Uppgifter: "9-åriga barn torterades på Guantanamo"

Gitmo hunger strike hits fifth week and counting

Videon publicerad den 15 mar 2013

For approximately five weeks, over 100 detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been participating in a large scale hunger strike. 
The demonstration was sparked after the US military confiscated personal belongings of inmates including the Muslim holy book Koran. The Joint Task Force at Guantanamo has released a statement claiming that the conditions at Gitmo have not deteriorated and reports alleging otherwise are "patently false." Pardiss Kabriaei with the Center for Constitutional Rights joins us with more on how much longer could this hunger strike really last.

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9- to 12-year-old kids detained and tortured in Guantanamo?

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RT 2013-03-16
Former Guantanamo detainee Murat Kurnaz described to RT the horrible conditions he faced while being detained there, and explained the reasons behind the hunger strike.

“I have been tortured in different kinds of ways. There are no human rights over there. That means they could do whatever they wanted to with us,” Kurnaz said. “They tortured me to force me to sign papers and every time I’ve refused, they kept on torturing me in different kind of ways.”

“They really tried everything to break us including psychological and physical torture. I myself got tortured by electroshocks and waterboarding. I have seen also kids 9 years and 12 years old inside the camp. It was very difficult to watch how those kids getting beaten up in front of me,” he added.

Kurnaz argued that detainees have “many justified reasons” to go on a hunger strike:“It is a bad situation, prisoners want to go to court and want their rights back. They don’t have the opportunity to go to the court or see their families. They do not have the right to write or receive letters.”

The state of legal limbo was also frustrating for Kurnaz, who was determined to be innocent by the US but had to spend an extra five years in detention because Germany refused to take him back.

“Their hunger strikes are the only way they have of making themselves heard. Years and years without any hope of release. Without any real charges,” political writer and activist Sara Flounders told RT.

Lawyers for the Guantanamo prisoners said the men began the hunger strike on February 6 in protest against the alleged confiscation of personal items such as photographs and personal mail, as well as the alleged sacrilegious handling of their Korans during searches of their cells.

The Center for Constitutional Rights said that they have received reports of detainees coughing up blood, losing consciousness, losing more than twenty pounds of weight and being hospitalized. Medical experts have predicted that by the 45th day of a hunger strike, participants can experience hearing loss and potential blindness – on top of the psychological suffering they have endured for more than a decade.

The UN issued a statement this week that the US is violating international human rights law by holding detainees indefinitely and without charge.

 http://www.russiatoday.com/op-edge/guantanamo-hunger-strike-opinion-388/

Uppgifter: "9-åriga barn torterades på Guantanamo"