U.S. denies Guantanamo hunger strike reports
Towers overlooking a U.S. detention facility are silhouetted against a morning sunrise at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba Oct. 18, 2012, in this picture reviewed by the U.S. Department of Defense. / AP Photo/Toronto Star
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay prisoners said Monday that a widespread hunger strike was under way over deteriorating conditions, but a prison spokesman denied there was any mass protest at the U.S. base in Cuba.
Attorneys for more than a dozen of the prisoners said in a letter to the prison commander, Rear Adm. John Smith, and released to the media that "all but a few men" have been on hunger strike for three weeks. They said the situation "appears to be rapidly deteriorating and reaching a potentially critical level."
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The lawyers said the protest was prompted by a series of searches that began on Feb. 6 in which a number of personal items, including religious CDs, blankets and legal mail, were confiscated, and included what they felt were overly intrusive searches of their Qurans by Arabic translators that amounted to desecration.
"As their health has deteriorated, we have received reports of men coughing up blood, being hospitalized, losing consciousness, becoming weak and fatigued, and being moved to Camp V for observation," the lawyers wrote, referring to a camp that is used in part to hold men who violate prison rules.
A prison spokesman, Navy Capt. Robert Durand, said the Department of Justice would respond to the attorney's letter, but added that there were only about six prisoners who have missed enough meals to be classified under the military's rules as being on hunger strike. He said that number has remained constant for about a year.
"There is not a mass hunger strike among the detainees," Durand said. "Some detainees have attempted to coordinate a hunger strike and have refused meal deliveries. Most detainees are not participating."
He said detainees "have chosen one routine search in early February as the rallying point for their grievances." He also said Qurans are treated with respect.
The U.S. holds about 166 men at the prison. A mass hunger strike involved many of the prisoners in the summer of 2005 but the protest dwindled after the military began strapping them down and force-feeding them a liquid nutrient mix to prevent them from starving to death.
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What goes around comes around. Karma so to say. It catches up sooner or later.
"There is not a mass hunger strike among the detainees," Durand said. "Some detainees have attempted to coordinate a hunger strike and have refused meal deliveries. Most detainees are not participating." Is nothing, but a LIE.
PSYCHOPATHS.
It should be their right to refuse to eat and we should honor that right!
If they die, it's an additional bonus!
And, the US should not be forced to "respect" the Quran until they start showing some respect for they start showing some respect for our beliefs.
The people are prisoners,!
If the US started treated prisoners differently (Joe Arpaio comes to mind) instead of providing recreation rooms for them, libraries, free health care and fully equipped gyms etc. for the prisoners here in the US; we might actually have fewer criminals.
I got an email the other day directed at Senior citizens.
It said older folks were going to be provided a gun and four bullets.
These older folks should then carefully pick two politicians to shoot.
They would then be sent to prison where they would receive three meals a day, have a roof over their heads for the rest of their lives, free medical care, free dental care as well as the amenities criminals have while incarcerated.
This would be funny, if it were not so true.
There are three very basic rules for life.
They are choice, control and price.
You control your choice; but you must be willing to pay the price for your choice.
So; if the detainees at Gitmo choose to starve themselves; LET EM.!