Force Feeding of 22 Detainees at Guantanamo

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16842872%255E1702,00.html

Hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay
From correspondents in Washington
October 07, 2005

TWENTY-eight detainees at a US military prison for "war-on-terror" suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba were refusing food as part of a rolling hunger strike that has lasted nearly two months.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita said 22 of the hunger strikers had been hospitalized and were being fed through tubes.

"It's being closely monitored," Mr DiRita said. "The evidence of medical attention as a result of providing them with sustenance is an indication that it is being very closely monitored."

Mr DiRita described the action as a rolling hunger strike in which groups of detainees refuse food in rotations.

Lawyers have estimated that as many as 200 detainees have taken part since the hunger strikes began on August 8 to protest against their indefinite detention. About 505 detainees are held at Guantanamo.

The camp was set up in 2002 soon after the US-led offensive against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.

With detainees held indefinitely without trials, the prison has drawn severe criticism from human rights groups and foreign governments.

Human rights activists have accused the United States of violating the Geneva Convention and expressed concern that some detainees had been transferred to countries known to practise torture.