The Hunger Strike and the Plight of the Guantanamo Prisoners
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=9928
by Clive A. Stafford Smith
Legal Director, Reprieve
www.reprieve.org.uk
[email protected]
Note: None of the information in this memo is classified. This is for public dissemination. The prisoners have filed for a preliminary injunction concerning these issues, but the pleading has not been cleared for public filing as of this date.
General Findings (Unclassified)
At least 210 prisoners are currently on a hunger strike in Guantánamo Bay;
The hunger strike has been going on for three weeks and stems from genuine and reasonable grievances against their treatment;
The U.S. Military will likely face deaths among the prisoners in the next few days;
The U.S. Military has refused to discuss the well-being of the prisoners with their lawyers or with anyone else.
Introduction
Prisoners at Guantánamo are already three weeks into a hunger strike. The main reason: the constant debasement and deception of the prisoners by their custodians, and the lack of any prospect for the prisoners to receive a fair trial. This is the second major hunger strike since early July. Last time, various prisoners came close to death before the military agreed to make obviously necessary changes. Almost immediately, the military reneged, and it will be twice as difficult to resolve the issues this time.
As counsel for a significant number of the prisoners, I personally made repeated attempts to discuss this matter with officials in charge of Guantánamo Bay. These officials simply refused to meet to discuss the problems faced by my clients. During my visit on August 4-14, 2004, I was not permitted to visit with my client Hisham Sliti who, according to the unclassified evidence, was the prisoner whose recent unacceptable beating provoked this hunger strike.
A. THE URGENCY OF THE PROBLEM
The situation in Guantánamo Bay is dire. There is a hunger strike going on there, and people are likely to die. The history is briefly stated by Binyam Mohammed in his recently-unclassified statement:
I am Binyam Mohammed. I am 27 years old. I was seized by the Americans on April 10, 2002, and I have been held by them since. They took me forcibly to Morocco where I endured 18 months of torture from July 21, 2002, to January 21, 2004. I was then taken by the Americans to Afghanistan and, on September 19, 2004, to Guantánamo Bay.
All this time the conditions of my confinement have been a nightmare. Along with other U.S. prisoners, I have been routinely humiliated and abused and constantly lied to.
We were very, very patient here in Guantánamo. But finally enough was enough, and in late June we organized a strike across the prison. People refused food and water, some for over 20 days, and became so weak they were hospitalized. They refused an I.V. drip and the doctor told them that he could not force them to take sustenance even if they were in a coma. He had the people in the hospital confirm twice, before witnesses, that they refused resuscitation if it came to that.
The administration eventually agreed, if we stopped the hunger strike, to negotiate on good faith. I had not eaten for just four days but I had been very weak and fallen down.
The administration promised that if we gave them ten days, they would bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva Conventions. They said this had been approved by Donald Rumsfeld himself in Washington, D.C.
As a result of these promises, we agreed to end the strike on July 28th, 2005.
It is now August 11th, 2005. They have betrayed our trust (again). Hisham from Tunisia was savagely beaten in his interrogation, and they public[ly] desecrated the Qur’an (again). Saad from Kuwait was ERF’d (Emergency Reaction Force) for refusing to go (again) to interrogation because the female interrogator had sexually humiliated him (again) for 5 1/2 hours. Omar the kid from Canada was ERF’d (again) for refusing to go to another illegal interrogation.
Therefore the strike must begin again. Some have already begun – 150 have begun in Camps I, II & III. 60 people in Camp V begin today.
I will begin tomorrow – Friday, August 12th, 2005. I do not plan to stop until I either die or we are respected. People will definitely die.
* * *
We ask only for justice: treat us, as promised, under the rules of the Geneva Conventions for Civilian Prisoners while we are held, and either try us fairly for a valid criminal charge or set us free.
As you read this document, the Guantánamo Titanic is headed for the iceberg. The ship is being steered to its doom by the U.S. Navy, which is categorically unwilling to behave reasonably. The Navy is in charge, and nobody is allowed to comment as the ship steams full speed ahead.
On the other side are 502 prisoners, who have grown desperate after more than three years of constant deceit. The military has lied to the prisoners over, and over, and over again. When lawyers were ordered into the base, the military sent interrogators to pose as lawyers. The military even lied to the prisoners about the proper time to pray.
