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  #1  
Old 03-06-2013, 06:28 PM
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Default Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

According to a Canadian newspaper most of the prisoners illegally detained at Guantanamo Bay are on hunger strike:

Quote:
Attorneys for more than a dozen of the prisoners said in a letter to the prison commander, Rear Adm. John Smith, and released to the media that "all but a few men" have been on hunger strike for three weeks. They said the situation "appears to be rapidly deteriorating and reaching a potentially critical level."

The lawyers said the protest was prompted by a series of searches that began on Feb. 6 in which a number of personal items, including religious CDs, blankets and legal mail, were confiscated, and included what they felt were overly intrusive searches of their Qurans by Arabic translators that amounted to desecration.

"As their health has deteriorated, we have received reports of men coughing up blood, being hospitalized, losing consciousness, becoming weak and fatigued, and being moved to Camp V for observation," the lawyers wrote, referring to a camp that is used in part to hold men who violate prison rules.
Lawyers for Guantanamo prisoners say most on hunger strike; US military says it's not true
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  #2  
Old 03-06-2013, 10:46 PM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Give it a little more time and the problem will go away.
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Old 03-07-2013, 12:31 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Which problem? Of people being held without criminal charge, without redress, often after being kidnapped and tortured, against every principle the US purports to stand for? The problem that Guantanamo is a militant recruiter's dream, if one wanted to convince someone that violence against the United States is justifiable? The rank hypocrisy? The human rights violations and undermining of Rule of Law across the globe?

That problem?

Also, let me say that your internet persona of complete disdain for the lives of others other than your grandson is repulsive; let us hope that some few would see the false arrest and legal limbo of you and yours as a tragedy, and a hunger strike on your part as something more than a reason to spout internet tough-guy blase one-liners.

If you agree please type something stupid below. Thanks
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Old 03-07-2013, 02:14 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

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Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites View Post
If you agree please type something stupid below.
Talk about low-hanging fruit...
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Old 03-07-2013, 03:35 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

I see Kael beat me to it.
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Old 03-10-2013, 01:53 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

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Originally Posted by Kael View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites View Post
If you agree please type something stupid below.
Talk about low-hanging fruit...
That's what SHE said! :awesome:
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Old 03-10-2013, 06:45 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

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Originally Posted by Sauron View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kael View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites View Post
If you agree please type something stupid below.
Talk about low-hanging fruit...
That's what SHE said! :awesome:
"Talk about low-hanging fruit", - the prisoners at Guantanamo?
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  #8  
Old 03-10-2013, 08:06 PM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

It's possible you mean Gitmo detainees are low-hanging fruit in that when the US wanted an immediate response to 9/11, they offered a bounty for any al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan, no questions asked. Which resulted in many security forces, Northern Alliance forces, and otherwise to grab all sorts of people and hand them over, each one for thousands of US dollars.

This sloppy, ill-conceived, and unjust purchasing and kidnapping of unfortunates may explain some of the startling numbers: Like that out of the 779 men and boys incarcerated at Gitmo, only 7 have been found guilty of a crime (that's two less than the number of detainees who have died in custody). Of the 166 men there currently, 86 have been cleared for release- but are still there. Like British resident Shaker Aamer who was cleared for release in 2007. He has now spent 11 years in Guantanamo, and has never been charged with a crime. He is still there.

Even more chilling is the 46 men in Guantanamo who are being held in "indefinite detention"- they are not being charged with a crime; they are not being sentenced; they are just imprisoned, with no release date.

Prisoners have included a 14-year-old boy, a 15-year old boy, a 70-year-old man, and an 89-year-old man.

So that's one sort of low-hanging fruit- just grabbing people out of Afghanistan and Pakistan- after paying off their captors with a fortune in cash- with no clear chain of evidence, no credible basis; a badly composed dragnet that has had almost entirely negative results. Were you referring to some other concept?
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  #9  
Old 03-14-2013, 01:18 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Salon, Mar 12 2013:
Quote:
Over 100 detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison camp have reportedly gone on hunger strike following the alleged desecration by guards of personal effects including copies of the Koran. According to reports from detainees’ attorneys, the strike is into its third week.
The public affairs officer for Guantanamo disputes this broadly in the article; and of course it is nearly impossible for anyone on the outside to verify, even the detainees' defense attorneys:
Human Rights First, Jan 2013:
Quote:

