More than a dozen Muslim detainees have launched a new, long-term hunger strike at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to protest against their treatment. The New York Times reported on its website yesterday that the military had responded by subjecting the hunger-striking detainees to daily force-feeding. Lawyers for several hunger strikers said the action had been prompted by harsh conditions at a new maximum-security complex, known as Camp 6, where about 160 prisoners had been moved since December, according to the report. The 13 detainees now striking form the largest group to endure the force-feeding regimen on an extended basis since early 2006, when the military broke a long-running strike with a new policy of strapping prisoners into restraint chairs while they were fed by plastic tubes inserted through their nostrils, the paper said.
The hunger strikers were now monitored so closely the detainees had virtually no chance to starve themselves, according to The Times. "We don't have any rights here, even after your Supreme Court said we had rights," one hunger striker, Majid al-Joudi, is quoted as telling a military physician, according to medical records released recently under a federal court order. "If the policy does not change, you will see a big increase in fasting."
Newly released Pentagon documents show that during earlier hunger strikes, before the use of restraint chairs, some detainees suffered sharp weight losses. A handful of those prisoners lost more than 13kg in weeks, according to the report. By comparison, the current hunger strike -- in which 12 of the 13 were being force-fed as of Friday -- seems almost symbolic. Medical records for Mr Joudi, a 36-year-old Saudi, show that when he was put in hospital on February 10, he had been fasting for 31 days and had lost more than 15 per cent of his body weight. But by the time he was transferred a few days later to a "feeding block" where hardcore hunger strikers are segregated from other prisoners, his condition had stabilised and his weight was nearly back to its ideal level for a man his size, The Times reported.