July 12 White House Vigil to Support the Guantanamo Hunger Strikers--Close Guantanamo & End Indefinite Detention

July 12 White House Vigil to Support the Guantanamo Hunger Strikers--Close Guantanamo & End Indefinite Detention


Over 106 Prisoners on Hunger Strike, 45 Force Fed

When: Friday, July 12, 2013, Noon - 1:00 p.m.

Where: White House-North side on Pennsylvania Ave.

"Where is the world to save us from torture? Where is the world to save us from the fire and sadness? Where is the world to save the hunger strikers?"

-- Adnan Latif, Yemeni Guantanamo prisoner held for ten years without ever having been charged with a crime and cleared for release on four separate occasions, found dead in his cell on September 8, 2012.

July 13 will be day 156 of the Guantanamo hunger strike. As many as 120 prisoners are now participating in the hunger strike. The military admits that 45 are being forcibly fed by tubes snaked through their noses twice a day because they have lost so much weight.



Prisoners have appealed to doctors not to participate in this forced feeding. Obama, who knows force feeding is condemned by the AMA and the United Nations, said on May 17, as he once again promised to close Guantanamo, “Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike. Is that who we are?” Apparently it is. And as Andy Worthington says, "We wait and we wait and still nothing happens." Instead an additional 125 U.S. troops were recently sent to the prison to "contain" the situation.



On July 8 U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler dismissed a Syrian detainee's request to end force-feeding saying she lacks jurisdiction to rule on conditions at the prison. However, she condemned the military's practice of force-feeding detainees as "painful, humiliating and degrading" and said President Obama has the authority to stop it.



The vast majority of the 166 men have been held for more than 11 years without any charge or fair trial, with no end to their detention in sight although 86 have been cleared for release for years. Nearly two months has passed since Yemeni officials seeking the repatriation of the 56 Yemenis cleared for release agreed to set up a rehabilitation center to help reintergrate them. But nothing has happened since Obama lifted his ban on their repatriation.



The Obama administration must take immediate measures to address the causes of the hunger strike and fulfill its promise to close Guantanamo without further delay. And we demand an end to the illegal policy of indefinite detention.

Finally, word of our actions is making it to the men at Guantanamo, and making an enormous difference to them.

An attorney for several men at Guantanamo recently wrote Witness Against Torture to say:

I was at GTMO all week meeting with clients. I wanted to share with you the following words from . . . Moath al-Alwi, a Yemeni national who has been in U.S. custody without fair process since 2002.

Moath was one of the very first prisoners to reach GTMO, where the U.S. military assigned him Internment Serial Number (ISN 028). He has been on hunger strike since February and the U.S. military is now force-feeding him. Moath shared the following during our meeting, translated as accurately as I could from the Arabic:

“I recently had an interesting conversation with one of the Navy officers in charge of my force-feeding here at Guantanamo. He told he was here to make sure I was treated humanely as I was being force-fed. So I answered through the interpreter, saying:

‘What I am enduring now is torture and the American people will tell you as much. Humanitarian organizations, various human rights bodies, as well as American groups such as Witness Against Torture and Doctors Without Borders have all declared that what is taking place at Guantanamo is a violation of human rights and that it amounts to torture.’

The officer’s face changed and he walked away.”

The men at GTMO are fully aware of your work and their eyes literally tear up when I describe the various protest actions you and your fellow activists have undertaken in solidarity with their plight. To say they are grateful would be an understatement.

In response to this moving statement, WAT members Jeremy Varon and Datt Daloisio wrote: "Our eyes fill with tears as we contemplate the significance of what Moath shared: that our actions — however inadequate we feel them to be — help the men at Guantanamo resist assaults on their dignity and confront their persecutors, with added confidence in the justice of their position and the world’s concern for their plight. There can be no greater affirmation of the value of our efforts, nor greater motivation for us to work harder."

Raise your voice! Please join this important vigil to help save the lives of the prisoners.

Sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and Witness Against Torture.

For more info about the campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture and Indefinite Detention see: www.witnesstorture.org.)