Gitmo Force Feeding: Why Is Samir Naji al-Hasan Moqbel On A Hunger Strike?

On Sunday, the New York Times published an op-ed by Samir Naji al-Hasan Moqbel, a Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay prison, who has been on a hunger strike since February 10 to protest his imprisonment without charges. Through an Arabic interpreter, Al-Hasan told his lawyers at Reprieve, a legal charity, that he and about 40 other people on a hunger strike were being force-fed and said the process was indescribably painful.

"The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen," wrote al-Hasan. "This makes no sense. I am a human being, not a passport, and I deserve to be treated like one."

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that 43 prisoners at the prison were on a hunger strike in the Guantanamo prison.

Al-Hasan wrote that he traveled from his home in Yemen to Afghanistan on the advice of a friend, who said that there he could make more than the $50 a month he earned at a factory in Yemen. The advice turned out to be bad, and al-Hasan fled to Pakistan after the American invasion in 2001. There he was arrested while trying to see someone at the Yemeni embassy. He was then sent to Guantanamo, where he claims he has been for 11 years and 3 months.

"I've been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds," said al-Hasan. "I will not eat until they restore my dignity...I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial."

The US military first confirmed the use of force-feeding in Guantanamo in 2006, when officials acknowledged that aggressive measures were being taken to deter prisoners who were going on hunger strikes to protest their imprisonment. Those measures included strapping detainees into "restraint chairs" to force-feed them and isolate them from one another after it was discovered that some were deliberately vomiting the liquid they were being fed.

In his op-ed, Al-Hasan details a similar procedure being performed to him. "I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can't describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn't. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone." He added that he continues to be force-fed twice a day.