Guantánamo presents a unique problem in the Western world, because of the military’s insistence on secrecy even where such secrecy is patently unnecessary. How can the security of the nation be threatened by information about the physical well-being of our prisoners? Yet, as the prisoners starve to death hundreds of miles to the south of this Court, no public monitoring of their status is permitted.
1. THE PREDICTABLE AND FATAL COURSE OF A HUNGER STRIKE PROVIDES CAUSE OF URGENT CONCERN
Despite the lack of reliable information, we can predict the prisoners’ plight by the known course of a hunger strike. Once a human being ceases to take in food, there are predictable limits for a normal, healthy adult (estimating approximately 24 pounds of fat on his body). After a week, the hunger striker experiences dramatic weight loss. Physiologists agree that no human being can survive losing 40 percent of his body mass, which will generally happen within 40 to 60 days.
In the first few days of starvation the body uses stores of glycogen which is stored in the liver and muscles. This provides energy for the body to function. During these days, the person will experience substantial weight loss combined with salt excretion. During the first three to five days the liver is reduced to breaking down fat (instead of glucose).
The second stage of starvation usually occurs during the second week. During this time, the stores of glycogen in the body are exhausted and various amino acids in the body are broken down to create more glycogen. The third and final stage occurs when the fat stores of the body have been used up. The body then turns to proteins in the body. Fatty acids are now broken down to produce ketones.
The body is generally able to survive for up to 40-60 days without food. Although this is an estimate, there are tragic examples in history that provide some empirical evidence. In the Irish hunger strikes in 1981 — precipitated by the British internment of Irish suspects without trial, similar to Guantánamo Bay — ten people died. They began to expire after 46 days without food, and the longest lived survived 73 days.
These predications involve a gradual decline based on the lack of solid food, but assuming the continued consumption of water. Refusing water radically changes the equation. It is unlikely that a human being will be able to last more than a week without water.
Meanwhile, among the survivors, there are psychological implications that are inevitable when a hunger strike takes place. A study on anorexia nervosa and depression indicates that 77% of individuals who lose significant body weight through means of starvation are clinically depressed at the time of admission to hospital. Hunger strikers also demonstrated features similar to those of the post-traumatic stress syndrome.
This is the process that we know is now taking place in Guantánamo Bay.
2. AN EARLIER HUNGER STRIKE TOOK PLACE IN LATE JUNE AND IN JULY, PROVIDING THIS COURT WITH SOME IDEA OF WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW
In late June and most of July 2005, a hunger strike took place in Camp V. A similar action took place in Camps I, II, III and IV. The July hunger strike was a rolling one:
They began on June 21, 2005, by rejecting one meal each day for a week. On June 28, they began to reject two meals. On July 2, 2005, they began rejecting all food. * * * A majority of Camp V are taking part in the hunger strike. Some are not able to because they have medical conditions.
More details of this action follow below, as they become relevant.
3. THE PROBLEMS INHERENT IN THE CLOSED PRISON OF GUANTANAMO BAY CAST DOUBT ON ALL THE INFORMATION RELEASED BY THE U.S. MILITARY
Sad to say, the military simply cannot be trusted to provide the Court and the public with accurate and reliable information about the prisoners’ health and welfare. The earlier hunger strike provides a good illustration of this. When a tree falls in the forest, nobody knows, and the same principle applies to Guantánamo Bay: When a prisoner suffers there, we only know if lawyers are allowed to see him, as otherwise it is highly unlikely that the military will provide a forthright report of what happened.
The disregard for the true facts is apparent from the military’s public statements during the July hunger strike. As of July 21, 2004, the Pentagon denied that a hunger strike was even taking place. The Pentagon was then forced to admit it was happening, but suggested that the prisoners had only refused meals for about three days, when in truth it had been going on for three weeks. The U.S military then said that « 52 prisoners are taking part in a hunger strike, » when independent sources – now confirmed – suggested that it was three or four times that number.
During the last hunger strike it was said that « [d]etainees are being monitored by medical professionals and their vital signs are being checked daily. » This much is true, but it is deceptive. Monitoring will not save the lives of the prisoners. The critical issue is whether the prisoners are going to be allowed to die from lack of food and water. « A military spokesman was unable to say whether any of the treatment was being administered by force. » The military may feel ‘unable’ to say this, but the truth is that last time the prisoners were not forcibly fed, and it seems likely that they cannot be forced to take food if they refuse. Thus, their lives are likely to be in jeopardy at any time.
