Letter from Gitmo: A detainee writes from day 65 of his hunger strike
In early February, more than 11 years into his detention at Guantanamo Bay, a Yemeni man named Samir Naji al-Hasan Moqbel went on a hunger strike. He had company: By mid-March, The Washington Post reported 14 detainees on hunger strike; by mid-April, it was up to 43. The camp’s military guards have responded to the hunger strike with force-feedings and by clamping down on such freedoms as allowing detainees to leave their cell doors open and live communally. A recent clash between guards and prisoners wounded even some guards and ended with gunfire that included, according to a military spokesman, “four less-than-lethal rounds.” Monday, The New York Times published an op-ed column by al-Hasan describing the hunger strike that he says has cost him 30 pounds of body weight. He dictated the column through an interpreter during a phone call to his lawyers. While it does not directly address the question of why they are hunger striking (more on this below), it does describe in harrowing detail what he says is an increasingly haphazard force-feeding routine.