Shalom House Philly

4 Inhumane Realities About The Guantanamo Hunger Strike, Which Is In Its 100th Day

thepoliticalfreakshow:

Latest reports say at least 102 of 166 prisoners are participating in the action.

Friday marks 100 days since the beginning of the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay that has recaptured international attention on the offshore prison President Obama promised to close when seeking office five years ago.

As of Thursday, military officials say that 102 out of 166 detainees are participating in the strike. Lawyers say that number is closer to 130. 

Since the hunger strike began 100 days ago, international groups including the European Parliament, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and several nations with detainees at GITMO have stepped up pressure on the Obama administration to release detainees or close the prison altogether.

As the strike continues past its 100th day, here are four of the most disturbing facts about the situation at Guantanamo. 

1. The torturous force-feeding

Thirty of the 166 prisoners held at Guantanamo are being subjected to force-feeding—a practice that’s considered torture and in violation of international law by the UN human rights office. Earlier this week, the ACLU, as well as a handful of human rights organizations, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging a halt to force-feeding at GITMO. 

While the military says it’d be “inhumane” to let the prisoners starve themselves, several human rights and medical groups disagree. 

“Under those circumstances, to go ahead and force-feed a person is not only an ethical violation but may rise to the level of torture or ill-treatment,” said Peter Maurer, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The military’s force-feeding procedure involves shoving a tube into a prisoner’s nose, through the sinuses, throat, and eventually, stomach. The process inflicts severe pain and discomfort. According to an analysis of military documents by Al Jazeera, prisoners are forced to “to wear masks over their mouths while they sit shackled in a restraint chair for as long as two hours” while a liquid nutritional supplement is pumped into their stomach. “At the end of the feeding, the prisoner is removed from the restraint chair and placed into a ‘dry cell’ with no running water,” Al Jazeera explains. “A guard then observes the detainee for 45-60 minutes ‘for any indications of vomiting or attempts to induce vomiting.’ If the prisoner vomits he is returned to the restraint chair.”

2. Alleged attempts to “break” hunger strikers 

Several reports have emerged that Guantanamo guards are mistreating hunger strikers in an effort to “break” them. Lawyers for Yemini prisoner Musaab al-Madhwani says guards are targeting strikers by denying them drinking water, forcing them to drink non-potable tap water, and keeping their cells at “extremely frigid” temperatures, reports AFP. In a complaint, lawyers said, “When Musaab and his fellow prisoners requested drinking water, the guards told them to drink from the faucets … The lack of potable water has already caused some prisoners kidney, urinary and stomach problems.”

Another lawyer tells RT that guards are removing striking detainees from communal living spaces and forcing them to live in single cells to break their spirit.

3. More than half of GITMO’s prisoners have been cleared for release. Ninety percent haven’t even been charged with a crime.

Eighty-six of 166 prisoners at GITMO have already been cleared for release, yet legal and bureaucratic barriers have kept them detained indefinitely. First of all, Congress imposed restrictions on detainee transfers, requiring proof that potential transfers would never pose a threat to U.S. national security in the future. In a press conference last month, President Obama reiterated this fact, saying that he’s “going to need some help from Congress.” Yet, as several commentators have pointed out, Congress also granted Obama the power to use waivers to transfer detainees, a power he has not exercised once.

Complicating things is the 56 Yemeni nationals detained at Guantanamo. As AlterNet’s Alex Kane explained, Yemen is “a strong U.S. ally that also has a problem with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a group that has plotted attacks against the U.S. After a 2009 terrorist plot that purportedly originated in Yemen was halted, the Obama administration decided to halt repatriation of detainees to Yemen.”

4. No alternative to leaving — except in a coffin

The hunger strike reportedly began as a response to prison guards mishandling personal property and detainees’ Qu’rans. But as several commentators, organizations and detainees themselves have pointed out, that was just a tipping point. The strike represents prisoners’ boiling frustrations for being kept from their families in inhumane conditions, some being held for more than 11 years.   

 ”Officials say two detainees have attempted suicide since the strike began.”

“The men are not starving themselves so they can become martyrs…They’re doing this because they’re desperate,” said Wells Dixon an attorney representing five GITMO detainees. “They’re desperate to be free from Guantanamo. They don’t see any alternative to leaving in a coffin. That’s the bottom line.”

Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, through a phone call with his lawyer, explained that the hunger strike is driven by a last-resort mentality in an op-ed for the New York Times last month:

The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply … I have vomited blood.

And there is no end in sight to our imprisonment. Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made.

I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.

(via cognitivedissonance)

How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists | Common Dreams

How can we respond?

think-progress:

Are these things more important than edits to talking points? Judge for yourself.

1. Carbon pollution reaches historic highs, threatening human existence

2. The devastating impact of sequestration on kids, cancer patients and first responders.

3. Massive cuts to food stamps for the most vulnerable.

4. 1,100 workers die in a Bangladesh factory collapse, and American retailers continue business as usual.

