Horrid stories of force-feeding at Guantanamo highlight the systematic abuse of prisoners of America's war on terror, writes Sharif Abdel-Kouddous For nearly three months, prisoners at the notorious US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have staged a hunger strike to protest against inhumane conditions and their indefinite detention. It is a story that has been largely ignored by the US media and tightly controlled by the Pentagon. Newly declassified documents are painting a rare and shocking picture of the US military's retaliation against the detainees. Lawyers for several Guantanamo prisoners on hunger strike describe torture-style tactics being used against their clients and say they are being involuntarily and violently force-fed by prison guards and medical staff. They allege that military officials have violently pushed large feeding tubes up prisoners' noses, forcing the tubes all the way down their throats and into their stomachs. Moreover, this was done without any anesthesia or sedatives, causing "unbearable" pain. "Guards took the nasal-gastric tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitisation whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee," said attorney Julia Tarver, who represents 10 Saudi detainees. "When these tubes were reinserted, the detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from other detainees remaining on the tubes." Tarver said this happened in front of Guantanamo physicians, including the head of the detainee hospital, who did nothing to intervene. Her statements were made in an affidavit after she visited her clients at the base on 2 October 2005. The affidavit was filed as part of a lawsuit in a federal court in Washington, DC seeking greater access to prisoners held at Guantanamo. "Large tubes -- the thickness of a finger -- were viewed by detainees as objects of torture," Tarver said. The force feedings resulted in prisoners "vomiting up substantial amounts of blood. When they vomited up blood, the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like 'look at what your religion has brought you.'" Soldiers also used various forms of psychological torture including depriving prisoners of sleep and interrupting their prayers in an effort to get them to stop the hunger strike. The current hunger strike began 8 August 2005. It is unclear how many detainees are currently participating, but as many as 200 men have been involved at various times. Now, prisoners protesting against their mistreatment by refusing to eat are being tortured by soldiers who are forcing them to end their strike. The accounts of the abuse are chilling. "One navy doctor came and put the tube in his nose and down his throat," Tarver wrote in the suit, referring to one of her clients, Abdul-Rahman Shalabi. "Until finally Abdul- Rahman started violently throwing up blood. [He] tried to resist the 'torture' from this physician, but he could not breathe." According to another detainee mentioned in the suit, the prison guards would forcibly remove the tubes "by placing a foot on one end of the tube and yanking the detainees' head back by his hair, causing the tube to be painfully ejected from the detainees' nose." When the detainees saw this happening, they begged to have the tubes remain, but the guards refused and continued to repeat the procedure twice a day. The United States is holding about 500 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been imprisoned for four years without formal charges or even a hearing on the legality of their detention, despite a Supreme Court ruling in their favour. "They have no idea when, if ever, justice will come to them," Tarver said in an interview. "The level of hopelessness in the camp has reached a point where our clients are literally vowing they have no other choice but to die." The US government denies any wrongdoing and has dismissed the allegations as mere storytelling. Lt Col Jeremy Martin, a military spokesman for the Guantanamo detention centre, said medical personnel closely monitor all detainees in the hunger strike and mistreatment is not tolerated. "Detainees... are treated humanely," Martin told the Associated Press. "Claims to the contrary are wholly inaccurate and blatantly misrepresent the excellent work being done here by honourable military and civilian professionals." But attorney Tarver says she conducted independent interviews with multiple prisoners who had no way of contacting each other. She says their stories are consistent. These prisoner accounts have once again raised serious questions about medical ethics and the role of doctors in the interrogation of prisoners. Physicians for Human Rights, and other groups, have argued that it is unethical for a doctor to force-feed a detainee who has chosen not to eat, citing international medical standards that call for respecting a patient's autonomy. The anti-force feeding standard is also endorsed by the American Medical Association. Defence attorneys have asked US District Judge Gladys Kessler to order the military to turn over their clients' medical records and to allow an outside doctor to examine the detainees. They have yet to receive a response. "[The government] seems to think that Guantanamo is a jurisdiction unto its own with no laws and no justice," said Tarver. She and other lawyers have also asked Judge Kessler to order the military to allow more frequent attorney visits, as well as phone calls with family members who would urge detainees on the hunger strike to resume eating. Their efforts may be in vain. Many of the prisoners at Guantanamo have re-affirmed their determination to die for the sake of their basic human rights. Perhaps they came to the same conclusion as prisoner Abdul-Rahman did when he told his attorney: "Now, after four years in captivity, life and death are the same."
