Complete News coverage on Guantanamo at:
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7 Afghans Released from Guantánamo Say They Saw Abuse
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: February 9, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/international/europe/09cnd-kabul.html?_r=1&ore\
f=slogin

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, Feb. 9 — Seven Afghans have
been released from American detention in Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba, and were freed in Kabul today, where they
spoke to reporters, contending that they had witnessed
abuse and desecration of the Koran.

The prisoners, ranging in age from about 30 to about
50, come from the southern and eastern provinces of
Helmand, Uruzgan, Khost and Paktika. All had been
detained for three years or more, following the
American intervention in Afghanistan in late 2001.
Dressed in white T-shirts and jeans, the prisoners
looked pale but otherwise healthy.

The men said they were aware of a widespread hunger
strike among prisoners but that they had not taken
part. One said he had joined in a protest against
desecration of the Koran by prison guards.

The chief of the Afghan government commission for
reconciliation, Sebaghatullah Mojadeddi, greeted the
prisoners and told them they were free to return to
civilian life. He contended that some had committed no
crime and that others who might have been guilty of
wrongdoing had been detained longer than they should
have been.

The former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul
Salaam Zaeef, who was himself detained in Guantánamo
for four years and released last year, also greeted
the prisoners and said it should be the government's
priority to secure the release of the remaining 97
Afghans in Guantánamo.

"They are mostly innocent and were not related to the
Taliban and Al Qaeda," Mr. Zaeef contended. "There is
no court there, no law and no charges."

Reporters were allowed to question the men. Sharbat
Khan, 36, from Khost, said he had been held for three
and a half years. "The behavior of the Americans was
not good in the beginning," he said. "They insulted
the Holy Koran and all of us prisoners started a
demonstration and they used a kind of gas to make us
calm down."

Another prisoner from Uruzgan province, Khudaidad, a
laborer who uses only one name, said his American
guards would withhold medicines at times, and would
sometimes serve bad food as a form of punishment.

Khan Zaman, 45, from the eastern province of Khost,
who said he spent four years and three months in
custody, said he knew about the current hunger strike
but had not taken part. He said that Afghan prisoners
were not participating in the hunger strike.

Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting for this
article from Kabul, Afghanistan
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US military 'force fed Guantanamo Bay inmates'
By Ben Fox
Published: 10 February 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article344558.ece

US military officials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
allegedly strapped hunger-striking prisoners into
restraint chairs for hours to feed them through tubes,
according to a report in The New York Times.

The newspaper, citing unnamed military officials, said
tougher measures came in after authorities concluded
some of the prisoners were determined to kill
themselves. The apparent result has been a drop in the
number of hunger strikers.

Only four detainees were still on a hunger strike,
down from 84 at the end of December, the chief
spokesman for the Guantanamo detainee operation,
Lt-Col Jeremy Martin, said.

Lawyers called the treatment abusive. "It is clear
that the government has ended the hunger strike
through the use of force," Thomas B Wilner, a lawyer
at Shearman & Sterling in Washington, told the
newspaper.
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Force-feeding breaks protest at Guantánamo

· Lawyers say abuse has left only four on hunger
strike
· Pentagon denies policy of punishing detainees

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday February 10, 2006
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,1706826,00.html

The Pentagon faced a groundswell of protest about its
treatment of detainees at Guantánamo yesterday after
it emerged that a hunger strike had been broken by
force-feeding inmates and putting them in restraints.

Five months after inmates at Guantánamo began the
strike to protest against their indefinite detention
at the US naval base only four remain on hunger
strike. Three of those are being force-fed with tubes
through the nose, a Pentagon spokesman said.

He denied charges that the Pentagon was trying to
break the hunger strike by punishing the protesters.
"They are not trying to reduce the hunger strike, but
they are going to feed people to protect life," he
said. The feeding was administered by medical
professionals in "a humane and compassionate manner"
using the same process as in civilian prisons.
The spokesman said the men were stable, and their
condition was being monitored by doctors - a claim
disputed by lawyers who have recently visited
Guantánamo. The lawyers described the four hunger
strikers as being extremely ill, and said that one was
close to death.

The lawyers also accused the military of trying to
break the protest through painful force-feeding, or by
subjecting the hunger strikers to isolation and
restraints, to avoid the risk of detainees committing
suicide by starvation.

"The military at Guantánamo has reacted extremely
violently against the detainees who have been involved
in the hunger strike protest. They have come down very
harshly," said Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer for the
Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents
more than 100 inmates. Ms Gutierrez visited the base
last month.

In court documents inmates have accused their jailers
of being overly rough in the insertion and removal of
feeding tubes - a charge the Pentagon denies. In
addition, the New York Times reported yesterday that
guards had strapped detainees into restraint chairs
for hours at a time to prevent them from vomiting
after being force-fed. Other hunger strikers have been
placed in isolation for long periods, or deprived of
blankets or books.

The newspaper said the tougher measures were imposed
in recent weeks amid fears at the Pentagon that some
of the prisoners were determined to kill themselves.
Since the resort to restraints and forcefeeding there
has been a steep drop in the number of hunger
strikers, from 84 in December to four.

"They are abusing them psychologically, they are
abusing them physically to the point where it becomes
too painful to continue in the strike. They harass
them until they begin to eat again," it claimed.

Amnesty International called for independent medical
experts to be allowed to visit the hunger strikers.

"These fresh reports concerning the cruel treatment of
hunger strikers are disturbing," Amnesty's UK
director, Kate Allen, said.

There have been periodic hunger strikes at Guantánamo
since the Bush administration established the prison
in January 2002 to hold suspects in the war on terror
beyond the oversight of the US courts. However, since
last year the hunger strikes have intensified, with
the inmates reportedly in despair that they will ever
be released.

At the height of the protest last September more than
130 prisoners were on hunger strike, according to the
Pentagon. However, detainees' lawyers fear the true
numbers are even higher because the US military will
only consider a detainee is on hunger strike if he
misses nine consecutive meals.

The Pentagon spokesman would not be drawn yesterday on
why so many detainees had abandoned their protest.
However, one official said: "The hunger strike issue
is more of a publicity ploy than anything else.
Al-Qaida training manuals tell them what type of
resistance to offer when detained."

He added: "Maybe they started eating again since it
didn't work."
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