Sit-in of Syrian migrants in Athens, demanding that they be granted permission to move on to other European countries. Many of them are sleeping rough on the ground during the night, covered only with blankets to face temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius. Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis/IPS

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Nov 29 2014 (IPS)

A sit-in protest by Syrian refugees on Syntagma Square opposite the Greek parliament in the heart of Athens has turned into a demonstration of the stalemate faced by both Greek as well as European immigration policy.

About three hundred men, women and children have been on the same spot for over a week now, demanding that they be granted permission to move on to other European countries to the northwest of Greece.“Given that the refugee population will keep increasing, it is necessary to identify appropriate policy initiatives to promote integration now. This is necessary both for refugees as well as for social cohesion in Greece” – Giorgos Tsarbopoulos, Head of the UNHCR Office in Greece

Many of them are sleeping rough on the ground during the night, covered only with blankets to face temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius. Tens have already been transferred to hospital to be treated for minor symptoms, mostly due to hypothermia. Medical incidents have increased after many of the protestors decided to start a hunger strike six days ago.

Throughout the protest, the Greek authorities have been communicating with them, repeating the official line that there exist no legal provisions for travelling to other European countries unless they have formally acquired refugee status.

However most of the Syrians taking part in the sit-in appear unwilling to apply for asylum in Greece.

They have refused to do so even after it was made clear to them that asylum would be granted to them with fast track procedures. This would help secure the travelling documents, which they desperately want, but at the same time would deprive them of the right to seek asylum in other European countries in which refugees enjoy access to better integration services.

Indeed, the Greek authorities are facing a unique situation. The Secretary-General of the Ministry of Interior, Aggelos Syrigos, told IPS from Syntagma Square where the protest is taking place that the situation seems irresolvable. “We explained to them that what they ask is not possible. We advised them to apply for asylum, so we can offer shelter to families. Many of them seem to believe that other Europeans can intervene to resolve their problem, which is not the case,”

Some years ago, when Greece was receiving mostly economic migrants, the country implemented a policy that limited access to asylum claims because irregular migrants were abusing the system.

Syrian migrants protesting in Athens. About three hundred men, women and children have been on the same spot for over a week now, demanding that they be granted permission to move on to other European countries. Credit: Apostolis Fotiadis/IPS

The crisis transformed the country into a non-desirable destination for refugees and migrants. Now it appears to be the authorities that are pushing refugees, which are the vast majority of arrivals these days, to enter the system and claim asylum.

The change in policy came after the authorities established an effective asylum system in cooperation with UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, and after pressure from the European Commission on the country’s authorities.

But this change of policy has not been followed up by establishment of the effective integration services and infrastructure that the country needs.

A recent reportby the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) on the cost-effectiveness of irregular migration control policy in Greece between 2007 and 2013 shows that Greece has prioritised an expensive system of border controls, detention and returns.

It has invested most of the available resources from European funds and the national budget in such a system at the expense of a less costly and more proactive system without such punitive measures. As a result, it now lacks facilities that would help manage new waves of arrivals.

The Head of the UNHCR Office in Greece, Giorgos Tsarbopoulos, told IPS that Greece never really attempted to implement an integration policy in the first place, but now, “given that the refugee population will keep increasing, it is necessary to identify appropriate policy initiatives to promote integration now. This is necessary both for refugees as well as for social cohesion in Greece.”

Tsarbopoulos believes that the government’s decision to precondition any protection offered to Syrian protestors on first applying for asylum might prove counterproductive by polarising the situation.

Many Syrians who come from an urban middle class background understand that claiming asylum in Greece will connect them to a future that leads to social marginalisation, a situation that they clearly find very difficult to accept.

A few nights ago, this correspondent was party to a conversation between Mohammed A., who has been sleeping rough in Syntagma Square since the beginning of the sit-in, and a Greek man, both of the same age.

The conversation ended with the Syrian saying: “I don’t want anything from Greece. What I want is just to be able to go where I want. You can go anywhere you want. I want this too.”

Both Syrigos and Tsarbopoulos agreed not only that the issue will deteriorate but also that the time frame for adequate solutions is limited.

According to the latest official Greek estimates, more than 5000 Syrians entered Greece last month and just a few days ago Greece sent a military search and rescue operation south to Crete to save an immobilised container ship believed to be carrying about 700 refugees.

The Greek Council of Refugees issued a response to the government’s position to push Syrians to submit asylum applications. According to the organisation, the asylum process “should not be a tool and a prerequisite for the provision of material reception conditions and immediate humanitarian assistance to people fleeing war conflicts”.

