US denies ongoing Guantanamo hunger strike
America’s infamous Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba has reportedly become the scene of a widespread hunger strike – now in its third week – yet on Monday a prison spokesman denied that any such activity was taking place.
The lawyers for the prisoners said in a letter to the prison
commander, that “all but a few men” are on hunger strike
and that their condition "appears to be rapidly deteriorating
and reaching a potentially critical level."
The protest can best be summed up with a statement that the
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has sent to military
officials. They wrote that “since approximately February 6,
2013, camp authorities have been confiscating detainees’ personal
items, including blankets, sheets, towels, mats, razors,
toothbrushes, books, family photos, religious CDs, and letters,
including legal mail; and restricting their exercise, seemingly
without provocation or cause.” Moreover, “Arabic
interpreters employed by the prison have been searching the men’s
Qur’ans in ways that constitute desecration according to their
religious beliefs, and that guards have been disrespectful during
prayer times.”
As days turned into weeks, there have been reports of men
coughing up blood, losing consciousness and having to be moved to
other wings of the facility for observation. However, the actual
facts and figures remain shrouded in mystery, while more
controversy surfaced after Guantanamo officials gave their
response to the accusations.
A prison spokesman has said that the Department of Justice will
address the lawyers’ letter of complaint, he also claimed that
there had only been six people on strike for a year now. Other
detainees simply didn’t skip enough meals to be considered on
strike at all, according to military rules. The spokesman, Navy
Capt. Robert Durand, said that "some detainees have attempted
to coordinate a hunger strike and have refused meal deliveries.
Most detainees are not participating." He tried to describe
the reasons the inmates had for going on strike as blown out of
proportion, claiming that they "have chosen one routine
search in early February as the rallying point for their
grievances.”
Meanwhile, the prisoners have outlined a few simple conditions
for the authorities to consider if they want the strike to end
instantly: firstly, the right to willingly surrender the Qurans,
so as not to incur the book’s forceful desecration at the hands
of a prison guard. And secondly – to provide the Quran on an
electronic reader; that way, no notes can be passed in a book and
no further religious violations need to take place.
Guantanamo Bay holds around 170 inmates. There had been a few
strikes since 2002, but while some served to change the prison
dynamic and gave the prisoners the sense that they could stand
their ground on certain matters, the strike of 2005 effectively
ended this. It involved a large portion of that population, but
didn’t achieve success, as the military began tying people down
and force-feeding them liquid nutrients through tubes to prevent
starvation.
