Gitmo Force-Feeding Continues Through Ramadan

by Stephen Lendman

Doing so constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. It inflicts excruciating pain and suffering. It's aggravated assault writ large. It's torture under international law provisions.

It violates human dignity. It reflects disdain for human suffering. It's Josef Mengele-style treatment. Nazi prisoners were coerced. They had no choice. Experiments constituted torture. Obama reflects the worst of cruel despots.

As president and commander-in-chief, he's empowered to stop what's unconscionable to allow. Dismissively he lets it continue. Doing so's a crime against humanity. It persists viciously. It does so extrajudicially.

On July 5, Guantanamo's hunger strike reached day 150. At least 106 of the facility's 166 prisoners refuse food. They do so for justice. They prefer death to indefinite detention uncharged. Around four dozen are force-fed.

They committed no crimes. They're lawlessly incarcerated. They're denied due process and judicial fairness. Rogue states operate that way. America's by far the worst.

Younous Chekkouri spent 11 years at Guantanamo. He was cleared for release. He's still there. He's uncharged. He's hunger striking for justice. He and others involved are punished for doing so.

Guards conduct humiliating invasive body searches. They constitute sexual abuse. Prisoners call it rape. Abdelhadi Raraj explained, saying:

"It is not unusual for prison guards here to search prisoners' genital parts and their rectum 10 times in a single day."

It's done to punish and humiliate. It's standard practice. According to Chekkouri, "searches (spread) fear and shame."

"Eight guards with the watch commander surround me…while two of them put their hands all over me. The sexual assault hasn't just happened to me. Why are they doing this? That's what I'd like to know."

Anne Richardson represents one Guantanamo detainee. Prisoners are subjected to freezing temperatures, she said.

They're "punished and treated like animals." They're denied proper medical care. They're subjected to appalling treatment. It's routine.

Hunger strikers are brutalized most of all. Media scoundrels ignore it. Doing so condones cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. It reflects complicity with lawlessness.

On July 10, Russia Today headlined "Shock video ft. Mos Def reenacts gruesome Gitmo-style force-feeding."

Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) is a US actor/rapper. He "volunteered to undergo the painful procedure used" twice daily on detainees. A "shocking four-minute" video showed what he experienced.

Reprieve "uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay."

It released the film. Award-winning director Asif Kapadia directed it. RT said "viewers may find (it) disturbing." Human suffering isn't easy to watch.

Mos Def's attired Gitmo-style. He's shackled and strapped to a chair. His hands and head are "tightly belted. One person acting as a prison doctor holds the rapper