4. THE CURRENT HUNGER STRIKE AROSE OUT OF THE MILITARY’S REFUSAL TO HONOR ITS AGREEMENT WITH THE PRISONERS
Unfortunately – no matter what the personal good faith of the colonel who conducted the negotiations – the military in general proved wholly unreliable. The Pentagon has not even been forthright about the agreement that it reached with the prisoners to end the hunger strike last time:
« Prison command staff responding to Globe questions in writing, said, ‘There is no new committee formed by the detainees. Camp leadership routinely receives and addresses concerns from detainees consistent with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions. . [Prison staff are working] to increase the selection of books in our library’ and ‘is always working to improve the manner in which we provide safe and human [sic] detention of enemy combatants.' »
Again, this is simply not true. »As a result of the hunger strike, a colonel . . . set up a committee which has six prisoners on it that meets together, They are from different areas of the camp. They are allowed limited ability to speak to other prisoners. They are allowed to meet for a few hours a week, and occasionally should be meeting with the colonel. »
The urgent moment when prisoners might start dying past, the military then reneged on the deal. According to Binyam Mohammed’s unclassified report, on or around August 5, a prisoner called Hisham (his name is known, through unclassified sources, as Hisham Sliti, originally from Tunisia) was savagely beaten by the ERF team. One of the Kuwaiti prisoners was sexually harassed at interrogation, and ERF’d. The Canadian juvenile prisoner was violently ERF’d. (The details of these incidents are not yet unclassified.)
The hunger strike has started again. As of August 11th, 2005, there were 150 prisoners who had joined it in Camps I, II & III, with additional prisoners set to join it from Camp IV and V. This means that many prisoners have been without food for at least two weeks, and some may have been going without water. Potentially fatal consequences may begin after two weeks of such a strike. Thus, the situation is very urgent.
B. THREE TIERS OF PROBLEMS FACED BY THE PRISONERS THAT MUST BE ADDRESSED BY THIS COURT
The prisoners have shown a surprising degree of patience in the face of this abuse. However, gradually, the prisoners have come to the end of their tether. It is this fact that makes the current petition so urgent.
There are three distinct tiers of problems faced by the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay.
1. THE OVERALL NEED FOR FAIR TREATMENT
The first tier of the complaints is simple: That more than 500 people have been held without any meaningful charges or trial for upwards of three years. The prisoners demand meaningful access to court – that they should be charged or released:
First and foremost among the issues, of course, it has been over three years and nothing has been decided. « We are dying a slow death in here. And you have to remember that we have not been charged with any crime. I do not understand what America is doing. »
In other words, the prisoners have been held for more than three years without official charges, and without a meaningful trial where they could prove their innocence before a fair tribunal. « The demands called for respect for . . . fair trials with proper legal representation. »
Most of the 500 men have been held for more than three years. Just four have been charged with some kind of an offense in a military commission, although none even among these four has actually had a commission – a tribunal which has, itself, been described as unfair and rigged by the military prosecutors involved, and « kangaroo courts » by respected international jurists.
The rest of the 500 men have been offered only the military’s other kangaroo tribunal, the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT). At a CSRT tribunal, there is no opportunity to see much of the evidence against you, there is no lawyer is allowed to represent you, and the ‘judges’ are all hand-picked members of the U.S. military. See In re Guantánamo Bay Cases, 355 F. Supp. 2d 443, 468 (D.D.C. 2005). The definition of « enemy combatant » is inherently vague, and the burden is on the prisoner to prove his own ‘innocence’. Id. And whether the tribunal finds you are an enemy combatant or not, you can be held indefinitely. For the Guantánamo prisoner, then, there is no hope whatsoever of actually challenging his detention, let alone going home.
2. THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS IN CAMP V, THE ‘INNOCENT’, AND JUVENILES AS WELL AS CONTINUED ABUSE OF THE QUR’AN
The second tier of complaints involves conditions in Camp V, the juveniles held there, the CSRT-innocent prisoners, and on-going violations of the prisoners’ religious rights.
a. THE HORRENDOUS CONDITIONS OF CAMP V
One of the main demands is to close Camp V. The terrible conditions of Camp V remain a major focus of this strike, because they are simply inhumane.