5. 4,150 gun deaths from gun violence since Newtown.

thepeoplesrecord:

Walmart opts out of Bangladesh safety agreement
May 15, 2013

Walmart has confirmed it will not sign up to a legally binding agreement on worker safety and building regulations in Bangladesh supported by retailers including H&M, Zara, Primark, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer, Next, C&A and several others.

However, the US retail giant has created its own agreement, which it claims goes beyond the current accord that was drafted by labour groups and campaigners.

The company, which also owns the UK’s third biggest supermarket, Asda, said the deal signed by its rivals was “unnecessary to achieve fire and safety goals” and questioned the “governance and dispute-resolution mechanisms”.

Instead, Walmart has agreed its own deal to inspect all 279 factories it uses in Bangladesh within six months, and has promised to publish the findings immediately.

Bosses claim this goes beyond the UNI Global Union and IndustriALL deal, pointing out the agreement requires 65% of inspections instead of 100% inspections taking place and argue its own deal means results are published straight away rather than within 45 days.

However, the Walmart deal is not legally binding, does not require the company to offer financial support for fire and safety regulations and blacklist factories unwilling to comply.

The agreement has been criticised by campaigners as a “business as usual” approach, which fails to address the core problems that led to the Rana Plaza factory collapse.

Sam Maher from Labour Behind the Label, said: “Walmart’s so-called new programme is simply more of the same ineffective auditing that failed to prevent the Rana Plaza disaster, or the deaths of 112 workers at Tazreen, who were producing Walmart goods.

“The changes demanded by the IndustriALL accord, include ensuring that factories are provided with the incentives and investment needed to actually make factories safe and are essential for any real change to occur. What Walmart are demanding is business as usual: a business that has cost lives of over 1,300 workers in the last six months alone.”

Walmart has also refused to clarify whether it sourced clothes from the Rana Plaza building, saying only that it had no “authorised” production at the site.

A statement from Walmart said: “The company, like a number of other retailers, is not in a position to sign the IndustriALL accord at this time.

“While we agree with much of the proposal, the IndustriALL plan also introduces requirements, including governance and dispute resolution mechanisms, on supply chain matters that are appropriately left to retailers, suppliers and government, and are unnecessary to achieve fire and safety goals.”

Several major UK retailers have declined to sign the agreement, including Arcadia group, the company behind brands including Topshop, Bhs and Dorothy Perkins; Debenhams; River Island; Matalan and Peacocks.

However, late on Tuesday night Next, the UK’s second biggest clothing retailer, did agree to sign.

Walmart’s decision leaves George at Asda, the supermarket’s clothing brand, at odds with its own position as a founding member of the Ethical Trading Initiative.

The ETI, the UK’s biggest alliance of businesses, trade unions and voluntary organisations, has recommended its members sign up to the accord.

Source

Once more: “What Walmart are demanding is business as usual: a business that has cost lives of over 1,300 workers in the last six months alone.”

Days of Fire by Nitin Sawhney featuring Natty

Revolutionary Nonviolence

gospelofthekingdom:

To be visionaries of peace we need to be contemplatives of nonviolence, people who imagine the God of peace, who let God disarm our hearts, who allow the God of peace to show us the way to peace. As visionaries and contemplatives of peace, we can then become a prophetic people who not only denounce imperial America as ungodly, immoral, and evil, but announce the coming of God’s reign of nonviolence and justice.

Like the abolitionists who envisioned a world without slavery, we envision a world without war, poverty, imperial domination and nuclear weapons. We give our lives to that vision, and go forward trusting that one day, it will come true.

Violent arrest of Fadi Qura’an in Hebron earlier today.

After studying at Standford University, Fadi decided to come back to Palestine and help with the nonviolent resistance campaign. He was the one that helped organize the “Palestinian Freedom Riders” in November, 2011. Today, a day after his birthday, he was pepper sprayed and arrested for speaking  His last words before being arrested were of him telling the soldiers “This is Palestine. Move on back”.  

Happy Birthday Fadi

Video of Protest in Hebron, along with Fadi’s arrest

(via thepeoplesrecord)

thepeoplesrecord:

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped explosives containing C-4 on the roof of a house where members of the black liberation & social justice organization MOVE lived. Right before, police attacked the house with 10,000 rounds of ammunition in 90 minutes, knowing that children were inside. The house burned for 45 minutes before hoses were turned on.

Eleven people, including founder John Africa, five adults & five children were killed. The incident also destroyed 65 homes in the area, leaving 250 homeless. Witnesses reported police officers shooting at those trying to escape from the fire that ensued.

MOVE continues to advocate for prisoners’ rights & for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal & nine MOVE members who were found guilty of the murder of a police officer in 1978.

We were discussing the bombing of the MOVE house tonight at the Shalom House potluck. The bombing occurred less that 12 blocks from our house.

Never forget.

19 People Shot at Terrifying Mother's Day Parade

Because not enough terrible things have happened to the people of New Orleans in the last decade or so, you can now add ruining a family-first holiday to the list: on Sunday afternoon in the Lower 7th Ward of New Orleans, 19 people were shot during a Mother’s Day parade. Good grief.