Twenty-one men are on hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay, a prison spokesman told AP. Eight men are being fed with a liquid nutrient mix to prevent dangerous weight loss from occurring, while two others are being treated for dehydration.
Navy Capt. Robert Durand added that no one was in immediate
danger from the hunger strike.
The remark came just days after Durand downplayed the situation,
denying that it was “a widespread phenomenon, as
alleged.”
In a letter to RT, Durand said that only six detainees were
on hunger strike when the allegations were first made. That number
grew to 14 on Friday.
He went on to say “the reports of hunger-strike related
deteriorating health and detainees losing massive amounts of weight
are simply untrue.”
But attorneys for Guantanamo inmates say the strike is more
widespread than the military acknowledges - and a former Gitmo
prisoner agrees.
Omar Deghayes was held at Guantanamo Bay for five years before
being released without charge. While participating in hunger
strikes at the prison, Deghayes recalls hearing the same “rhetoric”
from the US military.
“The rhetoric that [Durand] is describing is something that we
went through many times when we were inside Guantanamo on hunger
strikes. They used to say the same false things that I’m hearing
now. They’d say ‘the number is small’ or ‘there is no hunger
strike,’ or ‘we treat people with dignity,’” he told RT.
The hunger strike comes two years after US President Barack Obama
signed a Defense Authorization Bill that ruled out shutting down
Guantanamo, and prevented the transfer of prisoners from the
camp.
But despite Obama’s promises to close the facility, Deghayes says
conditions are no better than they were under the Bush
administration.
“When Bush went off and Obama came in, all the false and lying
and untrue promises he made haven’t changed anything. If anything,
the conditions got worse inside Guantanamo,” he said.
Deghayes says the use of hunger strikes by Guantanamo prisoners is
one of the only ways to raise awareness of the prisoners’
conditions.
“There’s no other way to inform the outside world that there’s
something seriously bad going on inside Guantanamo bay. And when
the prisoners resort to hunger strikes, this means that something
seriously provocative has taken place and usually it’s to do with
religious and sexual abuse that has been taking place inside,”
he said.
Lawyers for the prisoners say the men are protesting their
indefinite confinement and what they consider to be intrusive
searches of their Korans. Durand has denied the claims, calling
them “outright falsehoods and gross exaggerations.”