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US judge temporarily halts Guantánamo force-feeding US judge temporarily halts Guantánamo force-feeding
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A US federal judge has temporarily blocked the military from force-feeding a Syrian prisoner on hunger strike at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. 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.
It is the first time a judge has ordered a halt to force-feeding of a prisoner in Guantánamo, where last year as many as 46 of 166 inmates were force-fed at least some of their meals during a hunger strike. Several sued. 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.
US district court judge Gladys Kessler on Friday ordered the US government to stop force-feeding Abu Wa'el Dhiab until a hearing next Wednesday. She also ordered the military to stop extracting him from his cell if he refused to go to feedings. 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 judge said the government must also preserve all videotape evidence of forcible cell extractions and force-feeding until the hearing. 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.
The procedure, designed to keep hunger strikers alive, involves feeding them liquid meals via tubes inserted into their noses and down into their stomachs. 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.
"While the department follows the law and only applies enteral feeding in order to preserve life, we will, of course, comply with the judge's order here," defence department spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Breasseale said in reaction to the ruling. Representatives for Joint Task Force Guantánamo did not respond to press inquiries. A Pentagon spokesman, army Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale, was quoted by Reuters as saying the military would comply with Kessler’s order.
Human rights advocates and many doctors call force-feeding a violation of personal liberty and medical ethics. Kessler additionally ordered the military to retain all video-recorded imagery of Dhiab’s enteral feedings and forced cell extractions, just days after his lawyers received confirmation, the first of its kind, that the military has recorded the feedings. The judge’s order suggested that the tapes may be entered into evidence in Dhiab’s habeas corpus case.
Last July Kessler, based in Washington DC, denied Dhiab's request to halt the force-feeding, saying she would be overstepping her authority if she issued an injunction and adding that only the president, Barack Obama, had the power to intervene. Dhiab’s lawyer, Cori Crider, of the UK-based human rights group Reprieve, hailed Kessler’s ruling as a breakthrough.
But in February the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit ruled that Guantánamo prisoners had the right to sue over force-feeding and that judges had the authority to consider petitions challenging aspects of how the US military treated them. "This is a major crack in Guantánamo's years-long effort to oppress prisoners and to exercise total control over the information that comes out about the prison,” Crider said in a statement on Friday.
Dhiab's lawyers hailed the decision as a turning point. “Dhiab is cleared for release and should have been returned to his family years ago. He is on hunger strike because he feels he has no other option left. I am glad Judge Kessler has taken this seriously, and we look forward to our full day in court to expose the appalling way Dhiab and others have been treated."
"This is a major crack in Guantánamo's years-long effort to oppress prisoners and to exercise total control over information about the prison," one of Dhiab's lawyers, Cori Crider, said. Last year, Joint Task Force Guantánamo changed its information policy on the hunger strike, and has since refused to provide the media with updates on its status or conditions.
"I am glad Judge Kessler has taken this seriously, and we look forward to our full day in court to expose the appalling way Dhiab and others have been treated," Crider said. Recent letters from detainees, published by the Guardian on Thursday, indicate that about 17 detainees continue to take part in the strike, which gained worldwide attention last year. Lawyers for several detainees described a sense of hopelessness over Barack Obama’s inability to close the centre and release the remaining 154 detainees.
The military disputed the current striker tally, and describe the hunger strikers as detainees who “are not eating on a regular basis”.
Letters from Guantánamo hunger striker Emad Hassan, a Yemeni, claimed that several detainees taking part in the strike weighed as little as 90 pounds, and accused the military of manipulating the tally to keep it artificially low, a charge rejected by Joint Task Force Guantánamo.
Kessler ordered a “status conference” hearing for Wednesday in Washington so the government can discuss the production of Dhiab’s medical records.
In July, Kessler said it was “perfectly clear” that force feedings at Guantánamo were “painful, humiliating and degrading”.