Guantanamo hunger strike news (please read)

[Papa C.]

U.S. reports surge in Guantanamo hunger strike



By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, Dec 29 (Reuters) - The number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners taking part in a hunger strike that began nearly five months ago has surged to 84 since Christmas Day, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

Forty-six detainees at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, joined the protest on the Christian holiday on Sunday, said Army Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, a military spokesman.

The prisoner population, which the Pentagon says numbers about 500, is believed to be uniformly Muslim. Only nine have been charged with any crime.

"There's been a significant increase in the number that have been added to the hunger strike," Martin said by telephone from Guantanamo.

Lawyers for some of the detainees call the strike a protest of jail conditions and prisoners' lack of legal rights. The military has denied allegations of torturing detainees.

Medical personnel were force-feeding 32 of the hunger strikers with plastic tubes inserted into the stomach through through the nose, the military said. Asked the purpose of the force-feeding, Martin said, "Because our policy is to preserve life."

Military officials define a hunger striker as a detainee who has refused nine straight meals, and often refer to the strike as a "voluntary fast" and force-feeding as "enteral feeding."

The detainees began the strike in early August after the military reneged on promises to bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva Conventions, their lawyers said. Detainees are willing to starve to death to demand humane treatment and a fair hearing on whether they must stay, the lawyers said.

Most of the detainees were captured in Afghanistan and have been held for nearly four years.

'ALLOWED TO DIE'

Amnesty International official Jumana Musa said this week's surge illustrates the strike's seriousness.

"You are talking about a prison population of hundreds who have decided that with no conceivable change in their future that they just don't care to live anymore, or they are going to make a statement in dying," Musa said.

Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a lawyer for three detainees including Bahraini striker Isa Almurbati, said, "Isa told me that he will end the hunger strike when he is sent home. His philosophy is that he should be sent home or allowed to die because the idea of spending the rest of his life at Guantanamo without any due process is simply unbearable."

In a statement, the military said a hunger strike "is consistent with al Qaeda training and reflects detainee attempts to elicit media attention and bring pressure on the United States government to release them."

Martin said the peak participation in the strike was on Sept. 11, the fourth anniversary of the attacks on America orchestrated by the al Qaeda network, with 131 detainees taking part. Human rights lawyers have estimated at least 200 detainees were participating at the peak.

"Enemy combatants on voluntary fast are closely monitored by medical professionals, receive excellent medical care, and when required, the appropriate amount of daily nutrition and hydration through enteral feeding," the statement said.

In an October court filing, Julia Tarver, a lawyer for detainees, said U.S. personnel violently shoved tubes through the men's noses and into their stomachs without anesthesia or sedatives. "When they vomited up blood, the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like 'look what your religion has brought you,'" Tarver wrote.

Martin said called "totally false and baseless" allegations of deliberately inflicting suffering in this feeding process.

www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29198182.htm

[Papa C.]

Guantanamo Bay force feeding raises painful memories for republicans - January 6, 2006



(Evan Short, Irelandclick.com)


Former prisoners of recent British penal history recall the trauma of torture and forced feeding, now happening to Muslim hunger strikers



January 11 marks the fourth anniversary of detainees being held in the US Military Detention Centre in Guantanamo Bay.

In what has become one of the most contentious issues surrounding the so-called war on terror, men and boys who were arrested by the US Army after the invasion of Afghanistan and labelled "unlawful combatants" were transferred to the camp in Cuba.

The UN special rapporteur on torture has revealed that there are allegations that Guantanamo hunger strikers are being force-fed in a cruel manner.

Manfred Nowak's comments came after it emerged that the number of detainees refusing food at the prison camp had more than doubled since December 25.

Some 84 inmates are now refusing food, according to the US military.

But a Pentagon official said there was no evidence that they had been treated in an inappropriate way.

Denied access to a judicial process and forced to live in what human rights groups have described as 'dog kennels' that offer little protection from the elements, prisoners, some believed to be as young as 13, have in the words of Amnesty International been involved in a "travesty of justice".

Such shocking abuses bring back painful memories for New Lodge man Sam Millar. The former republican prisoner – now a major selling author – was the longest man on the blanket protest. He said watching the scenes from the horror camp were extremely distressing.

"When I look at what is going on in Guantanamo Bay and compare it with what happened to us, the parallels are frightening. It is worse than internment what is going on out there."

Sam Millar believes the issue of Guantanamo goes beyond the question of Afghanistan.

"I think there should be absolute outrage at what's going on, but for some reason it just doesn't seem to be a big issue. The way it is portrayed as well, they make you become immune to it."

He said he also fears for ordinary Americans, who he believes will suffer because of the country's policies.

"The telephone transcripts that have been released of the prisoners on the phone would break your heart. I am afraid this will alienate ordinary Americans from the rest of the world because of what their government is doing," he said.

In recent weeks, as we approach the fourth anniversary of the camp opening, chilling new reports have emerged that forced with a growing hunger strike campaign by the detainees, the military has instigated a new regime of force feeding.