Late Tuesday morning defense lawyers at the Guantanamo military commission hearing the 9/11 case insisted they want at least a 48-hour visit, plus regular visits every six months afterwards. In all the years of their clients’ imprisonment, they’ve never been allowed to see where the men are being held.
...>snip<...
Defense lawyers also want access to reports and other communications from the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, to the U.S. government about the conditions of confinement at the Guantanamo prison. The government says they’re privileged and doesn’t want to provide them.
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  #10  
Old 04-15-2013, 08:53 PM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Hunger strike continues and grows.
Guardian UK, April 13:
Quote:
Guards clashed Saturday with prisoners at the Guantánamo Bay prison, as the military sought to move hunger strikers out of a communal section of the detention center on the US base in Cuba, officials said. The confrontation occurred after the commander decided to move prisoners into single, solid-walled cells so that prison authorities could monitor them more closely during the hunger strike, the military said.
...>snip<...
The prison at the US base in Cuba holds 166 detainees. The military said that as of Friday, 43 prisoners were classified as hunger strikers, including nearly a dozen being force fed to prevent them from starving to death. Lawyers for prisoners have insisted the strike is much more widespread and that almost all of the men are refusing to eat.
NYT Op Ed: Gitmo is Killing Me:
Quote:
I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.

I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.
...>snip<...
The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen.
...>snip<...
The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply. At least 40 people here are on a hunger strike. People are fainting with exhaustion every day. I have vomited blood.

And there is no end in sight to our imprisonment. Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made.

I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.
McClatchy, April 5:
Quote:
...a new push by the Yemeni government to win the release of the 90 Yemenis being held at Guantanamo.

Last week, Shabati’s parents traveled from their home 60 miles outside Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, to protest outside the U.S. Embassy here. In the coming weeks, a delegation of senior Yemeni officials – including the country’s foreign minister and its minister of human rights, as well as intelligence officers – is hoping to visit Guantanamo Bay, where dozens of detainees currently are conducting a hunger strike to protest their indefinite imprisonment without trial.

Even Yemen’s president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who generally enjoys close relations with the United States, has directed rare criticism at the Obama administration.

“We believe that keeping someone in prison for over 10 years without due process is clear-cut tyranny,” Hadi said in a recent interview broadcast over the Arabic language channel of Russia Today. “The United States is fond of talking democracy and human rights. But when we were discussing the prisoner issue with the American attorney general, he had nothing to say.”
In January of 2010 President Obama ended any prisoner transfers to Yemen- including prisoners already cleared for release.

Greenwald covers this all in detail here.
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  #11  
Old 04-17-2013, 07:56 PM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

BBC:
Quote:
Seven prisoners have joined a hunger strike at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, bringing the total number to 52, US military officials have said.

Fifteen of the protesters are being force fed, and three of them are being observed in hospital.
ETA: Below is a two minute, 40 second clip of former Guantanamo detainee discussing his treatment during his hunger strikes at the prison.

Hunger Strike: Lakhdar Boumediene - YouTube

Last edited by chunksmediocrites; 04-18-2013 at 06:14 PM.
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  #12  
Old 05-06-2013, 04:25 PM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

AFP / Yahoo:
Quote:
The petition launched by Guantanamo's former chief military prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis was signed by more than 137,400 people by late Sunday for the president to bring some kind of closure to the fate of the terror suspects at the US prison on the eastern tip of Cuba.
...>snip<...
As of Friday, 100 of the "war on terror" suspects were observing the hunger strike, out of a total of 166, prison officials say.

Of them, 23 were being fed with tubes running down their noses and three were hospitalized even though their lives were not in danger, said prison spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House.

Lawyers for the inmates say there are actually 130 hunger strikers, some of them refusing food since February 6.
The petition is here. The text of the petition is pretty interesting and straightforward.
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Old 05-19-2013, 06:44 PM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

A few more prisoners have joined the hunger strike, and more are being force-fed now. Pressure continues on the administration from the international community, human rights organizations, and at home.
LA Times, May 17 2013:
Quote:
A 100-day-old hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists has agitated international human rights advocates anew, prompting fresh calls worldwide for closure of the detention center that President Obama vowed to shutter more than three years ago.

