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Shaker Aamer: “Guards Using Ramadan to Massage Numbers” on Gitmo Hunger Strike

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When this Charlie Savage story came out yesterday in the New York Times, my spidey senses went all tingly. Something just didn’t feel right:

An American military spokesman said Sunday that 15 detainees at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who had been listed as having gone on hunger strike had quit participating in the protest, accelerating an apparent downward trend since the start of Ramadan last week.

The spokesman, Lt. Col. Samuel House, said in an e-mail that as of Sunday, 81 of the 166 prisoners were still listed as taking part in the hunger strike. That figure was down from 96 on Saturday, 102 on Friday, 104 on Thursday and 106 on Wednesday, the number at which participation in the protest had peaked and plateaued.

Even Savage seemed to realize that given the way head guard John Bogdan has manipulated the prisoners and especially the hunger strikers, there could perhaps be more to this story:

But David Remes, a defense lawyer who represents several Guantánamo detainees in habeas corpus proceedings, expressed skepticism in an e-mail and said he wanted to talk to his clients before drawing any conclusions about what the military was reporting.

“Perhaps the authorities finally made hunger striking such a horrendous experience that some men, at least, are dropping out,” Mr. Remes said. “Perhaps some men feel the hunger strike has achieved its goals by forcing Guantánamo back onto the national agenda and jump-starting the transfer process. There are still other ways to read the numbers. Until we speak with our clients, we can only speculate.”

It turns out that the skepticism is well-founded. From the Guardian:

But lawyer Clive Stafford Smith said his client Shaker Aamer had told him on Friday that guards were using Ramadan to massage the numbers.

“The military are cheating on the numbers as usual. Some detainees are taking a token amount of food as part of the traditional breaking of the fast at the end of each day in Ramadan, so that is now conveniently allowing them to be counted as not striking,” Stafford Smith said.

Aamer – who has been held at Guantánamo for more than 11 years yet never charged – also claimed during a phone call with Stafford Smith that fellow inmates were being punished by being held in isolation during Ramadan if they refused to eat.

Isn’t that interesting? We have flip sides of the same story. Savage informs us that the guards moved prisoners who are no longer participating in the hunger strike back into communal living areas where they can pray together, while Aamer’s take on the same situation suggests that isolation is used a tool to punish those who still refuse to eat.

Considering the history of John Bogdan and the emerging questions over his fitness to retain command of the guard detail at Guantanamo, it is not surprising that Ramadan practices would be used to game the numbers on the hunger strike while continuing to inflict punishment on those who continue the strike.

Remember, the US military has a strong reputation to uphold when it comes to an understanding of the effects of Ramadan fasting and its use as a propaganda tool.

Gitmo Detainees Try to Force End to Force-Feeding in Time for Ramadan

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According to Carol Rosenberg’s count, 44 of the 106 Gitmo detainees currently on hunger strike are being tube-fed. Which suggests there are too many men to carry out the tube feeding after sunset and sunset, which is what the camp has done in past years when there were fewer detainees hunger striking during Ramadan.

That is just one of the issues cited in the emergency motion filed by the lawyer for Shaker Aamer and three other detainees, Cori Crider, plus John Eisenberg (of al-Haramain fame) to end the practice.

Petitioners have been detained at Guantánamo Bay for up to 11 years. At this point, their detention without trial or military commission proceedings has become indefinite. To force-feed a noncriminal detainee in order to prolong his indefinite detention violates the law of human rights and thus serves no legitimate penological interest.

Petitioners’ force-feeding also violates medical ethics and is inhumane. For that reason, too, it serves no legitimate penological interest. The only theory advanced to justify petitioners’ detention is that, more than a decade ago, they were enemy belligerents. Their detention, it is said, is necessary to ward off some putative “return” to the battlefield. They dispute that claim, but even if one accepts it, a noncriminal enemy belligerent is still entitled, under the Geneva Conventions and basic standards of human decency, to be treated honorably and humanely. Being strapped to a chair and having a tube forcibly inserted through one’s nostrils and into one’s stomach is dishonorable and degrading. It falls within the ambit of torture or other forms of inhumane treatment. In the long history of American detention of the enemy, bodily invasions of this character have never been the routine business of the prisoner of war camp.

The motion has individual descriptions from each of the four detainees explaining why they are striking.

[Nabil] Hadjarab is an Algerian citizen and former French resident. His living relatives are French citizens and have requested that the French government accept him in honor of his family’s history of French military service. He was also cleared by the Bush administration ARB in 2007 and by the Obama-era GRTF in 2009.

[snip]

Mr. Hadjarab was among the first prisoners to be force-fed, on March 22, 2013. Crider Decl. Ex. A, at 11. He also finds the process degrading and painful, stating that the feeding chair “ ‘reminds [him] of an execution chair.’ ” Id. at 11. He, too, has sought to raise concerns with medical staff and has been rebuffed.

The big question will be whether the courts accept a challenge on prison conditions.

The judges in these detainees’ habeas cases, Rosemary Collyer and Gladys Kessler, have given the government until Wednesday to respond.

Ramadan starts Monday.