Described by the US military as "providing appropriate nutrition through nasal tubes" the grim reality of force feeding was described in detail by Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly in an interview with the North Belfast News in 2004.

"They press their knuckles into your jaws and press in hard. The way they finally did force feed me was getting forceps and running them up and down my gums," he said.

"I opened my mouth, but I was able to resist after that," said the Sinn Féin man in the interview.

"Then they tried – there's a part of your nose, like a membrane and it's very tender – and they started on that. It's hard to describe the pain. It's like someone pushing a knitting needle into the side of your eye. As soon as I opened my mouth they put in this wooden bit with a hole in the middle for the tube. They rammed it between my teeth and then tied it with cord around my head.

"Then they got paraffin and forced it down the tube. The danger is that every time it happens you think you're going to die. The only things that move are your eyes.

"They get a funnel and put the stuff down."

Affidavits from the prisoners in Guantanamo describe how the torture victims vomited up "substantial amounts of blood" while being fed through their nose.

The US Military has denied that torture takes place in Guantanamo Bay and says there was not truth in the allegations.

However, by admitting to force feeding prisoners for republicans like Gerry Kelly, these words will have a hollow ring to them.

[Papa C.]

Pentagon Loses Legal Round on Guantánamo Names - Reuters

Wednesday 04 January 2005

New York - A federal judge rejected the US Defense Department's argument for not disclosing the names of detainees at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but stopped short of ordering that the names be released.

Judge Jed S. Rakoff's order on Wednesday was a victory for the Associated Press, which sued the Pentagon in April 2005 seeking the names of detainees and transcripts of hearings held by the US military to determine whether they were properly classified as enemy combatants.

The Pentagon tried to block the Associated Press' attempt to report the names of Guantánamo detainees, arguing that doing so could imperil the families of the detainees or the detainees themselves should they be released and return to their home countries.

In a six-page order, Rakoff wrote, "The Department of Defense has failed on this motion to establish ... any cognizable privacy interest on the part of the detainees.... Accordingly, the defendant's summary judgment motion is denied."

Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a Pentagon spokesman on detainee matters, said, "We're reviewing the order with the Department of Justice." He declined further comment.

A lawyer for AP welcomed the ruling.

"Many of these detainees are begging for the world to know where they are," said Dave Tomlin, AP's assistant general counsel. "The court was right to reject the government's pose as guardian of privacy rights when what it's really guarding is its own secrecy."

In August, the judge ordered the Defense Department to poll the 317 detainees who had undergone enemy combatant hearings to see whether they objected to having their names published.

Of those, 63 said they wanted their names released, 17 said they didn't, and the rest did not answer.

"The only privacy interest it purports to assert ... is that of the defendants; but of the 317 detainees in issue, only 17 have asserted a desire to have their identifying information kept confidential," the judge wrote.

Lawyers for both sides were called to meet in court on Thursday to determine the next step.

[Papa C.]

Judge Orders Release of Gitmo Detainee IDs
By Larry Neumeister
The Associated Press


Monday 23 January 2006

New York - A federal judge ruled Monday that the Defense Department must release the identities of hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees to The Associated Press.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff told the government to provide the information in the form of unredacted copies of transcripts and documents related to 558 military hearings in which detainees were permitted to challenge their incarcerations.

Most of the hundreds of prisoners at the U.S. prison in Cuba have been held since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks without being charged or publicly identified, which has troubled human rights groups.

The AP filed its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking the documents last year. The government then turned over the transcripts of 558 tribunals but redacted facts about each detainee's identity.

The judge gave the government until Wednesday to decide whether to appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and ask him to suspend his order.

Earlier this month, the judge rejected government arguments that the detainees' names should be kept secret to protect their privacy, but gave the government one last chance to change his mind.

In response, the government argued that releasing the identities could subject the families, friends and associates of the detainees to embarrassment and retaliation.

In a written ruling Monday, the judge said he found that argument unconvincing. He said family members and the others "never had any reasonable expectation" of anonymity.

Many of the detainees were captured in Afghanistan, and are there, the Persian Gulf, Russia and other countries.

A spokeswoman for federal prosecutors, Heather Tasker, said the government had not seen the ruling and had no response.

AP attorney David A. Schulz said he expected the government to appeal.

"The judge has rejected the Defense Department's effort to use the privacy interests of detainees to prevent the public from learning information about the actions taken at Guantanamo Bay," he said.

Last year, the judge ordered the government to ask each detainee whether he or she wanted personal identifying information to be turned over to the AP as part of the lawsuit.

Of 317 detainees who received the form, 63 said yes, 17 said no, 35 returned the form without answering and 202 declined to return the form.

The judge said none of the detainees, not even the 17 who said they did not want their identities exposed, had a reasonable expectation of privacy during the tribunals.

[Papa C.]

All these stories taken from the IRBB thanks to 'Kat'- admin2.7.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=3480&sid=c3328d85cc15f3fbedfdcdebf489f088