US told to give data on Guantanamo hunger strikers

[deminks]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051026/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_dc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. government to provide medical records on Guantanamo prisoners who are being force-fed while on a hunger strike and to notify their lawyers about forced feedings.

U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler acted after lawyers representing about a dozen men held at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, expressed urgent concern over their deteriorating health amid a hunger strike launched in early August.

Kessler stated in her opinion that the detainees' lawyers had presented "deeply troubling" allegations of forced feedings in which U.S. personnel violently shoved tubes as thick as a finger through the men's noses and into their stomachs without anesthesia or sedatives.

Julia Tarver, a lawyer for the detainees, had told the court she learned during a visit to the base several weeks ago of force-feedings that caused prisoners to vomit blood. Tarver wrote, "When they vomited up blood, the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like 'look what your religion has brought you."'

[texpatriot2004]

1. I hope the US gets this info and puts a stop to this horror. n.t

[Judi Lynn]

2. Here's more on the new form of abuse, which was published last week.....

Guantanamo hunger strikers say feeding tubes employed as torture

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Prisoners on hunger strike at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reported troops force-fed them with dirty feeding tubes that have been violently inserted and withdrawn as punishment, said declassified notes released Wednesday by defence lawyers.

The repeated removal and insertion of the tubes has caused striking prisoners to vomit blood and experience intense pain they have equated with torture, the lawyers reported to a U.S. federal judge after visiting their clients at the base in eastern Cuba.

Prisoners said they were taunted by troops who said the treatment was intended to persuade them to end the hunger strike that began Aug. 9, the lawyers wrote in affidavits filed as part of a lawsuit in federal court in Washington seeking greater access to prisoners at the high-security jail for terror suspects.
(snip)

Yousef al Shehri, 21, of Saudi Arabia, told his lawyers guards removed a nasal feeding tube from one prisoner and reinserted it into another without cleaning it first.

"These large tubes...were viewed by the detainees as objects of torture," lawyer Julia Tarver, whose firm represents 10 Saudi detainees, said in an affidavit.
(snip/...)

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/10/19/1269670-ap.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No conscience at all.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thank you, deminks, for posting the new information on Guantanamo.

These men are protesting through hunger strikes the inhumane treatment _Bush's administration has been ordering soldiers to inflict upon them. They were desperate.

Now that they are becoming ill, and ready to die, if necessary, the administration orders seem to be to make things so hellish for them they will spend their last days in agony.

[deminks]

4. This story is so under reported.

It seems that this is a new form of torture, and reportedly a new excuse to humiliate these people. I, too, hope that the information the judge wants will be forthcoming. I have my doubts, however, that the government will believe that any law applies to its activities in Gitmo. Smirky has been desparate to protect himself over the torture and tribunals. One wonders why, I have a dark feeling that I know why.

[struggle4progress]

5. Judge Lets Lawyers Access Gitmo Records

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 26, 2005; 5:50 PM

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for hunger-striking terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba must be notified before any of their clients are fed against their will, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The government also must provide the lawyers of force-fed detainees with their clients' medical records dating to one week before the start of involuntary feeding.

In a victory for the government, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler denied the lawyers' request for the detainees to be in contact by telephone with their lawyers, relatives and friends. At an Oct. 14 hearing before Kessler, Justice Department lawyer Terry Henry argued against such contacts, citing possible security risks.

Meanwhile, the Kuwaiti parents of a force-fed detainee said they will not approve his request to ask a judge to remove his feeding tube so he could die. The detainee's U.S. lawyer wants the man to get his family's approval and consult with medical specialists not affiliated with the U.S. government. <snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/26/AR2005102601770.html

[cal04]

6. US ordered to release Guantanamo hunger strike details

A federal judge has ordered the US Government to provide medical records on Guantanamo Bay prisoners in Cuba who are being force-fed while on a hunger strike and to notify their lawyers about forced feedings.

US District Court Judge Gladys Kessler acted after lawyers representing about a dozen men held at the prison at the US naval base expressed urgent concern over their deteriorating health amid a hunger strike launched in early August.

Judge Kessler stated in her opinion that the detainees' lawyers had presented "deeply troubling" allegations of forced feedings in which US personnel violently shoved tubes as thick as a finger through the men's noses and into their stomachs without anaesthesia or sedatives.

"If the allegations are true - and they are all explicitly, specifically and vigorously denied by the Government - they describe conduct of which the United States can hardly be proud," the judge wrote.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1492333.htm