Word: hungerers
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...prisoners, one of whom was al-Shehri, tried to commit suicide on May 18 by swallowing hoarded anti-anxiety medication. Those attempts triggered a search, which in turn led to the most serious rioting in the history of Camp Delta. And on May 29, yet another round of hunger strikes began. It started with 75 prisoners, rose to 89 a few days later, and then suddenly began to fade away. Recent communications by Gitmo inmates with their lawyers, and obtained by TIME, indicate that harsh force-feeding methods were used to end the hunger strikes. The military has offered...
...Before this year, the feeding chair - marketed as a "padded cell on wheels" by its Iowa manfacturer - was evidently used sparingly. In comments several months ago, SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Bantz Craddock, who oversees Gitmo, joked that at least hunger strikers got to choose the color of their feeding tube (yellow was a favorite), and the flavor of the lozenges used to soothe thoats irritated by the feeding tubes. "Look, they get choices," Craddock said at the time. "And that's part of the problem." At the peak of a protest last fall, 131 protesters, or more than 25%, were...
...tougher stance on feeding did have an effect on prisoners' willingness to go on hunger strikes."A lot of detainees said, 'I don't want to put up with this. This is too much of a hassle,'" says Craddock. Asked whether the new methods represented an"effective deterrent" to hunger striking, he answered,"Yeah...
...According to al-Shehri's records and Gitmo doctors, a typical feeding lasts about two hours, with the inmate left in the restraint chair for roughly 45 minutes afterward. During the feeding period, the prisoner will receive as much as 1.5 liters of formula, which, in the case of hunger strikers, can be more than their stomachs can comfortably hold. This can produce what is euphemistically called "dumping syndrome," an uncomfortable, even painful bout of nausea, vomiting, bloating, diarrhea, and shortness of breath. And those are precisely the symptoms that al-Shehri and many other force-fed prisoners have reported...
...code of ethics has been put to the test several times in the past, most notably during the 1980s, when several Irish Republican Army prisoners staged hunger strikes in British prisons. A handful died, and the episode was seen as evidence of Margaret Thatcher's toughness. At Gitmo, however, the death of a prisoner could ignite riots in the Muslim world. In that context, the Pentagon believes that keeping detainees alive at all costs is very much in the nation's security interest...