'I Had Trouble Sleeping' After Seeing These Videos

For the first time, Guantanamo prisoners’ lawyers were allowed to view videotapes of his force-feeding and violent cell extractions at the torture facility. President Barack Obama needs to be forced to watch the videos, because anyone seeing them would demand ending the United States torture of Prisoners of War, according to experts at the legal non-profit Reprieve.

On June 14th and 15th, as Andy Worthington’s article explains, lawyers for Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian prisoner at Guantánamo on hunger strike and force-fed, began watching videos of him force-feeding and “forcible cell extractions” (prisoners violently removed from cells by a riot squad) that a US judge, District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered to be released to the lawyers a month ago.

“It is important to note that, previously, no lawyer for the prisoners has ever been allowed to view videotapes of force-feeding or violent cell extractions,” Worthington says.

Before viewing the videos at a “secure facility” run by the Pentagon, where lawyers have to go to view any classified documentation related to their clients, Cori Crider of Reprieve, the legal action charity whose lawyers represent Dhiab, along with Jon B. Eisenberg in the US, described how she expected the content of the tapes to be more than “upsetting.” After viewing the videos, Crider delivered a powerful statement.

“While I’m not allowed to discuss the contents of these videos, I can say that I had trouble sleeping after viewing them,” she said. “I have no doubt that if President Obama forced himself to watch them, he would release my client tomorrow.”

Obama Challenged to Watch, Take Ownership of Abuse

“These first-ever glimpses into Guantánamo Bay are extraordinarily disturbing. I challenge the President to look at the mounting evidence and take ownership of the abuse my client is enduring,” said Alka Pradhan, an attorney with the newly-established Reprieve U.S.

Worthington says it’s sad no evidence exists that Obama has any interest in watching the videos, although Abu Wa’el Dhiab is a prime candidate for release from Guantánamo.

“The father of four, who is confined to a wheelchair as a result of his deteriorating health after 12 years in US custody, is one of 75 men (out of the remaining 149 prisoners still held) who were cleared for release from the prison in January 2010 by President Obama’s high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force but who, unacceptably, are still held. (Three others were cleared for release in recent months by Periodic Review Boards).”

Dhiab, like a handful of other cleared prisoners, cannot be safely repatriated yet could be released tomorrow, if Obama wanted to free him, as President Mujica of Uruguay offered him a new home, along with five other prisoners who cannot be safely repatriated — three more Syrians, the last Palestinian in the prison, and a Tunisian.

New Twist in Abuse of Abu Wa’el Dhiab

Instead of releasing Dhiab, Obama appears content to leave him at Guantánamo, where, as Reprieve noted on June 16, he is now prohibited from attending force-feeding sessions by wheelchair, and is being told he must walk (which he cannot) or be violently extracted from his cell and taken there by the riot squad.

In a June 10 affidavit, Mohammad Ahmad Ghulam Rabbani, a Pakistani prisoner also seeking release of videotapes of his force-feeding and “forcible cell extractions,” whose cell is opposite Dhiab’s, stated that, on June 9:

[T]he Gitmo staff came to Abu Wa’el and asked him if he was going to drink his Ensure [nutritional drink used in force-feeding]. He pointed out that he had accepted his normal food. The staff said that was not enough so he would have to take his Ensure. Abu Wa’el was offended by this and said he was not going to agree to this. So the staff said he would be force fed by FCE ["forcible cell extraction"]. The staff person said he could agree to “walk.” Abu Wa’el pointed out that he needed a wheelchair. The staff said to him no, it was “walk or FCE,” so he was FCE’d.

Rabbani explained that authorities have ceased videotaping “forcible cell extractions” since Judge Kessler’s ruling.

“As of last Wednesday, June 4th, 2014, the JTF-GTMO authorities have changed their rules and they no longer videotape FCE activities,” Rabbani stated. “This is [a] direct response to the judge’s order in Abu Wa’el’s case. It is a great shame as I would always describe loudly for the camera what was being done to me.

Yesterday evening, Abu Wa’el was FCE’d in a particularly harsh manner. The FCE team beat him so badly he had blood in his faeces. I heard him vomiting for much of the night. (Emphasis added)

Abu Wa’el tries to drink water, but it is hard for him. It was made easier by the herbal remedy his family sent him. However, that had been confiscated from him for a time, until Sunday. He had it one day but when he was FCE’d last night it was taken from him again.

Responding to the above disturbing news, Reprieve filed an emergency application for a temporary restraining order.

