Word: gitmo
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...Bush Administration had a wish list for its war on terrorism, the eradication of Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi would surely have been toward the top. But somewhere on that list would also be no deaths in Gitmo. In its 4 1/2 years as a detention center for some 750 men the U.S. has held as terrorist suspects, Camp Delta on Cuba's Guantanamo Bay has been the scene of at least 41 suicide attempts, according to U.S. officials. None were successful until Saturday, when the U.S. Southern Command reported that three men had hanged themselves. After a few sweet days...
...prisoners, few of whom have even been charged with specific crimes. The incarcerations have reverberated violently throughout the Muslim world. A year ago, unsubstantiated news accounts that Korans had been flushed down toilets sparked riots and several deaths. More outrage followed the news last month of a melee between Gitmo detainees and guards. Camp authorities said the fighting erupted when guards attempted to stop an inmate from apparently committing suicide, but some detainees (speaking through their lawyers) reported that the incident was sparked by a search for contraband in Korans. Those searches, GTMO authorities say, are only carried...
...there's one thing the Administration and the detainees agree on, it's that the battle over Gitmo takes place on two levels: in the camp, where prisoners stage hunger strikes and attempt suicide, and in the outside world, where reports of alleged mistreatment foment negative international and domestic reaction, which in turn puts pressure on the White House to close down Gitmo...
...Administration has a keen interest in keeping detainees alive, even against their will. Force feeding has long been standard policy for hunger strikes at Gitmo, which first began in 2002. The facility's top physicians have told TIME that prisoners who resist are subjected to what critics call especially forceful methods. According to medical records obtained by TIME, a 20-year-old named Yusuf al-Shehri, jailed since he was 16, was regularly strapped into a specially designed feeding chair that immobilizes the body at the legs, arms, shoulders and head. Then a plastic tube, sometimes as much...
Allegations of prisoner abuse prompted more than 250 medical professionals, none of whom work at Gitmo, to sign an open letter to the British medical journal the Lancet demanding an end to force feeding. They cited the code of ethics of the American Medical Association and the World Medical Association, both of which condemn the force feeding of prisoners as a violation of human dignity. In response, the U.S. could say that keeping prisoners alive is its responsibility, even if drastic measures are required...