In an analytical press release circulated by UNHCR Greece five days ago, Europe is being urged to open legal pathways for refugees and start a dialogue on a Europe-wide refugee solution that puts the emphasis on solidarity among the European Union’s member states.

For two years, the Greek government, together with Italy and Malta, has repeatedly been asking the European Council to discuss responsibility-sharing between member states in the north of Europe and those in the south, but this has not yet happened.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

In a historic letter to President Barack Obama, 52 Iranian political prisoners describe the effect of the crippling sanctions regime on the Iranian people and plead for a new approach to the nuclear issue. They write:

“Mr. President! We believe it is time to replace sanctions with an effort to achieve a mutually acceptable resolution of the nuclear issue. To achieve such an end and given the chronic nature of the deep-rooted conflict, all sides concerned should strive for a dignified solution in which no party will be considered the loser.

“Such a solution should be based on genuinely addressing international concerns about Iran’s nuclear program by the Iranian government on the one hand and acknowledging the legitimate rights of Iran to peaceful nuclear energy, in compliance with international legal standards, by the US and the West on the other.”

For the last four years, Iran’s political prisoners have operated as a visible and influential actor in a severely repressed political atmosphere. They are now becoming an important voice in Iranian foreign policy by sending messages to politicians in Tehran and Washington.

The letter’s co-signers are politicians, journalists and democracy activists who were imprisoned during and after the government’s crackdown on the 2009 uprising against the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The heavy-handed response suddenly increased the number of political prisoners in Iran to hundreds — at times even thousands. Many of them included prominent figures in Iran’s political and civil society.

In Iran, imprisonment operates as a conventional method of silencing political dissidents, but many of these prisoners continued their oppositional activities from the beginning of their sentences.

What made this new round of prison activism more effective was the Iranian opposition movement’s strong Internet presence. When the Green Movement emerged in Iran, many analysts pointed to the activists’ innovative use of digital technology in initially organising the electoral campaign and then publicising information about protest events and regime atrocities.

The government’s crackdown attempted to stifle the public presence of Iran’s democracy movement, but the activists turned the Internet into an oppositional space. This included sharing updates about political prisoners’ situation and actions and spreading open letters smuggled from the prisons.

Sociologists refer to “abeyance structures” as spaces and communities through which social movements continue to exist in periods of repression and public inactivity. Ironically, prisons were a major abeyance structure for Iran’s Green Movement after the 2009 crackdown.

During the years of the Green’s decline, Iranian prisoners sustained activity both through direct actions, such as hunger strikes, as well as adopting positions on issues through individual and collective open letters.

In addition to individual strikes against the abuse of prisoners’ rights, hunger strikes were also organised in solidarity with other prisoners and against regime atrocities conducted outside prison walls.

In the most stunning example, 12 political prisoners went on hunger strike in 2011 after fellow prisoner Hoda Saber died after prison guards beat him while he was hunger striking against the tragic death of another activist outside the prison, Haleh Sahabi.

This collective action led to a burst of solidarity among Iranian dissidents inside Iran and among those in exile.

Prisoners also engaged in radical political positions in a country where political activists fear hosting meetings in their homes. In one of the boldest examples, political prisoner Abulfazl Ghadiani publicly accused Iran’s Leader Ali Khamenei of despotism and compared him to Iran’s pre-revolutionary autocratic monarchs.

In other open letters, prisoners reflected on Iran’s political landscape and offered strategic analyses of Iranian politics and proposed courses of action.

In discussions about boycotting or participating in the recent presidential election, Zia Nabavi, an exiled student sentenced to 10 years in prison, argued that Iran’s civil society needs active citizenry who won’t be easily discouraged by destructive authoritarian actions and will act with hope and rationality.

He endorsed Hassan Rouhani in that letter and encouraged all democracy supporters to actively participate in the election. As with other letters by political prisoners, that letter became part of the pragmatic wave that resulted in Rouhani’s electoral victory.

During his campaign, Rouhani suggested his election could result in the releasing of political prisoners. That was one of the major demands that Rouhani’s supporters made during his electoral campaign and in celebrations of his victory. This will be one of the major tasks of the new president’s first term.

All these factors have provided political prisoners with a unique place in Iran’s political landscape. They are, after all, the people who have paid the highest price in fighting for freedom and equality for the Iranian people. A year before the election, Hamid Reza Jalaeipour, a prominent reformist sociologist, stated that political prisoners are even more important than reformist organisations.

For all these reasons, the prisoners’ recent letter to President Obama contains significant ramifications for politicians in Washington as well as in Tehran.