The prisoners there are held in solitary isolation, and noise-making fans have been introduced to try to ensure that there should be no meaningful communication among the prisoners:
« The cells in Camp V are concrete isolation cells. It is very difficult to hear or see anyone. The guards try to prevent meaningful communication. We would try to shout at each other, so they placed guards in the corridors. If he hears anyone trying to talk, he would come and bang loudly on the doors to stop this. But we were too many, and we talked all at the same time to frustrate their plans. They tried using noisy fans to drown out any conversation. »
Contrary to the occasional military statements to the contrary, the prisoners get very limited time outside their solitary isolation cells:
« For one year, I have walked on the rec yard only once a week, and that is when I am lucky, as sometimes we do not go out at all and two weeks pass without leaving the cells. Sometimes the excuse is that someone else is on the yard. This could be the Red Cross, or anyone on the yard – then nobody can go out. Sometimes the Red Cross is here for many days, which makes our conditions even worse rather than the promise that they will be better. The ‘yard’ itself is only twice as big as the cell. We are never under the sun, as the ‘yard’ is covered. Sometimes we are walked at night. Sometimes there are two people out in separate rec yards at the same time, and it is possible to talk. But there are some prisoners who are only ever taken out when there is nobody else there, so that they will never have another person to talk to. We are told that this is done on the instructions of the interrogators. »
Some of the prisoners suffer badly from this, both physically and mentally. For example, M.C., the juvenile prisoner, has suffered skin diseases because of his lack of exposure to sunlight. Despite his complaints to the medical officers, this persisted for many months.
Reflecting the limited recreation, the prisoners in Camp V are also denied reasonable sanitary facilities including showers:
« We only go to the shower when we go to rec, so that means that if you don’t get outside, you don’t get to clean yourself. »
Despite the military’s public assurances that any use of light as a coercive interrogation tool was limited to Afghanistan and the early days of Guantánamo, this technique is still in use in Camp V:
« The lights are some of the worst tools used against us. They are neon, two and a half metres long, glaring 24 hours a day. They are fitted directly above the concrete tomb that is meant to be our bed. They are never dimmed. Have you ever lived in bright lights for 24hours a day, every day? It is a constant struggle to get any sleep at all. Many in the camp suffer mentally from sleep deprivation. »
Likewise, although the military insists that any physical mistreatment of prisoners is a thing of the past, the experience of Camp V prisoners shows this to be false:
« The Physical abuse is very bad. On May 25, at 06.35, one of the MP’s slammed the beenhole [what we call the grate] on M.C.’s hand. M.C as you know is one of the juveniles. The MP was the one who abused the Qur’an. He is Hispanic, heavyset, tall and middle-aged. He later did the same thing to two other prisoners, Awaisha and Ahmad, apparently causing them broken bones.
« They continue to use the ERF [Emergency Reaction Team] for abusing prisoners in Camp V. indeed, the verb ‘to be ERF’d’ has long since entered our language. A prisoner called Farid was beaten by the ERF team and left naked for three weeks. Farid is already lame because the guards in Kandahar broke his knee.
« Saud Jihani, Issa Murbati and Hisham Sliti have also been particular victims of the ERF team. All three were beaten and left naked. When Sliti returned from a lawyer visit in Camp Echo in May, four of the ERF team ‘mules’ came into his cell, beat him, held him to the floor, and then rifled through his Qur’an solely to offend him.
