Hunger Strike and Forced Feeding
At its height more than 100 detainees participated in this hunger strike. The Department of Defense's position was that detainees did not have the right to refuse medical treatment and began force-feeding detainees. Detainees complained that the force-feeding were administered in a particularly brutal manner.
Approximately three dozen detainees remained participating in this hunger strike in January 2006, when the DoD instituted a new measure—the use of "restraint chairs". Detainees would be strapped immobile in the restraint chairs, during the force-feeding, and for a period of time afterwards. The DoD explained they took this measure so the detainees could not induce vomiting and void the force-fed formula before they began to really digest it. Detainees claimed that the force-feeding caused them extremely painful cramps, and that they would be held in restraint for hours, even if they soiled themselves. The DoD said their policy authorized restraining the detainees immobile for only 45 minutes following the end of the force-feeding.
All but four of the hunger strikers ended their hunger strike just a few days after the initiation of the use of the restraint chair in January 2006. The Washington Post reports that Ahmed continued his hunger strike from late 2005 to May 2006.
Ali Abdullah Ahmed and Yasser Talal Al Zahrani had previously been listed on the DoD's two official lists. The other Saudi, previously named as either "Maniy bin Shaman al-Otaibi" or "Mani bin Shaman bin Turki al Habradi", had not been previously listed on either official list.
Read more about this topic: Ali Abdullah Ahmed
Famous quotes containing the words hunger, strike, forced and/or feeding:
“What a hell of an economic system! Some are replete with everything while others, whose stomachs are no less demanding, whose hunger is just as recurrent, have nothing to bite on. The worst of it is the constrained posture need puts you in. The needy man does not walk like the rest; he skips, slithers, twists, crawls.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“In another’s sentences the thought, though it may be immortal, is as it were embalmed, and does not strike you, but here it is so freshly living, even the body of it not having passed through the ordeal of death, that it stirs in the very extremities, and the smallest particles and pronouns are all alive with it. It is not simply dictionary it, yours or mine, but IT.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The first year was critical to my assessment of myself as a person. It forced me to realize that, like being married, having children is not an end in itself. You don’t at last arrive at being a parent and suddenly feel satisfied and joyful. It is a constantly reopening adventure.”
—Anonymous Mother. From the Boston Women’s Health Book Collection. Quoted in The Joys of Having a Child, by Bill and Gloria Adler (1993)
“How did you feel feeding doughnuts to a horse? Had a kick out of it, huh? Got a big laugh. Did you ever think of feeding doughnuts to a human being? No!”
—Robert Riskin (1897–1955)