The message to Washington is clear. Regardless of whether the goal of sanctions or calls for military action is to empower the Iranian people, an element of the most legitimate and suffering voices of Iran’s democracy movement is stating that sanctions have been disempowering and should end.

Iran’s political prisoners are also teaching all of us an important lesson: one should not sacrifice the people’s wellbeing and interests for personal revenge. These prisoners had many reasons to ask for more sanctions on a government that has illegally imprisoned them for unjustifiable reasons, deprived them of their most basic rights and tortured them and their families.

But they prioritised the Iranian peoples’ interests and asked both Iran and the U.S. to engage in constructive diplomacy rather than blind hostility.

Let us hope that Iran’s leaders, especially Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, learn this lesson and facilitate the release of these prisoners while starting a new era in Iran’s foreign policy.

Mohammad Ali Kadivar is a sociology PhD candidate and teaching fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He studies global democratisation and popular mobilisation and writes about Iranian politics in Farsi and English.

Momentum appears to be building in the push to close down the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, where 166 inmates, 86 of whom have been cleared for release, remain held without charges.

On Wednesday, a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing focused specifically on the merits of shuttering the prison. It was the first such meeting in four years, and comes just a few months after U.S. President Barack Obama renewed a pledge he first made in 2008 to close down the detention centre.

U.S. groups advocating for the closure of the facility believe Wednesday’s hearing is another sign that change may be imminent.

“It feels like we are getting to a tipping point on this issue,” Elisa Massimino, president of the Washington-based watchdog group Human Rights First and one of the witnesses at the hearing, told IPS shortly after she gave testimony.

Massimino notes that, in addition to Obama’s recently renewed pledge, the hearing also comes on the heels of new controversies that have put the issue of closing down the prison “back on the radar screen”. She cites revelations of operating costs that are higher than previously understood and the ongoing force-feeding of hunger-striking inmates.

She also points to recent statements by prominent lawmakers, such as Senator John McCain, in favour of shuttering the facility.

The witnesses who spoke Wednesday came from varying backgrounds and expressed vastly different viewpoints. While most were in support of seeing the prison shut down, some continued to highlight its importance as a tool in the ongoing U.S. “war on terror”.

“If Guantanamo is closed, it raises the question of where these terrorists will be sent,” Senator Ted Cruz said at the hearing, referring to inmates being held without charge.

“Radical terrorism remains a live threat,” he added, noting recent attacks on U.S. targets in Boston, Benghazi and Fort Hood, Texas.

Frank Gaffney, a commentator who writes for the Washington Times and whose Centre for Security Policy is viewed by many as a lead proponent of Islamophobic views, accused those advocating for the closure of the prison of forgetting why it was established in the first place.

“We are at war because others attacked us,” Gaffney asserted at the hearing.

He testified that the Guantanamo detention centre exists because there is “no better option”, stating that the prospects of sending some prisoners to other countries and bringing others to the United States are too dangerous to be adopted.

Releasing inmates abroad, Gaffney said, brings about the possibility that they could “return to the battlefield”. Meanwhile, bringing them into the U.S. prison system, he continued, offers the possibility that they could proselytise within U.S. prisons, that “sympathetic judges” could eventually authorise their release, or that a large-scale escape could take place.

Gaffney also warned that shutting down Guantanamo would signal weakness on the part of the United States, potentially encouraging more aggressive behaviour by anti-U.S. forces.

Proponents of closing the facility down cast doubt on many of these claims, however.

“Protecting ourselves can still be accomplished by holding [detainees] in the U.S.,” said Adam Smith, a member of the House of Representatives.

Smith pointed out that, along with a great number of murderers and paedophiles, hundreds of criminals convicted of charges related to terrorism are already being held in high-security U.S. prisons.

“The idea that, instead of having 400 terrorist inmates, we have maybe 484 in the U.S., [and that this] is somehow going to massively increase the threat is just ridiculous on its face,” said Smith.

“Terror-creating institution”

Those in favour of closure also argued Wednesday that, while some detainees would likely engage in anti-U.S. activities if released abroad, the prison’s continued existence actually makes the country less safe.

Paul Eaton, a retired major-general in the U.S. Army, testified that Guantanamo harms the international reputation of the U.S., a sentiment supported by a letter sent yesterday by 26 other generals which stated that “Guantanamo is a symbol of torture and injustice not befitting a nation that is a beacon of liberty to the world.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, corroborated these assertions by saying that practices at Guantanamo “make a myth” of the U.S. legal system.

Eaton also claimed the facility works as a recruiting tool for jihadist groups and creates more motivation for terrorism than it suppresses. He referred to it as a “terror-creating institution”.