« At the end on 2004, O was in my block, and he refused to give back his paper plate as a minor protest over something. Five members of the ERF team came in on him and three kneed him in the stomach until they had knocked him to the floor. This ruptured his stomach and he suffered constant and increasing pain. He asked for medical care for several months. Finally, on May 7 2005, he saw a doctor, who said his situation was very dangerous. He has to undergo an operation as a result of this. He was kept at the hospital for only two days, and then returned to Camp V. We have heard his screams of pain whenever he uses the toilet. One day he collapsed in his cell, and so we felt forced to conduct joint protest on his behalf. Part of his problem is that he does not speak English, so that when he needs help, and when the MP’s finally respond to his cries, they say that there is no translator. It is cruel. Finally, we were able to pressure the military into taking him back to the clinic. As they took him to the clinic, he was crying out in pain, and the guards – sad to say – were laughing at him. When he came back, he was put in the cell across from me, so I would hear each time he called for help from the MP’s. The MP’s often refuse to respond to him, walking directly by his cell. Last week [June2005], he collapsed in his cell again and they took him back to the clinic. As of this writing, he has not returned. Beating him so badly was, in the first place, a vicious act for so minor a rule violation – a rule violation committed by someone who is being held without being proven guilty of any crime. He has received permanent injury from this. »
These abuses leave the prisoners with permanent damage. Omar Deghayes, the British refugee from Libya, has been blinded by the U.S. military: « I have previously described to you the abuse I suffered from the ERF team when they gouged my eyes and left me permanently blind in my right eye. While I can see nothing out of it, my eye is very sensitive to light. It is particularly painful because they leave the bright neon lights on all the time. »
The treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay – and particularly in Camp V – therefore go well beyond anything that might be deemed reckless abuse. It remains brutal, intentional and systematic.
b. THE MISTREATMENT OF THE ‘INNOCENT’
A second element of the prisoners’ complaints involves those who have been found ‘innocent’ in the CSRT process. Sami Al Laithi is one such person:
« They have prisoners here who are treated shamefully. One would be [Sami Al Laithi]. He has been found ‘innocent’ by the CSRT process. He was brutally abused and had his back broken by the guards at the hospital, which means that he is confined to a wheelchair. The treatment here is particularly harsh on him as he cannot get any help with therapy when he is being held in solitary confinement. He cannot stand unless he has other prisoners (or someone) to help him. He is very afraid that he will become totally paralysed if he is not allowed to do physical therapy. »
Mr. Al Laithi was – when counsel last saw him on August 8, 2005 – still being held in Camp V, under the shocking conditions previously described, three months after being found innocent by the CSRT process.
c. THE ABUSE OF JUVENILES, PARTICULARLY IN CAMP V
Extraordinarily, the military has also held juveniles in Camp V, under conditions that are unacceptable for anyone, let alone someone who was a child when seized. The unclassified evidence reveals that at least three juveniles – MC, OK and HBA – have been held routinely in Camp V.
This mistreatment is particularly harmful for the juveniles, as illustrated by the following description:
« With MC (a juvenile) he has suffered continuous skin rashes from the absence of sunlight. The doctors said it was caused because he was not exposed to fresh air and sunlight, and because his clothes and blankets were changed so rarely. After the doctor’s diagnosis, MC was still only allowed one hour outside in two weeks – despite the promise of the regulations that we would get three hours a week. When he was taken outside, he therefore refused to come in until the issue was addressed. The guards called the ERF team hooligans, and they beat him (and another prisoner) up and forced them back into their cells. Both were left naked but for boxer shorts for three weeks. They had their bedclothes confiscated, and had to sleep on bare concrete. Nothing has been done to redress the problem of his skin condition.
« Indeed, they came to MC and told him that he has to submit an injection. He refused because he did not know what it was. They entered his cell again, and one guard called [NAME OMITTED] knocked him down to the ground. The others held him down to the ground. The others held him down and they forcibly injected him, while his blood was flowing on the floor. The rest of us were banging on the doors and loudly objecting, as it is shameful that they treat a kid this way. The injection was a sedative of some sort, and MC was comatose for three full days after the injection. We were very concerned about him, as we could not wake him, and he did not even wake for prayer. He did not know anything, and afterwards he could not remember anything about what had happened to him.
« For more than a year now, MC has constantly been coming in for this mistreatment. It began just before he came to Camp V, when he was in Camp Delta. MC had just moved cell when, at roughly 3a.m, the ERF team burst into his cell, pulled him off his bed, and beat him. They broke two of his teeth, and he was bleeding. They shackled him and took him onto the rec yard where they hosed him down before throwing him back on the floor of his cell. MC had no idea what this was about, although he thought this beating had been ordered by his interrogator, [NAME OMITTED], who had been angry because MC would not say what he wanted to hear. But the next day a translator came in and told him it had been a mistake, and the ERF team had not realized that he had moved cell. The previous occupant had committed some offence, apparently spitting on the General or a senior officer, and was meant to be punished for this. »
MC is not the only juvenile to have suffered. Indeed, one of the precipitants to the August hunger strike has been the violent physical abuse of the juvenile OK by the ERF team, after the military’s purported agreement not to mistreat the prisoners in the way that has unfortunately been commonplace.
