US bid for secret Guantánamo force-feeding hearings prompts cover-up fears
Source: The Guardian
The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to hold a highly anticipated court hearing on its painful force-feedings of Guantánamo Bay detainees almost entirely in secret, prompting suspicions of a cover-up.
Justice Department attorneys argued to district judge Gladys Kessler that allowing the hearings to be open to the public would jeopardize national security through the disclosure of classified information. Should Kessler agree, the first major legal battle over forced feeding in a federal court would be less transparent than the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay.
Attorneys for Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian detainee on hunger strike whose court challenge is slated to begin next week, said the government was using national security as an excuse to prevent the public from learning the extent of a practice that the judge in the case has considered brutal.
But the case “includes inextricably intertwined classified, protected and unclassified information,” argued Joyce Branda, an acting assistant attorney general, in a motion filed Friday.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/29/obama-guantanamo-bay-force-feeding-hearing-secret
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