“[The prison] facilitates the filling of the ranks of Al-Qaeda and other organisations that would attack the U.S.,” Eaton stated.

Multiple speakers at Wednesday’s hearing denounced the financial costs of the prison, noting that for every inmate there, the U.S. government, which is currently cutting budgets elsewhere, spends around 2.7 million dollars a year. This is far greater than the roughly 78,000 dollars it spends annually on inmates being held at the U.S. system’s highest-security prison, Florence ADX in Colorado.

The Florence prison currently holds the only participant in the Sep. 11, 2001, attacks to be tried in civilian court, Zacarias Moussaoui. It also holds Ramzi Yousef, who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, and the vigilante known as the “Unabomber”, Ted Kaczynski.

While Massimino of Human Rights First expressed gratitude for Wednesday’s hearing, she told IPS that she lamented the absence of any representative of the Obama administration.

She notes that while there is currently a great deal of popular interest in seeing the prison shut down – indeed, Wednesday’s hearing had to be moved to a larger room due to high public turnout – there remains a lack of adequate political incentive to tackle the issue.

“I give a lot of credit to Senator [Richard] Durbin,” says Massimino, referring to the head of the committee that held the hearing. “This issue does not generate a lot of campaign contributions or press coverage, but he has done a great job in trying to keep it on the radar screen.”

As a mass hunger strike in the California prison system enters its third week, advocacy groups are warning that prison officials attempting to break the strike are breaching international human rights standards.

New York City protest for prisoner hunger strikers organised by World Can’t Wait. Credit: Debra Sweet/cc by 2.0

As of Monday, 986 inmates in 11 California state prisons were considered to be on hunger strike, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Starting on Jul. 8, some 30,000 inmates in 33 jails began refusing food in protest against what they describe as the inhumane use of long-term solitary confinement.

Although this is the third such hunger strike in the California prisons since 2011, the current situation has involved more inmates and gone on for longer than previous such protests. The five central demands of the current strikers can be found here, foremost among which is ending long-term solitary confinement, which has constituted a key part of the state’s crackdown on prison gangs.

In attempting to stem the current strike, CDCR officials have recently stepped up a disciplinary campaign, including placing striking prisoners in even more restrictive isolation. Amnesty International, a watchdog group, is now warning that the CDCR has “breached international human rights obligations by taking punitive measures against prisoners on hunger strike over conditions”.

“Prisoners seeking an end to inhumane conditions should not be subjected to punitive measures for exercising their right to engage in peaceful protest,” Angela Wright, a U.S. researcher for Amnesty International, which has previously offered extensive reporting on the California prison system, said Monday.

Wright’s colleague Justin Mazzola told IPS, “At this point, further restricting these prisoners violates their right to challenge this treatment, placing them in a situation that is even less accountable than the indefinite isolation they’ve previously experienced. Placing prisoners in even more restrictive settings shouldn’t be the response to what they’re doing: calling attention to the conditions in which they’re being held, as well as to proposed reforms.”

On Jul. 11, CDCR officials released a statement noting that it is a violation of California state law for inmates to participate in any “mass disturbance” or refuse a work assignment. Any participating inmate would thus be disciplined by being placed in an “administrative segregation” unit, the statement warned.

Hunger-strikers have since suggested that prison officials have engaged in “retaliation”, including being put in the more restrictive administrative segregation, which the strikers say includes “more torturous conditions” than their previous isolation. Activists have also previously alleged that strikers are experiencing limits on their correspondence with lawyers and the confiscation of certain personal effects.

“Bear in mind that in prison you don’t have the same right to expression as in the outside world – that’s the point of prison, it’s a sanction for criminal behaviour,” Jeffrey Callison, press secretary for the CDCR, told IPS.

“That being said, the prisoners do have the ability to make known their concerns about conditions. There are formal mechanisms by which to file complaints, which are all read. Whenever a prisoner raises a legitimate issue, it’s fixed.”

Callison says that reports that striking inmates have had their legal access limited are false, stating that only a single lawyer has been temporarily barred from entering the Pelican Bay detention centre, where the current strike began, though the reason for this is confidential. He also notes that another allegation – that prisoners have been “blasted with cold air” at the PelicanBay facility – is impossible given that the centre has no air conditioning.

Indefinite isolation

California has relied on an aggressive programme of “isolated housing” since the 1980s, after experiencing the growth of some of the United States’ first and most notorious prison gangs. In an attempt to neutralise the gangs, inmates thought to be gang members were moved to isolation in so-called Special Housing Units (SHUs).

Yet critics have pointed out problems with a system in which inmates could be put in isolation merely upon being accused of gang affiliation by another inmate. Further, until a pilot project was implemented last year, those accusations could not be challenged and the identity of the accuser was kept secret.