Another factor that particularly affects the juveniles in Camp V, but which had an impact on all others — is the total lack of education available for the prisoners
« Education is most important for the young who are here. But it makes no sense not to allow meaningful access to books. We do not even ask them to pay for books. Although even convicted criminals in jail can receive books from their families, we cannot. »
The treatment of juveniles has been a source of great frustration for the more mature prisoners, as well as for the juveniles themselves. As well as being a precipitant of the hunger strike, it is also a violation of the law.
d. VARIOUS ISSUES OF RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE, AND THE CONTINUING DESECRATION OF THE QUR’AN
« The demands called for respect for their religion, including an end to what they described as desecration of the Qu’ran and religious discrimination. . . . » There are several issues involved here that violate the law.
The first issue is the attempt by the military to manipulate the hours when the prisoners pray. This is a strange strategy indeed, as if somehow having a person pray at the wrong time were a legitimate governmental goal:
« The authorities manipulate religious issues for very cheap reasons. For example, one time I was in Camp Echo they had the wrong prayer times. It was for this reason that Shaker Aamer asked counsel to process a proper time schedule through to the prisoners, So that we could pray at the right times. It seems absurd that they would try to make us pray at the wrong times, as what does that achieve? They have now replaced this with the proper schedule. »
The military has also been playing the prayer call over the public address system at the wrong time and, while the personnel has tried to disrupt prayer:
« They play the call to prayer over the public address system at the wrong times and sometimes they do not play it at all. The guards have recently increased their efforts to disrupt prayer, by raising their voices as if they were kids playing with a new toy. They also make other noises at time of prayer, like increasing the volume of the fans, talking louder, or running races in the corridor. It is childish. At other times in the day it is totally quiet, and it is often very difficult to find a guard when we need help. »
Indeed, the call to prayer also included erroneous words in it.
The prisoners have also demanded the return of religious books that had been taken away. For example, the prison had instituted a rule that each prisoner could only have a Qur’an in Arabic or another language, which is detrimental to the many prisoners who do not read Arabic well. It is very important to have a copy in the original (Arabic) but also in an edition that the prisoners can understand. At the same time, the prisoners have not been allowed copies of other religious books.
There have been many other ways in which the military have sought to insult the integrity of the prisoners’ religious beliefs, including exploiting the Muslim’s proscription against partial nakedness:
« In other Camps there are similar problems. Camp Romeo is the most notorious of course. I was held there, and the prisoners continue to be held in only their shorts, because the authorities know that this is inappropriate and humiliating for a Muslim. It is strange that they chose the name Camp Romeo for this treatment, too. They have been using this form of mistreatment in Camp V recently too. The prisoners who have been treated this way include MC (who is one of the juveniles) and four others. »
Again, it is hard to see a penological purpose for such humiliation of prisoners, particularly if the military now concedes that it should be acting in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, without coercive interrogation of the prisoners.
Perhaps most significant, however, in light of the history of abuse of the Muslim holy book, is the continued problems with the desecration of the Qur’an. This had caused immense discord in the prison before, as well as around the world. Unfortunately, the issue has not been resolved. As repeatedly reported, the Qur’an has been mistreated for the entire history of the Guantánamo experiment:
« I know that the U.S. First Amendment protects the right to freedom of religious practice. I have heard of a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the U.S., which protected prisoners’ rights to religious liberty, and sounded like a very appropriate thing though I also heard there were challenges to its constitutionality. Unfortunately, the authorities in Guantánamo Bay do not live up to this promise.
