Guantanamo Bay hunger strikes

In July 2005, detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp initiated two hunger strikes to protest their innocence and the conditions of their confinement.[4][5] Eighteen-year-old Omar Khadr, one of the hunger strikers, told his lawyer that other catalysts were the detainees' concerns that the guards were not showing respect for their religion, as they sometimes turned on loud fans, played loud music, and whistled to disrupt their prayer meetings. Khadr said the prison authorities broadcast the call to prayers only four times daily, rather than the required five for religious obligations. He also reported that many of the detainees resented when women GIs broadcast the call to prayer.

Camp authorities responded by force-feeding captives, according to the camp's Standard Operating Procedures.[6] According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, the strike had become so widespread that medics could not manage the needs of the prisoners and elected to stop making their regular medical calls. The prisoners spent 26 days without food.[7] The American Department of Defense (DoD) spokesman, Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico, said on July 21, 2005 that 50 detainees were involved in the hunger strike.

The first hunger strike ended on July 28, 2005, when prison authorities agreed to bring the camp into compliance with the Geneva Conventions. Many of the prisoners were termed as "enemy combatants", and until July 7, 2006, the United States treated these individuals under terms outside the Geneva Conventions. A week later in early August 2005, when the prison authorities were not abiding by their commitment, the detainees started a second hunger strike. By September 2, DOD spokesman Brad Blackner said that 76 detainees were participating in the second hunger strike. Human-rights workers estimate that both hunger strikes had between 150 and 200 participants.

In September 2005, the New York Times reported that as many as 200 prisoners, a third of the camp, had taken to hunger striking, and that at least 20 of them were being force-fed through nasal tubes and given fluids intravenously. Major Weir, a spokesman at the base, said "We will not let them starve themselves to the point of causing harm to themselves."[8]

On October 26, 2005, a federal judge ordered the Government to provide information about the condition of detainees to lawyers representing the hunger strikers. The Government has contested the detainees' claims of rough treatment during forced feeding. The court's decision reflects major changes from the early years of the camp's operation, when almost no information was obtainable by attorneys. The Government did not immediately announce whether it would appeal the judge's ruling.

On November 4, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated at a Pentagon news conference that he would not permit United Nations investigators to interview the striking detainees. He said the International Committee of the Red Cross would continue to have unlimited access to interview them.

On December 30, 2005, the military reported that there were 84 strikers as of Christmas Day, with 46 having joined that day. In the April 14, 2008, edition of the New Yorker magazine, Jeffrey Toobin reported that there were about ten hunger strikers at Guantanamo. The overall population had declined markedly, as many detainees had been repatriated or transferred to detention in other countries.

As a result of the hunger strikes, the weight of at least eighty captives dropped to below 100 pounds (45 kg) each as reported by Andy Worthington, the author of The Guantanamo Files.[3] Other captives who engaged in long-term hunger strikes committed suicide in June 2006 according to camp officials. Human rights workers, and Physicians' professional associations, have criticized the use of force-feeding on mentally competent patients at Guantanamo.[3][9][10]

A new wave of the hunger strike arose in early 2013, at its peak in July when 106 out of the 166 detainees were considered on hunger strike, with 45 of them being force-fed by the prison administration. [11]

On December 4, 2013, the US military announced that it would no longer disclose information about the hunger strikes, explaining that "The release of this information serves no operational purpose". [12]

The last disclosed figures in December showed numbers of hunger strikers rising to 15, with all being force-fed.[13]

In 2013, hunger striker Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab sought an injunction in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to stop the government from force-feeding him.[14] In October 2014, District Judge Gladys Kessler determined that she had no jurisdiction over confinement conditions at Guantanamo.[15] After the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that theory, Dhabi again sought an injunction to stop the force feedings.[14] In November 2014, District Judge Kessler again denied Dhabi relief.[16]

However, in the course of discovery, the government disclosed that it had recorded its force-feedings of Dhabi and classified the videotapes as "SECRET".[14] Sixteen news organizations intervened seeking access to the tapes of Dhabi being force fed.[14] In October 2014, District Judge Kessler ordered the tapes unsealed.[17]

The D.C. Circuit, in an unsigned opinion joined by Chief Circuit Judge Merrick Garland, determined it did not yet have jurisdiction over the interlocutory order but encouraged the district court to consider additional declarations made by the government.[18] In December 2015, District Judge Kessler again ordered the tapes to be redacted and unsealed.[19]

In March 2017, the D.C. Circuit ordered that the tapes remain secret, with the panel unanimously voting to reverse but with each of the three judges providing different reasons in separate opinions.[20] Senior Judge A. Raymond Randolph argued that the press has no right to access classified court filings made by prisoners petitioning for habeas corpus and that the lower court clearly erred by not deferring to declarations by Rear Admirals Kyle Cozad and Richard W. Butler asserting a national security threat.[14] Judge Judith W. Rogers argued that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides the public a qualified right to access prisoners' court filings but agreed that the government had identified a national security interest justifying secrecy.[14] Senior Judge Stephen F. Williams also agreed that national security justified secrecy but questioned if the government could logically keep all Guantanamo filings secret.[14]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Guantanamo force-feeding.

• Carol Rosenberg, "Ramadan at Guantanamo Bay includes nightly force-feedings", Miami Herald, 24 August 2010
• Alex Stonehill, "Mos Def Force-Fed in Solidarity with Guantanamo Hunger Strikers", The Seattle Globalist, 9 July 2013