Today, around 12,000 inmates are reportedly being held in isolation at any given time, with hundreds of inmates having been in indefinite isolation for the past decade or more, according to advocates. Inmates in solitary confinement in California receive around an hour of outdoor time per day and no direct human contact.

Multiple groups contend that indefinite isolation constitutes cruel and inhumane treatment, and thus breaches international rights obligations. That view has been corroborated by the United Nations, whose special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, in 2011 stated that solitary confinement of longer than 15 days should be “absolutely prohibited” due to its scientifically proven potential for lasting psychological damage.

Last week, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) reiterated its support for this stance, expressing its “concern” over the causes behind the California hunger strike and the “excessive” use of solitary confinement in the United States more generally.

“The IACHR reiterates that the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment may not be abrogated and is universal,” the said. “Accordingly, the [Organisation of American States] Member States must adopt strong, concrete measures to eliminate the use of prolonged or indefinite isolation under all circumstances.”

The 35-member Organisation of American States, based in Washington, includes the United States.

‘Step-down’ reforms

The years of protest against the SHU system did eventually receive a policy response from the California prison system, including recognition that the gang-affiliation accusation system was dangerously inflexible.

In October, the CDCR instituted a series of initial reforms, including a “step-down” process for inmates who show they’re no longer engaging in gang-related activities. Through late June, the CDCR says it has reviewed some 382 cases, transferring 208 inmates out of SHUs and placing another 115 inmates in the step-down programme.

Still, critics suggest that the programme is too protracted, particularly for inmates who may have been in isolation for a decade or more.

“We of course welcome anything that gives prisoners the right to challenge the indefiniteness of their solitary confinement and the solitary confinement itself, but this is a very prolonged process,” Amnesty International’s Mazzola says.

“As it’s currently set up, it would take almost two years before an individual who starts the programme would even be taken out of the SHU. So that doesn’t really address the basic concerns here.”

Meanwhile, a class action lawsuit, filed in May 2012 on behalf of several SHU inmates, is scheduled to be heard in early August.

“Bleeding”, “vomiting”, “a quarter or even a third” of bodyweight lost, “torture”. These are characteristic descriptions from testimony by hunger strikers at the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay of their experience being force-fed at the hands of U.S. officials, published in a report released Thursday.

The report, produced by Reprieve, a U.K.-based legal assistance and advocacy group that is representing more than a dozen of the Guantanamo prisoners, collates testimonies from the prisoners’ unclassified letters, calls and discussions with attorneys.“It diminishes the standing of the U.S. in the world that we don’t follow the established ethics of the medical profession." -- Dr. Scott Allen of Physicians for Human Rights

The views “from the inside” presented in these descriptions are extremely disturbing, and advocates say they raise serious questions concerning the United States’ commitment to human rights.

“From a medical standpoint, the force-feeding of a competent hunger striker is a serious violation of ethics,” Dr. Scott Allen, a medical advisor to the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights, told IPS.

Allen spent seven years as a physician working within the U.S. prison system, during which time he dealt with hunger strikers. He points out that force-feeding is counter to the standards of the World Medical Association. Further, those standards have been accepted by the American Medical Association, which has expressed opposition to the practices at Guantanamo Bay.

There are currently some 140 U.S medical personnel tasked with carrying out the force-feedings that are being done to 45 hunger strikers at the detention centre. More than 100 detainees are currently on a hunger strike that has gone on since February, in protest of what they view as their indefinite detention.

The accounts from inmates in the Reprieve report indicate that U.S. practices go even beyond the concerns expressed by Allen and the associations he mentions.

Some of the accounts describe forcible cell extractions (FCEs), as the procedure of physically removing prisoners from their cells and subjecting them to force-feeding is officially known.

The U.S. military has claimed that strikers “present themselves daily, calmly, in a totally cooperative way, to be fed through a tube”. Prisoner accounts of FCEs contradict that claim, however.

“They wanted me to undergo tests and, when I refused, they called in the anti-riot [FCE] squad, who stormed into my hospital room,” Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian detainee who was cleared for release in 2007, is cited in the report as saying. “They shackled my hands and feet to the bed and then force fed me intravenously for twenty-four hours.”

Of the 166 detainees in Guantanamo, 86 have been cleared to be let free, but they remain held in the prison because of complications that have arisen in facilitating their releases.  

Another prisoner quoted by the report, Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian national who was cleared for release in 2009, explains in graphic detail the pain he has experienced as a result of being force-fed.

