to prevent the onset of any disease. The International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] has done a poor job in effectively helping the prisoners. For example, the ICRC provides each prisoner with a phone call to their parents once every six to eight weeks instead of once every four weeks."

Fawzi’s father, Khalid Al-Odah, is the head of the Kuwaiti Family Committee, an organization formed by relatives of the detainees to advocate for their just treatment under the U.S. judicial system. The elder Al-Odah is a former member of the Kuwaiti Air Force, who trained with American servicemen in the United States and flew missions with them as an ally in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Last April, Khalid spoke about his son and Fayiz to Kuwati Times:

"We want the detainees back to be judged here. We fulfilled all the conditions and demands set by the US administration. We prepared the rehabilitation center for them to stay in when they return. We also agreed to apply security measures and observation on them, like the travel ban and other conditions, yet we didn’t notice any positive act from the US government... In fact, during Bush’s regime most detainees were released, but now only a few were released and they were even sent to a third nation and not their home country. Obama only talks much, but he is not practically helpful....

“Our lawyer there is still working on the case, but there is no result yet. The American government won’t allow a fair trial for them, and this is illegal and against human rights. We are also dealing and meeting with different NGOs and international organizations to help us in this injustice. We need support from the public, as the Kuwaiti government is not active."

It's been nearly a year since Fawzi's father spoke out. How long must this man wait to see his son?

Fawsi wrote to his father in 2002, while held by the Americans, "I will be established as innocent soon, and then I will return back to you..."

Meanwhile, Fayiz's attorney posted the following in a February 2013 Facebook entry: "We promised Fayiz we would not forget his brother, [British resident interned without charge at Guantanamo] Shaker Aamer. Fayiz would say, 'Shaker has four children, get him home first.' Then with humor he would add, 'don't think I don't want to go home' with a big smile."

Crossposted at The Dissenter/FDL

Guantanamo Prisoners Protest on 10th Anniversary of US Gulag

A report from Democracy Now on a protest and hunger strike by prisoners at Guantánamo on this 10th anniversary of the opening of the detention center.


Other stories and reports about Guantánamo are widely available on this depressing anniversary, including:

"It was a sunny day" - an article by Jason Leopold at Truthout, who interviews former Guantánamo guard Brandon Neely on his experiences in the early days of the camp's opening.

Live From Guantánamo - Truthout op-ed by Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney, Wells Dixon, who is currently in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba visiting one of his clients.

“Close Guantánamo” Campaign and Website Launches: Retired Military Personnel, Lawyers Call for the Closure of Guantánamo After 10 Years - Article by Andy Worthington, who has reported more on Guantánamo than just about anyone else.

What's Ahead for Guantanamo Camps in New Decade? - by McClatchy reporter Carol Rosenberg, who has covered Guantanamo since the detention center's opening

This Gitmo Anniversary Needs to Be about Bagram, Too - by blogger Marcy Wheeler, who reminds us that the fate of Guantanamo is inextricably tied to other US detention sites where indefinite detention has become the new normal.

Guantanamo Bay: A Wound We Won't Let Heal - article by Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic, chronicling the story of one of the prisoners, Mustafa Ait Idr. (I wrote about the water torture inflicted on Idr at Guantanamo in an article at Truthout last August.)

The Guantánamo facility at 10: an assault on our constitutional government - an op-ed by Todd E. Pierce at the National Law Journal

“None of these cleared [Gitmo] prisoners is likely to leave any time soon..." - by Gotta Laff at The Political Carnival, highlighting a LA Times op-ed on the case of Guantanamo prisoner Fayiz al-Kandari (see also the Facebook page, "Free Fayiz and Fawzi")

An Innocent Man in Guantanamo - an ACLU podcast interview with Lakhdar Boumediene, who spent over 7 years without charges or trial in the Guantanamo hell. (See also ACLU's new webpage, Close Gitmo.)

Shut Down Guantánamo on its 10th Anniversary! - Center for Constitutional Rights, who was in the forefront in providing legal representation to Guantanamo prisoners, has a webpage up with news and actions, meeting, etc.

Guantanamo Remembered - the UK charity, Reprieve, which has also been instrumental in providing legal representation to Guantanamo prisoners, has posted videos of former Guantanamo detainees speaking about their memories of those still imprisoned there, like the last British man held there, Shaker Aamer, who has never been charged with an offense, and who was tortured at Bagram and Guantanamo. (The video is embedded for viewing below.)



See also the UK schedule of events surrounding the 10th anniversary at the Cageprisoners website.

Cyptome.org has also posted a number of photos of Guantanamo's detention facilities in a nod to the 10th anniversary.

And this late addition (h/t Jason Leopold), Dahlia Lithwick at Slate, "The Great Gitmo Blackout":

In the foreign press they are saying that the camp “weighs heavily on America’s conscience” and that “the shame of Guantanamo remains.” But most Americans are experiencing the anniversary without much conscience or shame; just with the same sense of inevitability and invisibility that has pervaded the entire 10-year existence of the camp itself: inevitability in that we somehow believe the camp was truly necessary and nobody ever really expects the conflict to be resolved; and invisibility in that nobody really knows what’s happening there, or why....

