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Guantanamo Inmate Describes Force-Feeding

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 08:34:00 AM EST
Tags: Guantanamo, hunger strike (all tags)
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Yemeni detainee Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel is one of the many prisoners at Guantanammo on a hunger strike. He has been held for 11 years, never been charged with a crime, and cleared for release.

He tells his story in an op-ed in the New York Times, Guantanamo is Killing me. It's very disturbing to read. You wouldn't do a dog this way.

Shame on us. The U.S. needs to send these men home.

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    Guantanamo Inmate Describes Force-Feeding | 19 comments (19 topical)

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    There (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by lentinel on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 05:43:31 AM EST
    just doesn't seem a way to confront the Obama administration on this issue.

    Obama never mentions Gitmo.
    It is never the subject of a press conference. No questions are asked about it.

    Perhaps this unsettling document will spur some journalists to do some real work and present information to the American people about what their government is doing in their name.

    There are... (5.00 / 1) (#16)
    by Edger on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 08:00:24 PM EST
    Jason Leopold's GITMO Updates

    Parent
    Thanks (none / 0) (#17)
    by lentinel on Tue Apr 16, 2013 at 04:36:41 AM EST
    for the link.

    Parent
    But is the Story True? (none / 0) (#2)
    by RickyJim on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 09:10:22 AM EST
    The Times gives no background that indicates they have researched the charges made.  First of all, many detainees have been repatriated.  Why not him?

    Why has he been held for (5.00 / 2) (#9)
    by Anne on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 01:53:18 PM EST
    11 years without a trial?

    He's from Yemen - apparently, we don't/won't send detainees back there.

    Here's a link to a Guardian article you might find enlightening; I get the impression you haven't really been keeping up with what's going on at the Guantanamo Hilton.

    Here's an excerpt:

    A federal judge declined a plea for relief from Guantánamo Bay hunger strikers on Monday despite hearing that guards displayed "deliberate indifference" to inmate's serious medical needs and forced them to drink dirty water.

    Expert medical testimony put before US district judge Thomas Hogan suggested that authorities at the controversial detention centre are now deliberately denying potable water in a bid to break the resolve of prisoners.

    [snip]

    His testimony comes after Shaker Aamer, the last British resident being held at Guantánamo, described the treatment of hunger strikers such as himself as "systematic torture".

    Aamer - who has spent 11 years at Guantánamo despite never being charged - told his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith that the US base may soon be dealing with its first fatalities as a result of the current hunger strike.

    "I might die this time," he said to Stafford Smith in a telephone call last week, adding: "I cannot give you numbers and names, but people are dying here."

    Over the weekend, violent clashes broke out at the detention camp as guards forcibly moved inmates out of communal areas and into solitary cells where they can be more closely monitored. US troops fired four "less-than-lethal rounds" in the confrontation, but no major injuries were reported.

    But in testimony that went before Judge Hogan on Monday, it was suggested that guards have stopped providing drinkable water to hunger strikers, insisting instead that they drink from unsanitary sinks.

    To what lengths would you go if you had been held for over a decade without a trial, or because your captors decided there was no place to send you?  

    Parent

    Of course the judge denied the plea. (5.00 / 4) (#11)
    by caseyOR on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 03:36:53 PM EST
    If we had a functioning judiciary, one that took seriously its role as an equal branch of the government, charged with defending and enforcing the Constitution, instead of running like a frightened kitten every time torture or Gitmo comes before the bench, this kind of callous behavior by the U.S. would have been stopped a long time ago.

    Is there no one who will speak fr the U.S. Constitution?


    Parent

    Maybe you missed this? (1.00 / 3) (#13)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 05:29:56 PM EST
    But the sitting judge denied an emergency motion for relief filed on behalf of one of the striking inmates, ruling that he did not have jurisdiction over the matter. He added that petitioner Musa'ab Omar al Madhwani - who is said to be in "imminent danger" of death - had "self-manufactured" his health situation


    Parent
    No, I did not miss that. The judge's claim (5.00 / 3) (#14)
    by caseyOR on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 06:11:32 PM EST
    that he lacked jurisdiction is exactly what i was referring to. The judiciary has used that claim repeatedly to excuse what to me is its cowardice in refusing to rule on torture and other matters including Gitmo.