Judge Kessler orders the release of more videotapes

Dhiab’s lawyers had another court appointment, on June 18, where Judge Kessler “ordered the Obama Administration to pass attorneys four more videotapes depicting the Forced Cell Extraction (FCE) of a disabled hunger-striker at Guantánamo Bay,” as Reprieve described it.

Repirve added that the latest tapes, recorded May 29-30, are thought to depict a new FCE team handling Syrian prisoner Abu Wa-el Dhiab especially roughly after a court order temporarily halted his force-feeding.  Those tapes are in addition to the 28 tapes viewed over the weekend by lawyers from legal non-profit Reprieve, which is representing Mr Dhiab. Of these, 18 have been filed to the court in support of Mr Dhiab’s case.

Reprive’s Cory Crider responded to Judge Kessler’s ruling: “Bit by bit, tape by tape, this case is starting to reveal the ugly reality of Guantánamo. The only question is how long the President, who has the power to release this cleared man, will continue to look away and leave him to endure this pointless torment.”

Media Gets Involved

On June 20, 16 media organizations got involved in the case through a motion submitted to the court. They sought to unseal video evidence of force-feeding and “forcible cell extractions,” that, as Reprieve noted, “remain classified and have only been seen by Reprieve lawyers.”

The 16 organizations are: The Hearst Corporation, ABC, Inc., The Associated Press, Bloomberg L.P., CBS Broadcasting, Inc., The Contently Foundation, Dow Jones & Company, Inc., First Look Media, Inc., Guardian US, The McClatchy Company, National Public Radio, Inc., The New York Times Company, Reuters, Tribune Publishing Company, LLC, USA TODAY, and The Washington Post.

“It’s very welcome that the US media is defending Americans’ right to know what is being done in their name at Guantánamo, and a scandal that the Obama administration apparently wants to keep the truth from them,” Crider said. “Mr. Dhiab and the rest of my clients have never received a trial — most have been cleared for release for years — yet their peaceful protest is being brutally repressed.

“The government keeps implying that the force-feeding tapes contain only uncontroversial material — so they ought to put up, and produce a public version of this footage, or shut up.”

Lawyers Seek Interview with Col. Bogdan, Guantánamo’s Contentious Warden, plus Medical Personnel

On June 20, Reprieve, Jon Eisenberg, and Eric Lewis of Lewis Baach PLLC, filed a motion asking Judge Kessler to allow them to question under oath Col. John Bogdan, the warden of Guantánamo, believed responsible for the decision to prevent Abu Wa’el Dhiab from attending force-feeding in his wheelchair. They also “request the sworn testimony of Guantánamo’s current and former head doctors about Mr. Dhiab’s need for a wheelchair, as well as current abusive and medically unsound force-feeding practices at the prison,” as Reprieve explained in a press release.

Reprieve noted, “Col. Bogdan is responsible for a particularly brutal regime over the past two years at Guantánamo,” pointing out that, “In response to the mass hunger strike of 2013, he rolled out a series of harsh punishments designed to ‘break’ the peaceful protest of scores of cleared men who despair of ever being released.” Bogdan also features prominently in a CBS news report from Guantánamo last fall, in which Shaker Aamer, the last British released prisoner, shouted from his cell, directly exposing the prisoners’ plight to US audiences.

Reprieve noted medical records for Dhiab, made public last month, suggested the decision to deprive Dhiab of his wheelchair “was entirely punitive.” They cited a note from a nurse, dated April 25, 2014, warning him that his “dis[ciplinary] status with guard force is affecting his ability to have a wheelchair.”

As the motion was submitted, Cori Crider explained, “If you take a disabled man’s wheelchair away, you ought to have to answer for it under oath. Col. Bogdan’s new ‘no wheelchairs’ policy reveals at best a callous indifference to suffering, and at worst an abuse of the total power he exercises over prisoners in his care. This is the ugly reality of Guantánamo, and it is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Reprieve noted a “full hearing on the merits of [Abu Wa'el Dhiab's] force-feeding challenge is expected to be scheduled by Labor Day,” the first Monday in September.

“However,” says Worthington, “it is clear that there will be other legal challenges before then, as Dhiab’s lawyers, with the invaluable support of Judge Kessler, have succeeded in shining a light on the darkness that still prevails at the heart of Guantánamo, whose exposure will, I hope, spur the Obama administration to renewed action in releasing prisoners, despite the manufactured hysteria from Republicans regarding the recent Bowe Bergdahl/Taliban prisoner release.”

- See more at: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2014/06/24/i-had-trouble-sleeping-lawyer-says-after-viewing-guantanamo-force-feeding-videos/#sthash.4QSqAZAu.dpuf