U.S. can keep Guantanamo hunger strikers alive by force: court

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

BY DAVID INGRAM
WASHINGTON Tue Feb 11, 2014 5:59pm EST

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court declined on Tuesday to halt the forced feeding of hunger strikers in Guantanamo Bay but ruled that the prisoners have the right to sue over the procedure and other aspects of how the U.S. military treats them.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed two decisions by lower court judges. Those judges ruled last year that Congress had stripped them of the ability to hear lawsuits about conditions at the U.S. Navy military prison in Cuba.

Human rights advocates and many doctors call forced feeding a violation of personal liberty and medical ethics. Designed to keep hunger strikers alive, the procedure involves feeding them liquid meals via tubes inserted into their noses and down into their stomachs.

President Barack Obama has defended the practice at Guantanamo, telling a news conference last year, "I don't want these individuals to die."

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/11/us-usa-courts-guantanamo-idUSBREA1A28K20140211

[avebury]

1. That is so wrong.

It makes me think of Sylvia Pankhurst and the women suffragettes who were force fed.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/force_feeding_suffragettes.htm

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/07/17/sylvia_pankhurst_the_suffragette_s_first_person_account_of_force_feeding.html

[yeoman6987]

2. They will die then

President Obama is for this practice. They are still getting their information out to the masses.

[avebury]

3. That is their choice, plain and simple.

Edit to add - It is the right of any person to refuse treatment, medical or food & water. To me what they are doing is a human rights violation because the methodology they will most certainly not be humane. It was wrong when the did it to the suffragettes, it was wrong when they did it to the IRA prisoners, and it is wrong in this case.

I have a problem with indefinite detention because we should be required to prove in a court of law that the prisoners have broken a law. How do we know that all the people being held are guilty of war crimes? How do we know that some of the prisoners weren't turned in by people with personal beefs with them or because the "snitch" found it a profitable line of business? What has been done at Guantanamo Bay could easily occur in this country at some point in time as local governments develop more militarized police forces and our rights continue to be stripped away. If we don't demand a certain criminal justice process for the worst amongst who will be there to fight for our rights when the time comes?

[grahamhgreen]

12. Shockingly many or most of them have been adjudicated not guilty!

[Mnemosyne]

4. Indefensible. nt

[bemildred]

5. There is no escape. nt

[mike_c]

6. forced feeding is TORTURE....

Still torturing our prisoners, dammit. I thought Obama was going to put a stop to that. Along with closing the damned embarrassment down, of course.

[warrant46]

8. It's the Inquisition of the 21st Century

History is going to Judge the Prison at Guantánamo very very harshly.

[Freddie Stubbs]

14. So is starving to death

[mike_c]

17. no, that's a personal choice and a human right....

eom

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. No according for US federal regulations:

http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=6d4a56492db450206fc427b40751ae2a&rgn=div6&view=text&node=28:2.0.3.3.21.5&idno=28

[KoKo]

7. Disgusting... Obama Promised to Close Gitmo...now Forced Feeding

is the way he deals with detainees (who have been declared not Terrorist Threats) who have NO HOPE and just want to die...because they know they will never get OUT OF THERE!

They have the CHOICE over their LIVES...when all HOPE is EXHAUSTED...to END IT!

Force Feeding is Cruel and Inhumane Punishment.

It's Disgusting...that this is going on when we were promised with our vote that GITMO would END.

[Doctor_J]

19. I wonder if this is on "The List"

[blackspade]

9. A disgusting assault on personal liberty.

Preventing hunger strikes serves a political purpose, to deflect attention from the ongoing detention of people who have been held without charge for over 10 years.
A gross violation of due process.

[Solly Mack]

10. K&R

shakes head

[grahamhgreen]

11. Open the f-ing doors and set them free. Close the base. Let their relatives pick them up.

If there's a will, there's a way.

[SoapBox]

13. Your life (or death) is not your own...

says this court.

Creepy...like some bad horror movie.

[DLevine]

15. Shameful and disgusting that we are still torturing prisoners. nt

[woo me with science]

16. Good god.

I never thought I would see my country become what it has become.

[lovuian]

18. What is so wrong here is their right to trial

is denied them
writ of habeas corpus, a procedural device to force the courts to examine the lawfulness of a prisoner's detention.

and I really am not happy they are placing our military in such a terrible position

We have no problem enacting the death penalty once a guilty verdict is made on US citizens
look at Texas


there is no getting around this whole ordeal its torture

and I am so disappointed in Obama not keeping his promise