US now naming force-fed Guantanamo prisoners
The U.S. government has begun notifying lawyers of Guantanamo Bay prisoners if the men they represent are being force-fed to prevent them from starving to death in a hunger strike that has dragged on for more than two months, though its extent remains in dispute. Cori Crider, a lawyer for Yemeni prisoner Samir Mukbel, said she received notification from the Department of Justice late last week that her client was being force-fed and was permitted to speak with him by phone Monday to confirm the report. Crider, who works for the British legal rights group Reprieve, said Mukbel told her he joined the hunger strike in February, has lost about 30 pounds and at one point fainted and had to be hospitalized at the prison on the U.S. base in Cuba. He described the feeding process as painful.
Mukbel is not facing any charges, according to his lawyer, and is one of about two dozen Yemenis at Guantanamo who have been cleared for transfer but cannot be sent back to their own country because the Obama administration believes the country's security and political situation is too dicey to prevent former militants from attacking the U.S. or its allies.