Despite President Barack Obama’s renewed promise last week to close Guantanamo Bay prison, hunger strikes have continued and conditions at the facility have reportedly worsened for the 103 detainees who continue to fast, demanding an end to years behind bars without charge or trial.
According to The Guardian, the number of Guantanamo detainees being force-fed has increased to 36, up from 31 on the eve of President Obama’s foreign policy speech at the National Defense University last week. Five are in grave physical condition and have been hospitalized. During the speech, Obama renewed a promise he first made in 2007 to close the facility and repatriate detainees eligible for transfer.
The Guardian reports that Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer for the group Reprieve, claims Guantanamo authorities have also increased “intimidating body searches” in recent days. He says that these searches are designed to discourage detainees from meeting with lawyers and making phone calls. Smith reports that of the last six calls he tried to place to his clients, four were rejected because detainees did not want to go through the search process.
If true, it continues a long trend of alleged torture and mistreatment at the facility. Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have long claimed that detainees were subjected to incidents of torture, including sleep deprivation and waterboarding, after the facility was opened by the Bush administration in 2002.
Many of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo been held for months or years without charge or trial. They remain suspected terrorists after being detained in Afghanistan or other conflict zones, but evidence has not been presented against them.
However, 86 individuals have already been cleared for release. Fifty-six are from Yemen, and the president lifted a ban on transfers to that country last week. So far, none of the detainees eligible for transfer have been sent home.
In response, detainees began their first wave of hunger strikes earlier this year as a means to protest prolonged detentions without charge, as well as poor prison conditions. Authorities began forced feedings after it became clear that some were willing to starve themselves to death.
The forced feedings have been roundly denounced by the United Nations and human rights organizations as a form of torture. Public opposition to this practice intensified after Al-Jazeera obtained copies of the standard operating procedure for forced feedings earlier this month.
The 30-page document shows that detainees are strapped to a chair for up to two hours as a tube roughly 61 centimeters long is forced down their nostril, allowing medical authorities to feed detainees.
One detainee, Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, described the process as extremely painful in a New York Times op-ed published in April.
“I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up,” he wrote.