“I vomited blood for three days. I had a very strong cough and felt that my throat was injured,” Dhiab recounts. “[A] while ago they broke a rib in my chest. After it healed, the FCE again broke the same rib. It happened over and over again and the injury gets worse.”

Adversarial approach

In a manual outlining standard operating procedure for 2013, which was leaked to the press, Guantanamo officials express their approach to hunger-striking patients using terminology reminiscent of war.

“Just as battlefield tactics must change throughout the course of a conflict, the medical responses to Guantanamo detainees who hunger strike has evolved with time,” the manual states.

As Dr. Allen notes, this adversarial approach would constitute a highly atypical stance for medical professionals to take toward their patients. Moreover, he says, it is not one which is likely to solve the issue.

“Handling the strike this way will lead the doctors to lose the trust of their patients,” he says. “And having no trust means there will be little chance of properly resolving the strike.”

The debate over force-feeding has rekindled talk of Guantanamo officials being engaged in torture, a public debate that seemingly ended after President Barack Obama banned the practice of water-boarding (a form of interrogation that simulates drowning) there in 2009.

Indeed, there are accounts in the Reprieve report which explicitly call force-feeding torture.

“The force-feeding itself is simple torture,” explains Shaker Aamer, a Saudi prisoner cleared for released in 2007 and again in 2009. “Now they are using the metal-tipped tubes, forcing them in and pulling them out twice a day, leaving people vomiting on themselves in the restraint chair, and so forth.”

Just as the controversy surrounding water-boarding was viewed by many as damaging to the United States’ international image, so the continuing subjection of inmates to force-feeding may degrade the country in the minds of citizens and governments around the globe, Dr. Allen explained to IPS.

“It diminishes the standing of the U.S. in the world that we don’t follow the established ethics of the medical profession,” he says.

There is currently political pressure building on the administration of President Obama to end the use of force-feeding.

Influential Senators Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin sent a letter to the administration on Wednesday imploring it to end the force-feeding and ultimately close the prison.

“The growing problem of hunger strikes is due to the fact that many detainees have remained in legal limbo for more than a decade and have given up hope,” the letter states. “This should be alarming to all of us, and it is imperative that the Administration outline a formal process to permanently close the Guantanamo facility as soon as possible.” 

Guantanamo captives in January 2002. Credit: US Navy/public domain

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jul 9 2013 (IPS)

A federal judge here has taken the unusual step of formally calling on President Barack Obama to halt the forcible feeding of dozens of hunger-striking detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, warning that the practice appears to contravene international law.

But District Court Judge Gladys Kessler said the court system lacks jurisdiction to stop the force-feedings, which have been ongoing since February and currently affect around 45 inmates twice a day. The case had been brought on an emergency basis on behalf of a Syrian detainee, Abu Wa’el Dhiab, who wanted the force-feedings to be stopped for Ramadan.[Obama] has the power to address the hunger strike – he could end it tomorrow by starting to free prisoners his own government has cleared for release.” -- Cori Crider of Reprieve

During the month of Ramadan, which started Tuesday in much of the world, most practicing Muslims are required to fast during the daytime. Three similar motions by other detainees are still pending.

“It is important to stress that this is an issue now of life and death: people are being force-fed and their lives are on the line,” Jamil Dakwar, director of the Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a watchdog and legal advocacy group, told IPS.

“Their continuous indefinite detention is a now matter of urgency and should not left to political wrangling. We do think the president has the authority to end not only the continuous indefinite detention but also the cruel, inhumane force-feeding at Guantanamo.”

On Monday, Judge Kessler noted that the courts are legally barred from considering the conditions of detention of anyone the United States has “properly detained as an enemy combatant”.

Yet “there is an individual who does have the authority to address the issue,” she wrote in her decision. “[T]he President of the United States, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority – and power – to directly address the issue of force-feeding of the detainees at GuantanamoBay.”

In May, more than a dozen human rights groups wrote to U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, requesting that he “order the immediate and permanent cessation of all force-feeding of Guantanamo prisoners … capable of forming a rational judgment as to the consequences of refusing food.”

Force-feeding factory

Judge Kessler also outlined a forceful legal and ethical case for why the president should intervene.

“[The] Petitioner has set out in great detail … what appears to be a consensus that force-feeding of prisoners violates Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits torture or cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment,” Judge Kessler noted, referencing an argument the United Nations and others have made.

“[I]t is perfectly clear … that force-feeding is a painful, humiliating, and degrading process.”

Also on Monday, the U.S. musician and activist Yasiim Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) released a graphic video of himself being force-fed. The clip, produced in conjunction with Reprieve, a legal rights organisation representing Abu Wa’el Dhiab, has since gone viral.

