From Photo Essay: Inside Guantanamo
By Associated Press
April 23, 2013 at 10:34 am
Miami — A U.S. military spokesman says 84 prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay are on a hunger strike.
Prisoners inside Guantanamo.
Army Lt. Col. Samuel House says four hunger strikers are in a hospital on the U.S. base in Cuba for observation. That’s down from six in the hospital a day earlier.
Officials and lawyers for the men have disagreed over the number of hunger strikers since the protest over their indefinite confinement began in February. Lawyers have said nearly all of the 166 prisoners are refusing meals.
The number meeting the military’s definition of hunger strike has steadily grown since guards raided a camp April 13 and moved prisoners from a communal section into single cells.
House said Tuesday that 17 of the 84 strikers are being fed liquid nutrients to prevent dangerous weight loss.
BREAKING NEWS: SECRETLY BLOODIED GUANTANAMO POW’S
U.S. Guantanamo prison/Photo Gitmo Justice
By: Deborah Dupre
- Examiner.com
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April 16, 2013
US War Crime: Guantanamo hunger strikers cleared of wrongdoing bloodied in US forces’ pre-dawn raid on them
Reporters granted access to Guantanamo Bay camp prisoners of war, at least five of whom sustained injuries by U.S. forces in a military pre-dawn raid on them Saturday, have been denied seeing the detainees, according to a reporter there early Tuesday afternoon.
Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald, one of few reporters covering the three-month Guantanamo hunger strike crisis, is among those who arrived there Monday at what has been dubbed the Obama Death Camp.
Amnesty International protest of continued operation of Guantanamo prison.
According to Rosenberg’s tweets Tuesday, she and the other reporters are still being denied access to the detainees but were told that five of the POWs there were injured in the secret operation that the military conducted on them Saturday.
“Here at #Guantanamo media’s gotten 45 minutes with command team but have yet to see a single detainee or makeshift weapon seized Saturday,” Rosenberg tweeted at 12:38 EST Tuesday, a day after arriving there in anticipation of interviewing the captives.
She briefly reports on injuries sustained in the raid on the prisoners Saturday.
“Five detainees were wounded in raid including captive who military says intentionally whacked his head on cell door, required 3 stitches,” Rosenberg tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “Another detainee had to have rubber pellets removed from his flank. Two more suffered abrasions; fifth had swollen right elbow.”
“Two helmeted guards suffered head injuries in raid, two got splashed by captive’s blood. None hospitalized..” Rosenberg says in her tweets on Tuesday.
“Chief guard: #Guantanamo guards clad in riot gear stormed cellblocks in 12-troop units, two armed with shotguns equipped with rubber ammo,” she stated just after noon Tuesday.
Secrecy remains at Obama Death Camp
Guard with prisoner inside Gitmo.
Earlier Tuesday, Rosenberg had said that the reporters, who arrived there Monday, would not be allowed to speak to detainees, only “listen” and that they were denied even that on Monday.
“Military here has downgraded expectations that we’ll see much of anything. Program they handed us emphasizes listening, not seeing,” Rosenberg had tweeted earlier Tuesday.
That was followed by tweeted descriptions of the US military’s bloody raid Saturday on the captives that also included, “Guantanamo Commanders. Two helmeted guards suffered head injuries in raid, two got splashed by captive’s blood. None hospitalized.”
Award-winning film, Camino a Guantanamo (The Road to Guantanamo)
According to another Rosenberg tweet at 12:09 P.M. EST, the detention center will not disclose detainee identities but it says today’s hunger strike figures are at 45 of the 166 captives and thirteen are being tube fed to keep them alive.
Accuracy of prison staff accounts regarding the secret raid remain a secret.
“At today’s brief, the chief #Guantanamo MP provided a confusing, inarticulate account of detainee resistance during Saturday’s raid,” she tweeted at 1:18 P.M. EST.
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture has issued an urgent statement requesting that Americans call and tweet President Barack Obama to close Guantanamo.
Suggested by the author:
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Other related article: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/04/2013423143235877471.html
