6 Horrifying Revelations About Force-Feeding at Guantanamo

May 13, 2013 |The practice of force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as a response to the mass hunger strike there has been increasingly criticized. But the military has continued to carry it out. Now, Al Jazeera has revealed in detail how the practice is takes place–and it’s not pretty.

Al Jazeera’s Jason Leopold obtained a document revealing how force-feeding works at Guantanamo. The Standard Operating Procedure for force-feeding was formulated by United States Southern Command, the military branch that oversees operation of the prison.

Here’s 6 revelations from the force-feeding document and Leopold’s article.

1. Masked and Shackled

The document states that prisoners who are force-fed are restrained by being shackled to a chair. Prisoners are also required to wear masks over their mouths to “prevent spitting and biting.” In some cases, Guantanamo prisoners are shackled for two hours. The masking and shackling of the prisoners is done to facilitate the tube that is snaked through prisoners’ nostrils until an X-ray or test dose of water confirms that the nutritional supplement reached their stomach.

Though the military claims that the size of the tube they use–3.3 milimeters–doesn’t cause problems, a detainee told a different story. Through his federal defender, Kuwaiti detainee Fayiz al-Kandari said that the tube used on him is too big and painful. His defender told Al Jazeera that “It takes several attempts to get the tube into the right place. Once it goes down his throat he has a difficult time breathing. There’s a gag reflex.”

2. No Vomiting Allowed

Once the forced feeding process is over, a prisoner is placed in a cell that does not have running water. A guard then observes the prisoner to make sure he does not vomit up the nutritional supplement that was forced inside him.

If the prisoner does vomit, he is punished. “Participation in the dry cell will be revoked and he will remain in the restraint chair for the entire observation time period during subsequent feedings,” the document reads.

3. Isolation as Punishment for Hunger Striking

The Southern Command policy also outlines why prisoners are being isolated from one another: to break the hunger strike. “In the event of a mass hunger strike, isolating hunger striking patients from each other is vital to prevent them from achieving solidarity,” the military document states.

Indeed, this is exactly what has happened in the midst of the current hunger strike. On April 13, military guards staged a raid at Guantanamo’s communal camp and threw over 100 prisoners into single cells. So far, though, the isolation policy has not worked.

More: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politic…guantanamo