As the hunger strike reaches its 100th day on May 17 [2013], 100 prisoners are refusing food.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cI will not eat until they restore my dignity.\u201d That\u2019s what Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel told his lawyer by phone from Guant\u00e1namo Bay. On April 14, Moqbel\u2019s cry became a harrowing New York Times<\/i> op-ed, his message mixing despair, defiance and warnings of impending death. \u201cOne man here weighs just 77 pounds,\u201d Moqbel wrote. \u201cAnother, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Days later, The<\/i> Guardian<\/i> published a letter from another hunger striker, Shaker Aamer, whose words cut to the heart of the protest. \u201cAs of today, I\u2019ve spent more than 11 years in Guant\u00e1namo Bay,\u201d he wrote. \u201cTo be precise, it\u2019s been 4,084 long days and nights. I\u2019ve never been charged with any crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moqbel and Aamer are among the eighty-six prisoners languishing at the prison despite having long been cleared for release. Moqbel, like most of these men, hails from Yemen; after the failed 2009 suicide attack by the so-called \u201cunderwear bomber,\u201d who trained in Yemen, the White House implemented a policy of caging its Yemeni detainees indefinitely. The fact that fifty-six are apparently innocent of any crime is of little concern; in March, State Department adviser Michael Williams told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the Yemenis will stay in Guant\u00e1namo for \u201cthe foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such cruelty breeds desperation. Last year, Adnan Latif was finally sent home to Yemen in a coffin after almost eleven years; he had ostensibly overdosed on pills. Since the hunger strike began, at least two men have attempted suicide. \u201cI do not want to die here,\u201d wrote Moqbel, \u201cbut until President Obama and Yemen\u2019s president do something, that is what I risk every day.\u201d On April 1, Yemeni protesters held posters of their imprisoned loved ones outside the US Embassy in Saana.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon, which once called prisoner suicides \u201casymmetric warfare,\u201d has dismissed the hunger strike as a publicity stunt. Rather than \u201creward bad behavior,\u201d the official response has been to throw the men into solitary confinement and keep the most weakened alive through torturous means. Moqbel described how eight members of the prison\u2019s Extreme Reaction Force tied him to a hospital bed, forced an IV into his hand and left him there for twenty-six hours. More than twenty men are now slated for force-feeding, which means being strapped to a chair and having tubes carrying a liquid diet shoved into their noses. In late April, forty \u201cmedical reinforcements\u201d arrived on the island to assist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want these individuals to die,\u201d Obama told reporters on April 30, adding that \u201cthe Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can.\u201d He also recommitted to closing Guant\u00e1namo, calling on Congress to \u201cstep up and help.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that lawmakers on both sides have fought hard to make transfers impossible. But Obama\u2019s words ignored how his own policies set the stage for the crisis. \u201cHe has said the right thing before,\u201d Guant\u00e1namo lawyer Pardiss Kebriaei of the Center for Constitutional Rights told The Nation<\/i>. \u201cIt\u2019s time now for action.\u201d The CCR is calling on Obama to end his \u201cself-imposed moratorium\u201d on releasing Yemenis and resume prisoner transfers. It has also called for Obama to appoint a senior official to \u201cshepherd the process of closure.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the hunger strike approaches its hundredth day on May 17, more than 100 of Guant\u00e1namo\u2019s 166 prisoners are refusing food. The president must start living up to his rhetoric about closing the prison, the CCR warns, or \u201cthe men who are on hunger strike will die, and he will be ultimately responsible for their deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n
Take Action: Implore President Obama to Close Guant\u00e1namo Bay <\/a><\/p>\n This article appeared in the May 20, 2013 edition of The Nation.<\/a><\/p>\n