"Treatment" of Guantanamo Detainees Alleged to be Torture

The article was posted on The Daily Star (Lebanon) Website
By Cesar Chelala
Commentary by
Thursday, April 06, 2006


The recent protest of over 250 doctors from Britain, Ireland, the United States, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands was just the latest in a long series regarding the American treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The action followed the recommendation of the United Nations that the U.S. release all detainees at Guantanamo Bay, or bring them to trial and shut the facility down. Although the Bush administration strongly rejects both the doctors' and the UN's recommendation, the fate of Guantanamo and its detainees represents among the most serious ethical and medical challenges now facing the U.S.

The administration claims that because Guantanamo is not on American soil, the legal protections provided by the U.S. Constitution don't apply to prisoners there. However, Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights have stated that the conditions in Guantanamo amount to the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners and, as such, are prohibited by international conventions to which the U.S. is a party.

The UN report confirms that prisoners have been subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment, including forced feedings to hunger strikers through tubes painfully inserted in their nose. These tactics are tantamount to torture, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Physicians for Human Rights has stated that force feeding of hunger strikers is in direct violation of international codes of medical ethics.

General Bantz J. Craddock, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, admitted that detainees had been strapped into "restraint chairs" and force-fed. During that practice, detainees would urinate or defecate on themselves or, in other cases, vomit and bleed as a result of the forced insertion of the feeding tubes - tactics that, at least, amount to cruel treatment of prisoners, in itself a violation of the Bill of Rights.

The complete commentary may be found here:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=23555