US judge temporarily halts Guantánamo force-feeding [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

US judge temporarily halts Guantánamo force-feeding

Breakthrough legal ruling prevents Syrian prisoner on hunger strike being force-fed until a hearing on Wednesday

Reuters in Washington
theguardian.com, Friday 16 May 2014 22.30 EDT

In a surprise challenge to one of the most controversial practices at Guantánamo Bay, a federal judge on Friday ordered a temporary halt to the forcible feeding of a hunger-striking detainee, marking the first legal halt to what human rights groups and detainees consider an abusive practice.

Judge Gladys Kessler, of the US district court for the District of Columbia, barred military authorities at Guantánamo from performing an enteral feeding on Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian detainee, and from forcibly removing him from his cell for the purpose of feeding him.

Never before has a judge or any outside authority intervened in the hunger strike. Kessler ruled last year that she lacked the authority to do so, but an appeals court ruling in February decided that detainees at Guantánamo had the right to contest their force-feedings.

The Obama administration has defended the forcible feedings, in which a tube is inserted into a detainee’s stomach through the nose, as the most humane option to keep detainees taking part in the strike alive.





Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/17/us-judge-halts-guantanamo-force-feeding