October, 16 2013, 01:16pm EDT
US Court to Hear Appeal on 'Painful, Humiliating, and Degrading' Force-Feeding at Guantanamo
A federal court will on Friday hear an appeal from Guantanamo Bay detainees asking that it rule to end force-feeding - during which 'a detainee is shackled to a specially-made restraint chair and a tube is forced into his nostril, down his esophagus, and through to his stomach'. As the appeal is heard, an activist from Witness against Torture will be force-fed on the steps of the court.
LONDON
A federal court will on Friday hear an appeal from Guantanamo Bay detainees asking that it rule to end force-feeding - during which 'a detainee is shackled to a specially-made restraint chair and a tube is forced into his nostril, down his esophagus, and through to his stomach'. As the appeal is heard, an activist from Witness against Torture will be force-fed on the steps of the court.
The petitioners in the appeal are Abu Wa'el Dhiab, Shaker Aamer, and Ahmed Belbacha, represented by human rights charity Reprieve and Jon B Eisenberg. All of the men on hunger strike at the prison - currently at least 16 - are being force-fed, a practice denounced by the World Medical Association and the UN, and described in a recent judgement by Judge Gladys Kessler as 'painful, humiliating, and degrading'.
At 11am on the morning of the appeal, activist Andres Conteris, 52 and on day 103 of a fast, will himself be force-fed on the steps of the court. Conteris began his fast on July 8th of this year to protest the force-feeding of hunger-striking detainees in Guantanamo Bay and Pelican Bay Prison, California.
In response to the Government's claim that force-feeding is "humane," the appeal notes "that the Ninth Circuit recently upheld California's legislative ban on force-feeding of ducks and geese to produce foie gras, deeming the ban to be a lawful pursuit of the state's 'interest in preventing animal cruelty,'" adding: "The irony of protecting ducks and geese from a practice that is inflicted on human beings at Guantanamo Bay speaks volumes."
While the Government has attempted to argue that the issue does not lie within the court's jurisdiction, lawyers for the detainees say it does, as the force-feeding taking place is a "deprivation of substantial rights," and "a seizure of [the detainee's] internal organs through the forcible invasion of his gastro-intestinal tract."
The appeal also argues that the detainees were denied their right to religious free exercise because authorities at the prison deprived them of the ability to conduct communal prayer unless they stopped hunger-striking.
Reprieve's Strategic Director and lawyer for the detainees, Cori Crider, said: "Detainees at Guantanamo Bay are still being brutally and painfully force-fed twice a day. It is abhorrent that the prison authorities continue to conduct this practice which President Obama, the Commander in Chief, himself said was an affront to our nation's values."
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
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The peace coalition No Tech for Apartheid accused Google of a "flagrant act of retaliation" late Wednesday night as the Silicon Valley giant announced it had fired 28 workers over protests against its cloud services contract with the Israeli government.
The firings came after Google organizers held two 10-hour sit-ins at the company's offices in Sunnyvale, California and New York City, demanding the termination of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract under which Google and Amazon provide cloud infrastructure and data services for Israel—without any oversight regarding whether the Israel Defense Forces uses the services in its occupation of Palestinian territories and bombardment of Gaza.
Workers have denounced Project Nimbus since it was announced in 2021, but Israel's killing of at least 33,970 Palestinians in Gaza since October and its intentional starvation of civilians led employees to escalate their protests.
No Tech for Apartheid said in a statement that Google officials called the police to both offices to arrest nine protesters—dubbed the Nimbus Nine—on Tuesday morning, before utilizing "a dragnet of in-office surveillance" to fire nearly two dozen other employees on Wednesday.
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Google accused the workers of "bullying," "harassment," defacing property, and physically impeding other employees—allegations No Tech for Apartheid rejected as it noted organizers "have yet to hear from a single executive about" their concerns over Google's collaboration with Israel.
"This excuse to avoid confronting us and our concerns directly, and attempt to justify its illegal, retaliatory firings, is a lie," said the workers. "Even the workers who were participating in a peaceful sit-in and refusing to leave did not damage property or threaten other workers. Instead they received an overwhelmingly positive response and shows of support."
The organizers staged the sit-ins on the heels of reporting in Time magazine about new negotiations between Google and the Israeli government regarding further potential tech contracts.
Kate J. Sim, a child safety policy adviser at Google who said she was among those fired this week, said the terminations show "how terrified [executives] are of worker power."
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Calling Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian "genocide profiteers," No Tech for Apartheid said Wednesday that they will not stop demonstrating against Project Nimbus until they get a similar result.
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