The European Parliament, the United Nations’ human rights commissioner, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and U.S.-allied governments with citizens stuck in indefinite detention have stepped up criticism of conditions they see as driving desperate captives to starve themselves.
...>snip<...
On Thursday, a spokesman for the joint task force operating the prison said 102 detainees were now taking part in the strike and 30 were being force-fed through tubes.

From the same article above. Eric Holder at a Congressional hearing May 15.
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Old 05-20-2013, 12:36 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

petition signed days ago lol
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Old 05-23-2013, 10:52 PM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

BBC News:
Quote:
Calling on Congress not to block his efforts to transfer the facility's inmates to American high-security jails, he added: "No person has ever escaped from one of our super-max or military prisons in the United States."

Mr Obama said he was appointing envoys from the defence and state departments to negotiate transfers of detainees to other countries, and said he would lift a moratorium on transfers to Yemen.
So if he actually follows through on this and lifts the block he put on transfers, that would be a very good first step.

Moving detainees to super-max or military prisons in the US? Those are prisons for people who have been found guilty in a court and then sentenced by a judge. Not for Orwellian "indefinite detention" detainees charged with no crimes, held in perpetuity with no recourse.

Sitting in the highest office, to pretend that Guantanamo is mostly in the hands of Congress- as if he could put no pressure to bear, rather than being part of the problem- is ludicrous.

And please note that all the other countries that had terrorist attacks on their soil- India, Britain, Spain, Indonesia- tried the accused in their regular courts. They did not create "special" kangaroo military commissions courts like we have done in the US under Bush, then perpetuated under Obama.

Quote:
After the speech, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss told reporters Mr Obama was wrong to lift the Yemen moratorium because Yemeni authorities could not be trusted to "handle them".

"We've got 166 of the meanest nastiest killers in the world located at Guantanamo Bay today," he said. "If we were to transfer them to Yemen, it would be just like turning them loose. We should try those individuals at Guantanamo in the courtrooms and then make a decision about what to do with them."
Saxby Chambliss- in case you weren't sure- is misinformed at best. The detainees that they wish to release to Yemen are those Yemenis that the FBI, CIA, DoJ, and State Department all signed off on- after extensive reviews years ago when they determined these detainees were not terrorists, were not a threat to the US, were in fact not people they could actually charge with any crimes.
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  #16  
Old 05-24-2013, 06:21 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

In Chambliss' defense, by now they probably are terrorists.
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Old 06-08-2013, 03:08 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Guardian, June 6:

Quote:
The number of hunger-striking Guantánamo detainees being force fed by military medical teams has jumped to 41 and now makes up a quarter of the camp's prisoner population.

The new figures reveal a continued deterioration of conditions at the camp as a hunger strike by many of Guantánamo's 166 detainees has entered a fourth month amid little sign of it ending.


In all, 103 inmates are now on hunger strike, with four being hospitalised. The number of inmates being force fed was 31 on the eve of a speech by President Obama last month in which he promised to work towards closing the base and allow the release of many of the 86 prisoners held there who have been cleared for transfer.

Yet, despite the warm reception to that speech, the hunger strike at the base continue to increase in scope as more detainees are ending up being force fed through tubes put up their noses and into their stomachs.

"The hunger strike grows for two reasons: the military's refusal to negotiate with the men in a productive way and because the president has taken no action in spite of his words," said Carlos Warner, a lawyer who represents several of the detainees on strike.
Maybe when they start dying, there will be action?
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Old 06-08-2013, 03:51 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Quote:
Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites View Post
Guardian, June 6:

Quote:
The number of hunger-striking Guantánamo detainees being force fed by military medical teams has jumped to 41 and now makes up a quarter of the camp's prisoner population.

The new figures reveal a continued deterioration of conditions at the camp as a hunger strike by many of Guantánamo's 166 detainees has entered a fourth month amid little sign of it ending.

In all, 103 inmates are now on hunger strike, with four being hospitalised. The number of inmates being force fed was 31 on the eve of a speech by President Obama last month in which he promised to work towards closing the base and allow the release of many of the 86 prisoners held there who have been cleared for transfer.

Yet, despite the warm reception to that speech, the hunger strike at the base continue to increase in scope as more detainees are ending up being force fed through tubes put up their noses and into their stomachs.

