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It's in its 12th year of operation. It's a blight on humanity. It never should have been opened in the first place. It operates out of sight and mind. It reflects America's torture prison network. Dozens operate globally. Some are ship-based at sea.
Most Guantanamo detainees are striking. They're prepared to die for justice. They have no other recourse. Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Omar Farah represents two strikers. He told Truthout :
"Like the Bush/Cheney administration, the Obama administration's reflex is to defend its detention practices at Guantanamo and to downplay the prisoners' protests by claiming that they are motivated by a shallow interest in media attention rather than a principled rejection of eleven years of indefinite detention without charge and abusive conditions of confinement.""Common sense tells us otherwise. This hunger strike, like the many before it, was triggered by an arbitrary crackdown by the Guantanamo prison administration and is driven by the existential torment indefinite detention produces."
"It is understandable then if some prisoners now want the world to realize that they are still detained without charge after more than a decade and that they are facing the chilling reality that they may die at Guantanamo simply because this administration lacks the political will to release them."
Carlos Warner represents Fayiz al-Kandari. He lost 30 pounds since refusing food in February.
"The military has a playbook and they are following it," he said. "But the fact that it's the same rhetoric twice leads me to believe they are more concerned with public perception than the health of my clients."
They're doing what's always done at Guantanamo. They're "telling the world to look away and move on." They're saying everything's fine. "Things are not fine, and I hope the world will not look away this time."
The longer strike action continues, the harder it is to conceal it. Farah calls it irresponsible for Pentagon and government authorities to try. Deaths are certain, he adds.
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