Hunger strikes at Guantanamo prison

Keep in mind that we have every reason to believe very many of these people have no connection to terrorism whatsoever and were simply rounded up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Excerpts from Reuters dispatch [One - Fourth of Guantanamo Prisoners on Hunger Strike, September 13, 2005]:

Nearly one-fourth of the prisoners at the U.S. military's Guantanamo base in Cuba are on a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention, and 18 are being force-fed in a hospital, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.

The hunger strike began on August 8 and 128 prisoners have since joined, said Sgt. Justin Behrens, a spokesman for the task force running the Guantanamo prison.

``They want to be tried or set free,'' Behrens said by telephone from Guantanamo.
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Some have been held at Guantanamo since the prison camp opened in January 2002, but only four have been charged with crimes and none have been tried.
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Eighteen were in the hospital at the Camp Delta prison, where 13 were being fed via nasal tubes and five were being fed intravenously to keep them alive, he said.

Attorneys for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners argued in a federal appeals court in Washington last week that the detainees should have a chance to prove in court that they had been mistakenly labeled as ``enemy combatants'' and have been unlawfully detained.

``They are on a hunger strike because they want a hearing in court with a lawyer of their own. They are willing to starve themselves to death,'' said attorney Gita Gutierrez with the Center for Constitutional Rights, who represented some British prisoners since released from Guantanamo.

The Bush administration has held that the prisoners are not entitled to any constitutional due process rights because they are being held outside the United States and that the United States has the right to hold them in perpetuity.

The appeals court was not expected to rule until next year, and its decision was likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The barbarity of the situation defies comment. The indignity and discomfort of nasal tube feeding... indefenite detention with no right to a trial or lawyer or even to being charged... the only faint hope resting in years of courtroom bureaucracy... the world's greatest democracy has far surpassed the worst nightmares of Kafka.

A few more details are provided by an AP report [More Detainees Join Gitmo Hunger Strike, September 13, 2005]:

The military has said the latest hunger strike began Aug. 8, with 76 detainees were refusing meals.
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The military has said the latest hunger strike began Aug. 8, with 76 detainees were refusing meals.

Lawyers from the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights said detainees were angry because the military allegedly reneged on promises to comply with the Geneva Conventions if the prisoners ended a previous hunger strike.

Sgt. Justin Behrens, another Guantanamo spokesman, denied that the military had reneged on any promises. He said each cell block has chosen a prisoner to talk with military authorities about conditions at the camp.

How tactful of the sergeant to deny that the military had made any promises to abide by the Geneva Conventions!