“The judge’s ruling leaves Obama with nowhere to hide,” Cori Crider, Guantanamo attorney and strategic director at Reprieve, said Tuesday. “He has the power to address the hunger strike – he could end it tomorrow by starting to free prisoners his own government has cleared for release.”

On Tuesday, U.S. military personnel at GuantanamoBay confirmed that Muslim detainees required to undergo force-feeding would be fed only when the sun is down, in accordance with religious diktat during Ramadan.

Yet the Pentagon has been careful to state that detainees are receiving such treatment as an “accommodation, not a right”, a reference to the fact that detainees continue to be legally exempt from U.S. protections that take into account religious belief.

“It is really outrageous that Guantanamo commanders are offering this supposedly religious gesture to accommodate Guantanamo detainees’ Ramadan fasting by rearranging the schedule of the force-feedings,” the ACLU’s Dakwar says.

“This adds insult to injury. It’s unacceptable to have the force-feedings in the first place, and therefore it’s beyond the pale to do so after the daily Ramadan fasting.”

Lawyers for Reprieve, meanwhile, have expressed concern that that the night-time force-feeding schedule could pose dangers to detainees’ health.

There will be “just 10 hours and 44 minutes [between sunset and sunrise] for respondents to implement two force-feedings of 45 detainees for up to an hour of feeding time and four hours of total observation time per detainee”, Crider and others warn in a brief filed on Jul. 5.

“[Even] if this can even be achieved, GuantanamoBay will become a veritable force-feeding factory.”

Obama legacy?

According to the U.S. military, 106 of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo are currently considered to be on hunger strike, protesting what they see as their indefinite detention after many have remained imprisoned without charge after a dozen years. Of these, military officials view 45 detainees to be so weak as to necessitate forceful feedings.

Importantly, nearly all of those receiving force-feedings – including Abu Wa’el Dhiab – have been cleared for release, many for several years. But they remain trapped in a legal limbo due to U.S. laws prohibiting the transfer of some detainees, particularly Yemenis, back to their homeland.

Still, many rights groups have increasingly noted that President Obama has powers available that could alleviate key issues in this process.

Indeed, President Obama himself has expressed sentiments similar to Judge Kessler’s, but has repeatedly insinuated that his hands are tied. In May, during a major national security speech in which he suggested that the U.S. government would begin winding down the “war on terror”, including reviving a push to close Guantanamo, the president directly criticised the force-feedings at the detention centre.

“Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike,” the president stated on May 23. “Is that who we are? Is that something that our founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave to our children? Our sense of justice is stronger than that.”

Yet on Monday, Obama’s Department of Justice refused to halt the Ramadan force-feedings. And on Tuesday, White House spokesperson Jay Carney was noncommittal on Judge Kessler’s verdict, again trying to spread responsibility for the situation to Congress.

“The president made clear in April, and I think it holds true today, that we don’t want these individuals to die, and the action being taken is to prevent that from happening,” Carney said.

“[H]e calls on Congress to work with him to ensure that we can lift the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen … But the long-term goal here has been … we need to close this facility because it’s in our [national security] interest to do so.”

By Robert Stefanicki
WARSAW, May 21 2013 (IPS)

For more than 100 days, detainees at American detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been on hunger strike, drawing international attention back to the prison that U.S. President Barack Obama vowed during his first presidential campaign to close down.

Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who defends prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Photo courtesy of Ramzi Kassem.

Ramzi Kassem, associate professor of law at the City University of New York, is one of the lawyers who voluntarily defend prisoners of the “war on terror” being held at Guantanamo Bay. He currently represents seven detainees of various nationalities at Guantanamo and one at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.

The facility was established in January 2002 by the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush to hold alleged enemies in the so-called global war on terror.

As pressure from the strike grew, Obama said on Apr. 30 that he would try again to close Guantanamo, despite persistent congressional opposition. “I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” the president said. “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing.”

In an interview with IPS correspondent Robert Stefanicki, Kassem described the brutal manner in which detainees are force-fed, the legal situation of the prisoners, and how the experience has been unique for him.

Q: What is the current scope of the hunger strike?

A: I was at Guantanamo on Feb. 6 this year, and on that day my client told me that the hunger strike had begun. Now even the U.S. government admits that more than 100 prisoners out of 166 are protesting.

But based on information from my clients, in reality, all of them are on strike, with the exception of those who are sick, old and “high value” detainees kept in complete isolation. The discrepancy comes from the fact that the U.S. government has a narrow definition of a hunger strike, just like it has a narrow definition of torture.