* * *
« Abuse of our religion and the Qur’an still continues. In all the time I have been here, I have never been visited by a Muslim ‘chaplain’ or Imam. I have been asking for such help for over a year now. When I returned to Camp V from my counsel meeting in May, the Qur’an that I had to leave in my cell had been searched in my absence. As everyone knows, this is very offensive to Muslims as a non-Muslim did this. We had hoped that we had made this point by prior non-violent protests, but the abuse of the Qur’an continues in far worse ways than this as well. When the prisoners read the newspaper reports where the military denied abusing the Qur’an it was very sad – the acts taken against the Qur’an have been so offensive that they do not bear to mention here. »
Unfortunately, this abuse continues to this day. While the military has promised that the Qur’an would not be subject to desecration again, this has not been the case. Indeed, in the abuse of Hisham Sliti that was the precipitating misconduct leading to the new hunger strike, again the Qur’an has reportedly been desecrated twice more.
Initially, one must ask why the U.S. military would want to violate the prisoners’ right to religious freedom, enshrined as one of the most basic issues of our nation in the First Amendment.
Our commitment to religious freedom has recently been reaffirmed in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, where Congress reminded the nation that: « the framers of the Constitution, recognizing free exercise of religion as an unalienable right, secured its protection in the First Amendment to the Constitution. » Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb(a)(1) (1993). Under RFRA, the federal government:
shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except . if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
RFRA clearly covers the military as the act states: « the term ‘government’ includes a branch, department, agency, instrumentality, and official (or other person acting under color of law) of the United States. » And, it clearly covers Guantánamo Bay.
3. GENERAL ISSUES OF CONFINEMENT
The third tier of complaints involved general conditions at the prison, with the prisoners demanding that they be held consistent with the Geneva Conventions, as promised by the authorities. These issues concern medical mistreatment of the prisoners, the general conditions of confinement that must be addressed.
a. ISSUES OF MEDICAL MALPRACTICE
The medical malpractice that has been commonplace in the Guantánamo camps has been detailed in a recent pleading filed in the case of the Egyptian prisoner, Sami Al Laithi.
Sad to say, in addition to providing wholly inadequate medical care to the prisoners, the military has made the right to necessary medical care contingent on the prisoners’ cooperation with interrogation, a policy that shocks the conscience:
« The plight of the people who have had limbs amputated is among the saddest of the conditions of this ugly camp. I have twice been housed next to prisoners with prosthetic limbs. It was one of the most depressing experiences I have endured. The prisoners were effectively blackmailed by their interrogators who said that they had to cooperate in order to get their prosthetic devices back. They are denied the toilet chairs, the sticks they need to walk and even the cream they need to ensure that the wound will not become infected and inflamed. The pain is apparently particularly great when they are denied the necessary prosthetic socks, so that the wounds are exposed to the extreme cold of the cells. »
This medical abuse of prisoners is employed throughout the camps.
b. ISSUES OF SANITATION
There are various issues of basic sanitation that continue to plague the prisoners. For example, scorpions are present in the camps, and even make it into the prisoners’ food:
« Scorpions just walk around in Camp V. In June 2004, Juma was bitten by one in the cell in front of me. The incident should be registered with the medical staff, who treated him for it. As related below, Hisham Sliti found one in his food. »
The toilets often do not function properly, overflowing and resulting in other unsanitary conditions:
« There are frequent overflows, and occasional blockages of the toilets. Apart from other disgusting consequences, this seems to dramatically increase the number of mosquitoes. When I see you next, I will show you my hands and feet so that you can see the bites everywhere. This suffering is continuous. »
The prisoners asked that they be permitted to have drinkable water available. The water is a yellow-brown color and has a very bad odor.
c. GENERAL QUESTIONS OF ABUSIVE TREATMENT
There have been various hold-overs from the more overt policies of coercion used to break the prisoners down in Guantánamo. One issue was sleep deprivation. The prisoners requested that no movement or interrogation of prisoners would take place between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., as this caused a great disturbance on the blocks and made it impossible for the prisoners to sleep. They also asked that there be no cleaning of the blocks at night with the extremely pungent pine oil cleaner that was sloshed around causing breathing problems for asthmatics and others.