"The hunger strike grows for two reasons: the military's refusal to negotiate with the men in a productive way and because the president has taken no action in spite of his words," said Carlos Warner, a lawyer who represents several of the detainees on strike.
Maybe when they start dying, there will be action?
When they die, there won't need to be any action.

Force feeding isn't helping the situation.

And I agree that the camp should be shut down, when it is no longe needed.
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Old 06-08-2013, 04:16 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

No longer needed for what? For the recruitment of more militants against the US? For the continued weakening of any pretense of rule of law? For preventing and making it extremely hard for legal representation to access or communicate with their clients? For the undermining of US credibility? For torturing detainees without media access or means of redress? For kangaroo military commissions courts? For holding people without due process, without trial, without charges, indefinitely?
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Old 06-08-2013, 11:22 PM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Yeah, that stuff. See, you just came up with a whole lot of reasons why we can't shut down Gitmo yet.
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Old 06-10-2013, 12:07 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

They need to put couches on the beach and write a program to..

Wait, I already did that.
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Old 06-24-2013, 08:27 PM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Guardian, June 21, 2013:
Quote:
Increasingly brutal tactics are being used in an attempt to break the hunger strike by detainees at Guantánamo Bay, according to fresh testimony from the last British resident still held in the camp.

Shaker Aamer claims that the US authorities are systematically making the regime more hardline to try to defuse the strike, which now involves almost two-thirds of the detainees. Techniques include making cells "freezing cold" to accentuate the discomfort of those on hunger strike and the introduction of "metal-tipped" feeding tubes, which Aamer said were forced into inmates' stomachs twice a day and caused detainees to vomit over themselves.

The 46-year-old from London tells of one detainee who was admitted to hospital 10 days ago after a nurse had pushed the tube into his lungs rather than his stomach, causing him later to cough up blood. Aamer also alleges that some nurses at Guantánamo Bay are refusing to wear their name tags in order to prevent detainees registering abuse complaints against staff.

Speaking last week from the camp in Cuba, exactly four months after he joined the hunger strike, Aamer said: "The administration is getting ever more angry and doing everything they can to break our hunger strike. Honestly, I wish I was dead."

The momentum behind efforts to release Aamer – who has spent more than 11 years without trial inside the camp – mounted sharply last week with David Cameron raising the issue directly with the US president, Barack Obama, during the G8 summit in Northern Ireland.
Let's hope the denial of reality for this administration can be overcome by the efforts of the detainees and those on the outside continually pressuring and pointing out how this has become, more than ever for the government, a question of how long they wish to continue to damage the reputation of the US. And of course in the first place a human rights and rule-of-law issue, if they gave two fucks about that.

Quote:
Although the military initially denied that there was a hunger strike inside Guantanámo, it now concedes that, of the 166 detainees, 104 are on hunger strike and 44 are being force-fed.
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Old 07-04-2013, 02:38 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Guardian UK:
Quote:
The US government has refused to stop force-feeding detainees on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay during the holy month of Ramadan.

In court papers rejecting a petition by four of more than 100 detainees said to be refusing food, the US said the feedings provided "essential nutritional and medical care" and would not interfere with religious observance of Ramadan, which begins on Monday.

Observant Muslims fast daily from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan. Lawyers for President Obama also said that the "public interest lies with maintaining the status quo".
So they are going to force-feed them after sun-down and before sun-up. But the status quo of prisoners held without trial, release date, recourse- force fed- that's in the public interest.

Quote:
US government lawyers also argued that the detainees bringing the case, Shaker Aamer, Nabil Hadjarab, Ahmed Belbacha and Abu Wa'el Dhiab, are not "persons" under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and are therefore not protected under it.
Stay classy, US goverment.

The US media has mostly relegated this story to below-the-fold, if not off-radar completely; again I expect an uptick once there are deaths.
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  #24  
Old 07-04-2013, 03:12 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

If they have basbousa, konfah, and qatayef force-fed after sundown, I might sign up for that.
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  #25  
Old 07-04-2013, 05:02 AM
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Default Re: Hunger strike at Guantanamo?

Force feeding will not help.

Martyrs are much more effective.

The Gov. is just choosing the lesser of 2 evils.
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