In a surprise challenge to one of the most controversial practices at Guantánamo Bay, a federal judge on Friday ordered a temporary halt to the forcible feeding of a hunger-striking detainee, marking the first legal halt to what human rights groups and detainees consider an abusive practice.
Judge Gladys Kessler, of the US district court for the District of Columbia, barred military authorities at Guantánamo from performing an enteral feeding on Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian detainee, and from forcibly removing him from his cell for the purpose of feeding him.
Never before has a judge or any outside authority intervened in the hunger strike. Kessler ruled last year that she lacked the authority to do so, but an appeals court ruling in February decided that detainees at Guantánamo had the right to contest their force-feedings.
The Obama administration has defended the forcible feedings, in which a tube is inserted into a detainee’s stomach through the nose, as the most humane option to keep detainees taking part in the strike alive.
Kessler’s intervention could spark a new wave of challenges to the force-feedings by detainee lawyers. The military command running the detention facility, Joint Task Force Guantánamo, maintains that the hunger strike, which once included more than 100 participants, is over. Full story...
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Judge Gladys Kessler, of the US district court for the District of Columbia, barred military authorities at Guantánamo from performing an enteral feeding on Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian detainee, and from forcibly removing him from his cell for the purpose of feeding him.
Never before has a judge or any outside authority intervened in the hunger strike. Kessler ruled last year that she lacked the authority to do so, but an appeals court ruling in February decided that detainees at Guantánamo had the right to contest their force-feedings.
The Obama administration has defended the forcible feedings, in which a tube is inserted into a detainee’s stomach through the nose, as the most humane option to keep detainees taking part in the strike alive.
Kessler’s intervention could spark a new wave of challenges to the force-feedings by detainee lawyers. The military command running the detention facility, Joint Task Force Guantánamo, maintains that the hunger strike, which once included more than 100 participants, is over. Full story...
Related posts:
- The ghosts of Guantanamo: Prisoners declared innocent... but never let out...
- US violates Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo prison...
- Is Obama making good on his promise to close Guantanamo?
- The real message behind force-feeding hunger strikers in Guantanamo...
- 200 Days of Torture: Gitmo detainees still force fed, Obama folds his hands...
- Every day in Guantanamo is Groundhog Day... whether you're a guard or a prisoner.
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