A second such hold-over is the continued use of excessive cold and noise to break down the prisoners:
« The strong A/C is fitted to blow directly on the concrete bed. If you lie down the stream blows directly in your face, unless you turn around in which case you have to put your face directly into the stainless steel toilet. You have your Hobsen’s choice, between illness and odour. The A/C is particularly strong in Wing D, where it is used as a particular abuse. Thankfully, I have not had to deal with this lately, as it is generally reserved for the new arrivals from Bagram. But if you anger the interrogators, you can end up there. Three people were sent there recently. Indeed, recently there has been a new tool for our torture. They put very large noisy fans in every corridor, even though there is nobody in the corridors, so they do nobody any good. They make very disturbing noises and they are left on all day and night, even the time for prayer. They are there just to make a noise to make communications between prisoners even more difficult. * * * Yet the fans are only minor in the pantheon of abuses that we suffer in Camp V. But if the central command is unhappy at us in Camp V they raise the level of the fans to make life more intolerable. If an interrogator is angry at a particular prisoner, he moves the fan in front of the prisoner’s door. Only when an important visitor comes do they turn the fans off. Does anyone really believe that the U.S. could spend all the millions they have spent on Camp V and not get fans that do not do this? I was in a Pakistani prison and they had fans that were silent there. Does Pakistan have better technology than the U.S? »
The prisoners requested that the sexual humiliation of prisoners in Camp Romeo cease at once. This, as discussed above, has been an on-going sore in the conditions of the prison.
d. MAIL PRIVILEGES ARE CONSTANTLY ABUSED
Another significant complaint that precipitated the July hunger strike was the intentional interference with the prisoners’ mail. The prisoners requested that family letters no longer be delayed. The ‘normal’ delay in delivery was two months, and sometimes it would take as long as one year for the letters to be delivered – if they were at all.
e. THE DIET IS UNACCEPTABLE
Various comments have been made publicly by the Bush Administration and its congressional allies about the supposedly high quality of the food in Guantánamo Bay, including statements to the effect that prisoners enjoy such delights as lemon chicken and rice pilaf. This is apparently the fruit of false information provided to important visitors in an effort to use them to relay misinformation back to the public:
« Mr. Deghayes noted that there are a series of prisoners who are working with the military who are used to meet with important visitors to make the Camp look good. One such person was in Camp Romeo with Mr. Deghayes and he eventually confessed that he was working with the military. He had been picked because he spoke various languages. * * * There are at least seven people who have either confessed to this, or been exposed as having done it.
In truth,
« The food is terrible. In June 2005, one evening at about 6pm, Hisham Sliti found a dead scorpion cooked in his dinner. He had already eaten some of it, and he began to get a bad pain in his stomach, and then vomited. He showed the scorpion to the MP, and the sergeant. »
It is not simply a matter of finding poisonous spiders in the food. The general level of food quality is abysmal. A representative selection of assessment by the prisoners is as follows:
« The food is very, very terrible. I would prefer to eat grass. »
« The last time we had Lemon Chicken in Guantánamo Bay was never. I have never even seen a lemon in this place. »
The main meal at breakfast, served second day for the past two years, consists of two pancakes (often cold), with a piece of fruit. This is alternated with two other breakfasts, served on the second and fourth day in each rotation. On the second day, the meal is eggs with oatmeal – the oatmeal is the dish that most often comes with undesirable items in it such as worms. On the fourth day, it is cornflakes with a vegetarian burger. This is a very strange mix, and the vegetarian burger is very unappetizing.
« The lunch includes boiled tinned vegetables that are tasteless, almost inedible, and most people do not eat them. » For example, as counsel observed, on July 3rd, 2005, the lunch included boiled tinned okra, very dry undercooked rice, and a piece of fish that was rancid. On July 3rd, 2005, the lunch included boiled tinned potatoes, mushy carrots (that had a bitter taste and were totally inedible) with kidney beans. The food was all boiled without spices – and was all tasteless except for the bad tinned flavor. There was a slice of stale brown bread, and a tasteless apple. On July 5th, 2005, the lunch included a veggie burger (like the one served at breakfast), tinned brussel sprouts boiled like the English do (soggy and tasteless), very dry undercooked rice, and brown pita bread with a strange aftertaste. For the Military to suggest that this food is of a high quality is risible.
The prisoners have sometimes been given food that is incompatible with their religious beliefs:
« The food is always very limited. One month ago [May 2005] they suddenly started serving food that was clearly unsuitable for Muslims. This went on for a week. Fortunately, only those who could read English knew this, so the others did not starve. But they were very sad when they learned later when word was able to spread that they had been duped into eating such food. »
Prisoners have the right to basic, decent nutrition.
