Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) demonstrates Guantanamo force-feeding
CORRECTION: Since the original drafting of this article, new details have emerged concerning this case. As reported Thursday, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler has lifted the temporary restraining order which blocked federal officials from force-feeding Mohammed Abu Wa’el Dhiab.
“Thanks to the intransigence of the Department of Defense, Mr. Dhiab may well suffer unnecessary pain from certain enteral feeding practices and forcible cell extractions,” wrote Kessler. “However, the court simply cannot let Mr. Dhiab die.”
Dhiab has indicated that he would submit to being force-fed by tube if it was done at a hospital at Guantanamo Bay, adding that he wished to “be spared the agony of having the feeding tubes inserted and removed for each feeding, and…the pain and discomfort of the restraint chair.”
According to Kessler, the Department of Defense has declined this request.
Original coverage follows below:
Yasiin Bey — the rapper and actor formerly known as Mos Def — produced a video last summer with the cooperation of British human rights organization Reprieve, showing him undergoing the same type of force-feeding procedure that hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba have been forced to endure.
The video shows Bey strapped to a chair as a feeding tube is introduced to his stomach via his nose and esophagus, as per the Pentagon’s Standard Operating Procedures: Medical Management of Detainees on Hunger Strike.
While the video was, in part, a publicity stunt and may have been partially or fully scripted, it raised awareness and understanding of the indignity and cruelty of forced tube-feeding.
In the video, Bey resists, whimpers and writhes in pain before finally calling off the experiment. His partial demonstration offered the public its first opportunity to see this procedure being carried out, as the U.S. government has marked both the technique and recorded incidents of its utilization classified.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the White House to make the medical records and 34 of the 136 videotapes of Mohammed Abu Wa’el Dhiab’s force-feeding from April 9, 2013 to Feb. 19, 2014 available to Dhiab’s lawyers.
Marking the first time the federal government has been required to disclose key details on its force-feeding methodology, the order was made as part of a larger investigation into Dhiab’s treatment at the military prison. On May 16, Kessler imposed a temporary ban on force-feeding Dhiab and on guards forcibly removing him from his cell, but the force-feeding ban was rescinded in a decision dated Thursday.
In 2013, Kessler rejected an earlier request by Dhiab to block the government from force-feeding him, asserting that the only the president — as commander-in-chief — has the authority to hear the request due to jurisdiction concerns.
Dhiab is one of several Guantanamo prisoners who have turned to hunger strikes to protest their continued imprisonment without the introduction of formal charges — a clear violation of due process.
Dhiab, who has been held in the prison since 2002, has been precleared by the White House for release. However, efforts by the Republicans in Congress have made it difficult for Dhiab and other precleared detainees to be released. These efforts include instituting direct restrictions prohibiting the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to the mainland U.S. and blocking funding to allow the prisoners to be transferred anywhere else.
With communication from the prisoners tightly controlled and their access to the media denied, the prisoners have found that their only leverage to protest their perceived mistreatment is the government’s insistence on keeping them alive. Since two prisoners protested guards removing a turban from one of the prisoners in 2002, hunger striking has become a preferred means of protest at Guantanamo. While prison staff insist that they only use force-feeding as a last resort, the prison has stopped publishing reports on its use of the tactic.
President Barack Obama has indicated that he will veto the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 if it contains restrictions preventing the transfer of the precleared detainees. This threat doesn’t seem to be taken seriously, though, as the president has yet to follow through on similar threats he has made each year that the restrictions have been included in the act. Last week, Uruguayan President Jose Mujica indicated that Uruguay would be willing to accept six of the Guantanamo detainees as refugees, including Dhiab.
The practice of force-feeding has been widely equated with torture. In court filings, Dhiab’s legal team has relayed what Dhiab has expressed about the experience.
“Sometimes the way the MP [military policeman] holds the head chokes me, and with all the nerves in the nose the tube passing the nose is like torture,” said Dhiab, according to his attorneys. “Then, especially when the MP is holding the neck, when they try to force the tube through the throat it often catches and they cannot push it through. At times like these, I ask them to videotape. And they refuse.”
The World Medical Association — the international confederation of professional medical associations that represents more than 10 million physicians — recognizes force-feeding someone of unimpaired and rational judgment that voluntarily chooses not to take in nourishment as a violation and a torturous act, as stated in the group’s 1975 Declaration of Tokyo. Physicians that engage in force-feeding are subject to disciplinary proceedings and sanctions.