27/10/2005
By Elham Asaad Buaras Human rights groups Amnesty International and Reprieve called on the British Government to intervene in the hunger strike of an estimated 210 detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
At a news conference in London on October 6, the human rights groups said six British residents were among detainees currently refusing food in protest against their illegal detention.
They also said the US is keeping 21 alive by forcing food into their stomachs via tubes pushed up their noses. This procedure is carried out while they are shackled to their beds for 24 hours a day to stop them removing the tubes.
Both groups wrote to Prime Minister, Tony Blair, asking him to “make immediate representation to the US Government to urge them to meet the hunger strikers’ goals.”
Doctors condemned the policy, claiming it violated medical ethics. St Bartholomew Hospital, Clinical Director, Trevor Turner, said, “The notion that a qualified medical practitioner would be prepared to supervise such a procedure goes against all medical ethics, certainly in this country.”
Amnesty’s Director, Kate Allen, said, “Reports emerging from the camp concerning the treatment of hunger strikers are disturbing and underline the need for an immediate resolution.
“We need to see the UK Government intervening to prevent deaths and injuries and to see that all detainees - including at least six UK residents on hunger strike - are either properly tried or immediately released in accordance with international human rights law.
Reprieve’s Legal Director and lawyer for 40 Guantánamo Bay detainees, Clive Stafford Smith, told The Muslim News, “Conditions there at the best of times are disturbing. But to imagine my clients being held in four point restraints with a tube forced down their noses, after all that they have been through, just makes me sick.
“All the prisoners were asking for was that the US military abide by the Geneva Conventions”, added Smith. “This is the 56th day of the hunger strike,” said Smith who compared it to the Irish Republican campaign of 1981, when 10 prisoners starved themselves to death in protest at British policy in Northern Ireland.
“We know from experience that the first person to die in those hunger strikes was after 46 days,” he said.
The detainees include former Brighton law student, Omar Deghayes, 36. In 2001, Deghayes decided to travel with a friend and look for work. He went to Malaysia, Pakistan and eventually Afghanistan, where he married and had a son.
When the international conflict in Afghanistan started after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA, Deghayes fled to Pakistan with his wife and baby. They were planning to return to the UK when they were arrested in Lahore in April 2002, reportedly for a bounty of US$5,000.
Deghayes was caught up as an ‘enemy combatant’ and eventually transferred to Guantánamo Bay via Afghanistan.
Deghayes and his family fled Libya in the 1980s after their father was murdered by Colonel Gadaffi’s regime. Deghayes’ situation is worsened by his citizenship status. He has had refugee status in the UK since 1987, and his family are all British citizens. Deghayes had applied for citizenship, but missed an interview because he was abroad. The UK has argued that under international law it can only intervene on behalf of British citizens. Deghayes still has a Libyan passport, which means it is left to the Libyan Government, the same Government that executed his father to make diplomatic representations on his behalf.
His sister Amani, who was present at the press conference, told The Muslim News, “Under the UN Convention on Refugees, the UK should be his surrogate state, protecting him as if he were one of their own citizens.
“It’s quite outrageous how the Government treat people they are suppose to be protecting.” She said her family in the UK are feeling “really desperate” and fear for his life as the hunger strikes approach a third month.
In Pakistan, Deghayes says he was repeatedly tortured and faced threats against his wife and children, and violent assaults by the Pakistani interrogators who told him they were holding him at U S request. “I underwent systematic beatings every night for three days. Each time, when I was nearly unconscious, I would be thrown back into the cell to await more.”
In recently declassified notes written in March to Smith, Deghayes writes, “We are in the throes of slow death here…I don’t understand what the US is doing…this is the fourth year in prison although no charges have been filed, and we lack medicine, products or conditions to wash, and are without sun.” Deghayes described how a soldier punched him in the eye, and said that many prisoners “are falling down and showing symptoms of diseases.”
If authorities here fail to do something quickly to improve conditions, “the number of prisoners on hunger strike will get out of hand,” he predicted.
At Guantánamo Bay, Deghayes said the guards came to his cell spraying his face with mace and digging their fingers into his eyes while an officer shouted, “More! More.”
Deghayes’ right eye has been blind ever since.
Deghayes said in 2003, troops pushed their fingers in his eyes because he refused the controversial rectal search. He also said his head was flushed in a toilet, human excrement smeared on his face and water forced up his nose with a pressure hose.
Smith asserted that Deghayes’ testimony is “totally credible”. “He has been treated worse in Guantánamo than any other person I have come across. He is legally trained and tries to help other people there, so the Americans think he’s a troublemaker. Consequently, he’s suffered for it,” he said.
Amani is adamant her brother is innocent of any wrongdoing. “It’s been three-and-a-half years and nothing seems to have changed. We still haven’t been told that evidence there is against him.”
According to Smith, Deghayes was the victim of mistaken identity. His name appeared on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and the accompanying picture was taken from a training video of a Chechen separatist group.
According to the family, Deghayes has never been to Chechnya and the person in the video looks nothing like Deghayes, a view supported by facial recognition experts.
A tearful Amani said, “From what I know of my brother’s personality, this is so unlike him because he loves life, he’s very curious. To go on this long is not what I know of my brother.”
A report released by Newsday magazine stated, “Thinned-down prisoners are coughing up blood or falling unconscious on the floor,” as the facility’s military hospital “is inundated with hunger strikers, who are being force-fed through nasal catheters.” SOURCE: The Muslim News |
