'Torture Reinforcements' Not 'Medical Personnel' Arrive to Combat Gitmo Hunger Strike

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/30-0



US Military Calls in 'Force-Feeding Teams' as Guantanamo Hunger Strike Continues

'Torture Reinforcements' Not 'Medical Personnel' Arrive to Combat Gitmo Hunger Strike
- Jon Queally, staff writer
Published on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 by Common Dreams

The US military has confirmed that at least 40 "medical personnel" have arrived at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in order to expand a force-feeding operation designed to counter an ongoing hunger strike by more than 100 prisoners protesting their indefinite detention and ill treatment.

But because the procedure of "force-feeding" is widely held as a form of torture, critics of the practice may well view the medical teams as nothing more than 'torture reinforcements' as the number of those approved for the painful process continues to grow and their conditions deteriorate.

Military authorities repeatedly claim that force-feedings are somehow necessary, but experts are unequivocal when they declare that the procedure is torture.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission considers the practice of force-feeding—in which detainees are strapped to a restraining chair, have tubes pushed up their nostrils and liquids pumped down their throats—a clear form of torture. In addition, the World Medical Association prohibits its physicians from participating in force-feeding and the American Medical Association has just sent a letter to the Pentagon calling the practice an affront to accepted medical ethics.