Judge orders Guantánamo Bay force-feeding videos to be released

www.theguardian.com...

A US federal judge has ordered the disclosure of videotapes that show the force feeding of an inmate on hunger strike at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.

Days before the first legal challenge to the force feeding was due to begin, Judge Gladys Kessler of the Washington DC district court on Friday ordered the US government to prepare public versions of 28 videos showing a Syrian detainee, Abu Wa’el Dhiab, forcibly removed from his cell and fed through a tube inserted through his nose into his stomach.

Kessler’s ruling came after a coalition of media organisations, including the Guardian, applied for disclosure of unclassified versions of tapes that the US government has never made available.

The Justice Department and the military only acknowledged the existence of the tapes last year in filings to Kessler.

The tapes will provide unprecedented visibility into a practice that Dhiab and other detainees says amounts to torture, a claim categorically rejected by the Obama administration and the military.

While the government is expected to appeal the decision later on Friday, Kessler ordered that the public versions of the tapes to be released obscure “all faces other than Mr Dhiab’s, voices, names, etc.” The unclassified version of the videos “may then be entered on the public docket,” Kessler wrote.

I don't know why the US is determined to force fed anyone. In the US, prisoners go on hunger strikes as well and they are given papers to sign along with a DNR basically saying if they want to die then they have that choice to do so. Some US prisoners too have been subjected to force feedings and that order always comes from the Feds. The Feds are always playing their own game.

Wanna see what it looks like to be force fed? Then watch this video by Mos Def.

I don't know how to feel about this one. If someone really wants to go on a hunger strike and signs the papers I guess let them do it. At the same time I feel like we have a duty to keep people alive and healthy. But then again they're locked up indefinitely...

I have a feeling that releasing the tapes is going to cause a massive backlash against the US, from citizens and those that already harbor sympathies for the detainees overseas. I don't know if I think it's a good idea to release the tapes.

a reply to: Domo1

If someone wants to die, that's their choice. It's only not their choice if they are under the care of the state and did not sign the required DNR.... or, that is, until the Feds step in and tells them no.

Are we keeping alive because they still have useful intel or because they are useful idiots?

a reply to: Swills

Are we keeping alive because they still have useful intel or because they are useful idiots?

We are keeping them alive for bargaining purposes. Like the last guy we wanted you release ours we will release yours.

A lot of unsavory and illegal stuff went on, and probably still goes on, in Cuba. However, I see this as being a bit different, and not amounting to torture. If committing suicide is illegal, then not eating would be illegal if it were done with the intention of starving oneself to death. And let's just forget that and focus on the fact that had anyone starved themselves to death, the backlash for the military would have been great. So they do the only thing they can do, and the backlash is still going to be great. So no matter which course of action they took, allowing him to starve to death or force feeding him, they can do no right in this instance.

a reply to: JiggyPotamus

Suicide is illegal? I'm pretty sure trying to prosecute anyone who killed themselves is going to be really hard. God made it illegal though.

Assisted suicide is illegal.

So if one of your relatives was arrested as a terrorist falsely you would be fine with this? You can be arrested for terrorism without any trial at all. You know they can do that right? You have no actual right to due process anymore thanks to Bush/Obama and our do nothing congress.

m.theatlantic.com...

Especially relevant today as we could all be labeled terrorists just for being on this site. Also relevant since I've had to argue against charging children calling in bomb threats being charged as terrorists and I'm apparently in the minority.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: tavi45

Fine with what, forced feeding? Have you read the thread?