    The idea that the actions of the executive branch are outside the purview of the federal judiciary is ridiculous.

    Parent

    No, I didn't miss it, jim, but Jeralyn (5.00 / 4) (#15)
    by Anne on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 07:18:42 PM EST
    doesn't like us to reproduce entire articles.  I left other stuff out, too - how come you didn't mention that? Oh, yeah, because you think you caught me out in something.  Silly man.

    I never expected the relief to be granted, but the judge adding the bit about the detainee's situation being self-manufactured was petulant and cruel in the extreme.  He was a real friend to the government, though.

    I don't know how these people sleep at night.

    Parent

    Ricky, you aren't going to get an (1.00 / 1) (#6)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 12:18:11 PM EST
    answer besides, "America bad."

    Parent
    I don't (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by lentinel on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 01:20:40 PM EST
    think that you or anyone is going to get "America bad" as an answer.

    But that doesn't mean that our government doesn't do contemptible things from time to time.

    Parent

    When the Topic is GITMO... (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by ScottW714 on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 02:15:20 PM EST
    ...every single American who thinks the Constitution is important should be "America bad".

    And Jim, I love America, that doesn't mean I'm not going to complain or point out the obvious flaws.  I get tired of your implication that criticism and striving for improvement is somehow a bad thing, even unpatriotic.

    If it weren't this side of aisle's criticism, the United States would still be torturing people.  And if it weren't for the right trying to sidetrack the Constitution, GITMO wouldn't be a topic of any conversation for anyone.

    Parent

    Scott, if you ever approved (1.00 / 2) (#12)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 05:24:22 PM EST
    of anything then you're claim might have some validity.

    But you don't and it doesn't.

    And my point remains. We have NO proof that the guy is telling the truth so why not admit that and go on.

    BTW - I recently posted that it was past time for us to have Congress declare a War On Terror and treat the prisoners as POW's or have trials and cut them loose if not convicted.

    Parent

    The (none / 0) (#18)
    by lentinel on Tue Apr 16, 2013 at 04:50:42 AM EST
    first part of this response, Jim, is pure ad hominem hokum.

    You have a right to question the mans veracity.
    I have read too many similar accounts, from without and within, to doubt it. The conditions described by the man have been previously reported and undisputed.

    The last part, your demand for trials, is on the same page (imo) as those of us who find this kind of detention - 11 years without charge or trial - to be a horrible blot on our national countenance.

    It also, the demand for a trial, seems to me to be a focal point of the strikers' protest.

    Parent

    Good Gravy.. (none / 0) (#19)
    by ScottW714 on Tue Apr 16, 2013 at 09:15:08 AM EST
    Do you try to not make sense.

    Scott, if you ever approved of anything then...
    - jimakaPPJ

    Yes, I never approved anything, you got me Jim.  Or did you mean improve, if that's the case I just improved your post.

    Parent

    Yeah, they probably made the whole thing up (none / 0) (#3)
    by shoephone on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 11:10:40 AM EST
    /s.

    Parent
    Probably Some Teenager... (none / 0) (#4)
    by ScottW714 on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 12:01:20 PM EST
    ...in Orange County with a wild imagination including Saturday's riot, which I might add seems to be in media blackout.

    Violence broke out at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay detention center for terrorism suspects early Saturday, after the commander there ordered prisoners moved from communal living areas into single-person cells, a military statement said.

    "Some detainees resisted with improvised weapons, and in response, four less-than-lethal rounds were fired," Joint Task Force Guantanamo announced Saturday afternoon. "There were no serious injuries to guards or detainees."



    Parent
    Imprisoned for 11 years without trial (5.00 / 3) (#5)
    by shoephone on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 12:05:52 PM EST
    Without even being charged. Yeah, I wonder how any of us would do in that situation.

    Gitmo is a f*cking gulag. It is now an American legacy.

    Parent

    The Times (none / 0) (#8)
    by lentinel on Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 01:23:36 PM EST
    gave this attribution:

    Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, told this story, through an Arabic interpreter, to his lawyers at the legal charity Reprieve in an unclassified telephone call.


    Parent
    Guantanamo Inmate Describes Force-Feeding | 19 comments (19 topical)

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