For the first time ever, lawyers for a Guantánamo Bay detainee who has been on a hunger strike since April 2013 met with U.S. federal judges on Wednesday to discuss the force-feeding practices at the prison and ask that they be stopped once and for all.
By showing video footage of force-feeding sessions at the facility, lawyers for Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian father of four, hoped to convince the court that the U.S. government should respect the wishes of detainees and stop force-feeding prisoners.
“It’s really kind of a modest thing to ask a court to order our military not to torture these men,” attorney Jon Eisenberg said about the force-feedings.
The U.S. military has long argued that strapping an individual into a chair and feeding him or her liquid nutrients via tubes inserted in the nostrils and down the throat is humane because not feeding the individual would likely result in death.
Using a restraint chair and force-feeding detainees was first done at Guantánamo in 2006 to prevent detainees from dying during a mass hunger strike. The detention facility began to videotape cellextractions and force-feedings after some prisoners suffered serious injuries. Of the 149 prisoners at the facility, it is believed that 34 are on a hunger strike that began last year. Eighteen of those prisoners qualify for force-feedings.
The recent release of the videos came as a direct order from Judge Gladys Kessler, who initially ruled that the force-feedings caused “unnecessary suffering” and ordered Guantánamo staff to stop force-feeding Dhiab. But Kessler lifted the temporary force-feeding ban a week later to ensure that Dhiab wouldn’t die of starvation.
She also required that the videos of the force-feeding sessions be released so that it could be determined how cruel and inhumane the practice is.
Cori Crider, one of the attorneys from the legal non-profit Reprieve representing Dhiab, said in a press release, “While I’m not allowed to discuss the contents of these videos, I can say that I had trouble sleeping after viewing them. I have no doubt that if President Obama forced himself to watch them, he would release my client tomorrow.”
Dhiab has been held at Guantánamo without charge or trial since 2002. The Obama administration cleared him for release in 2009, but Dhiab remains at the detention facility in Cuba because his home country of Syria is struggling with a civil war.
Because he has spent more than 10 years at Guantánamo — a facility with a reputation for the types of conditions detainees live in and the treatment they receive from prison guards — lawyers for Dhiab say the detainee has developed a slew of health problems.
Dhiab reportedly suffers from severe depression, and by abstaining from eating and drinking, he has developed kidney and back ailments. Dhiab spends most of his time in his cell lying on his back because of his health conditions and requires a wheelchair to get around when he does leave his cell.
Attorneys for Dhiab filed an emergency motion in federal court earlier this week after they learned from Dhiab’s fellow Guantánamo prisoner, Ahmed Rabbani, whose cell is near Dhiab’s, that Guantánamo staffers no longer allow Dhiab to use his wheelchair to get to the room where the force-feedings occur.
Staff at the detention facility have reportedly told Dhiab that he must either walk or be taken by a forcible cell extraction team. In a declaration released by Reprieve, Rabbani described how Dhiab’s wheelchair was confiscated, and how a team in riot gear bursts into his cell and manhandles him to the force-feeding chair.
Rabbani also shared that since Kessler ordered the release of the videos, prison authorities have stopped filming force-feeding sessions, which Dhiab’s lawyers argue is a “patent effort to avoid creating additional damning evidence of abusive practices.”
“This change in policy was clearly taken to avoid creating any evidence of the government’s misconduct,” the motion filed by Reprieve claimed. “What this means is that a disabled person is required to be physically mistreated by authorities even if he wants to go without force.
“There is no rational, let alone compelling basis for this policy.”
Military officials argue that the hunger strike is merely a propaganda stunt, and they say the videos show that the guards and medical personnel at Guantánamo are just doing their jobs.