It’s hard to say anything new about 10 full years of Guantanamo, beyond the fact that most of what we wrote two, four, and seven years ago still holds mostly true. But given that Americans have an increasingly hard time thinking about the camp, and the rest of the world can think about little else, perhaps we can agree that pretending it isn’t there probably isn’t the answer.

Nearly 12,000 Prisoners Join California Hunger Strike to End Torture Conditions

According to an October 1 article at Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS), the Federal receiver's office has indicated that "nearly 12,000 prisoners were on hunger strike, including California prisoners who are housed in out of state prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma."

This is the second hunger strike in less than four months, with prisoners at the Supermax Pelican Bay Prison and other California state prisons protesting the use of long-term solitary confinement, in addition to four other main demands, including provision of adequate and nutritious food, an end to administrative abuses (such as group punishments), and expansion, and in some cases provision, of "Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates."

But besides an end to state-sanctioned isolation, which amounts to torture, the most salient demand is an end to the hated "debriefing" system, which places inmates in solitary if prison officials determine they are "gang members." As I noted in an article last July, determination of "gang" status includes “acquisition or exchange of personal or state property amounting to more than $50…. tattooing or possession of tattoo paraphenalia…. possession of $5 or more without authorization…. [and] refusal to work or participate in a program as assigned,” among others. Indeed, even refusal to submit to "debriefing," i.e., interrogation of prisoners to get them to "snitch," or give names of other "gang" members, is reason to label someone a gang member and put them in solitary indefinitely. The prisoners call this "snitch, parole, or die."

Both isolation and forced confessions are illegal forms of incarceration. The 2006 Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons, co-chaired by former Chief Judge of U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, John Gibbons and former Attorney General Nicholas de B. Katzenbach, called for an end to isolation in U.S. prisons. (See summary of findings and recommendations, PDF.)

A Fight for Dignity, Justice, and Humanity

California prisons are a stinking mess, a scandal of gigantic proportions. The health care component of the California prison system has been in federal receivership for years because of the awful, insufficient care provided to the sick and mentally ill. As reported in a McClatchy article last May, the U.S. Supreme Court "cited 'serious constitutional violations' in California's overcrowded prisons and ordered the state to abide by aggressive plans to fix the problem." The court rejected state pleas to put off the necessary changes, and ordered the prison system to lower its population by approximately 37,000. (A plan to implement the changes is meeting some skepticism.)

According to the McClatchy article:

One hundred and twelve California prison inmates died unnecessarily because of inadequate medical care in 2008 and 2009, analysts found. Acutely ill patients have been held in "cages, supply closets and laundry rooms" because of overcrowding, investigators found. Suicides by California inmates have been double the national average.

No wonder the prisoners' hunger strike is gaining so much support in California prisons, where inmates are held like animals. The overcrowding is largely due to long-time incarceration for drug charges, including simple possession, and California's onerous Three Strikes law.

The prisoners have indicated they will conduct "rolling" hunger strikes, allowing prisoners to come off strike to regain their strength. They indicated they have resumed their strike after changes promised after the July hunger strike by the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) failed to materialize, in particular "demands related to solitary confinement and gang validation."

Meanwhile, CDCR has indicated they will punish strikers. Two attorneys representing prisoners in mediation talks with the CDCR have been "banned from all prisons pending an investigation into whether or not they had 'jeopardized the safety and security of CDCR' institutions."

According to an article at the PHSS website, "The CDCR has delivered memos to prisoners at each state prison threatening that any participation or support for the hunger strike will result in disciplinary actions, such as placement in Ad-Seg/ASU [Administrative Segregation Unit] or SHUs [Security Housing Units] (for prisoners currently in General Population), increased destructive cell searches, removal of canteen items, and worse. We know that a number of prisoners lost their jobs as added punishment for supporting the strike in July."

International Support

The renewed strike has gotten support from Palestinian hunger strikers protesting the use of isolation in the imprisonment of Palestinian leaders such as Ahmad Sa’adat. The use of isolation to punish and break prisoners is not limited to California or U.S. prisons, but cases involving American prisoners have made the news in recent months, including the incarceration of Bradley Manning, and the ongoing refusal to release the last British resident prisoner at Guantanamo, Shaker Aamer, who is also on a hunger strike to protest the conditions he is held under.

As thousands muster at protests across the country, such as the Occupy Wall Street protests covered here at The Dissenter, in the deepest, darkest holes of misery in this country people are fighting with their lives for basic humanity and just treatment by a system that treats its victims -- whether they are prisoners, or whether they are impoverished unemployed, thrown on the trash heap by financiers and indifferent politicians -- with indifference at best, or sadistic animus at worst.

The prisoners cannot win their battle without public support. The public must see that the fate of the men and women thrown into American prisons is part of their own struggle, as the methods and attitudes fostered by the prison establishment are turned increasingly on the U.S. population as a whole, just as surveillance, mass round-ups, torture, and economic shock treatment has metastasized from imperialist foreign policy to a domestic program of immiserating working Americans to pay for Wall Street's follies and the Pentagon's wars.


Originally posted at The Dissenter/FDL