Q: Why are they protesting?

A: My client Moaz al-Alawi told me he is refusing food and drink to protest his indefinite imprisonment without charge and without fair process. This is the only way for prisoners to exercise their autonomy and dignity.

Those people were taken from their families over a decade ago. Very few have been tried or charged. Over half of Guantanamo’s current population has been approved for release by various U.S. security agencies: the CIA, FBI, and the Department of Defence."The U.S. government has a narrow definition of a hunger strike, just like it has a narrow definition of torture."
-- Ramzi Kassem

Yet they are still in prison. One of my clients, Shaker Aamer, was cleared for release by the Bush and Obama administrations, and the UK government has been demanding his freedom for years, but he is still there, now on hunger strike.

Q: Do the prisoners have concrete demands?

A: The prisoners want Barack Obama to deliver on his promise to close the prison and send them home. Until the government takes some concrete steps in that direction, I think the hunger strike will continue. It may stop when some people are released, beginning with those cleared for release long ago.

Q: What are U.S. authorities doing to stop the protest?

A: Several prisoners are being force-fed. Force-feeding someone against his or her will is a violation of medical ethics and international law. Other prisoners in Guantanamo refuse food from their captors but accept feeding; they protest by making the U.S. military feed them by tube.

Although it is legal to feed those men, it is still illegal to do it in such a brutal way – sending five guards to take the prisoner violently, beat him up, restrain him in a chair, and tie down his arms, legs and head, so he cannot move. Then they put the tube through his nose down to the stomach. No anesthetic or lubricant.

Q: Do your clients claim innocence?

A: The fundamental concept in any legal system is that one is innocent until proven guilty. In this case you have people who have not even been charged.

At its peak, Guantanamo had 800 inmates. Now it has 166. The majority was released unilaterally by the U.S. government, not by court order.

I’ve seen several cases where the evidence did not support the accusation. When those cases were moved forward to trial level, federal judges ruled in favour of the prisoners in over 75 percent of the cases.

I am not saying that there aren’t any criminals at Guantanamo. If they are suspected criminals, they should be charged in a court of law that recognises the basic principles of fair process: presumption of innocence, no secret evidence, reliable evidence not extracted under torture.

Some families of my clients told me, “If my son or my husband did anything wrong, charge him. If he is convicted by a fair court, we would not have any objections. If you are not going to charge him, then release him.”

Q: Why is the U.S. government reluctant to bring Guantanamo detainees to court?

A: The U.S. government is reluctant because if you have torture, the case does not fly in court. All the prisoners of Guantanamo have been tortured one way or another.

Q: Are the concerns that released prisoners could return to terrorist activities justified?

A: When we say “return”, we assume that they were there. There is no proof of that. Also, there is no empirical evidence for the concern that they may engage in something wrong after release.

Even if you believe in U.S. government numbers – and I don’t – 77 percent of prisoners from Guantanamo have gone back to normal peaceful life.

Q: How is working at Guantanamo unique for a lawyer?

A: First, we have to fight for access to our clients. Then we stumble over numerous other restrictions: requirements of being a U.S. citizen, security clearance by the FBI, traveling to Cuba to meet the client.

In a normal criminal case, when given a report that the government wants to use against my client, first I would review this report with him. In Guantanamo such a report is classified, not to be shared with the client, so I have to develop the defence on my own—a big handicap.

Q: Were you surprised by recent revelations that authorities in Guantanamo listen to the conversations between prisoners and their lawyers?

A: For us it was confirmation, not a revelation. In 2005, when I first met with my clients in Guantanamo, I did not believe them when they said conversations were being recorded. But now I know my clients have always been right.

The prosecution at the military commission admitted that smoke detectors are in fact cameras and microphones. The government may not use these recordings in court against my clients, but the intelligence services are using them for whatever purposes they want.

Q: Do the lawyers at Guantanamo feel helpless?

A: We try to change the situation as much as we can. Our role is not necessarily to win in court. We have to amplify the voices of our clients to ensure they are heard by the media, NGOs and the public.

News from Guantanamo pressured the U.S. government to release prisoners. I hope this time pressure from the hunger strike will bring real change: closing Guantanamo, a place that has no right to exist.

Excerpt:

By Sudeshna Chowdhury
UNITED NATIONS, May 15 2013 (IPS)

Eighteen days ago, Diane Wilson, a 65-year-old fisherwoman from Texas, decided to go on a hunger strike.

Diane Wilson protesting outside the White House. Credit: Ted Majdosz

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, Wilson has been protesting outside the White House gates for over two weeks now. Her demand: Shut down Guantanamo Bay prison.

U.S. President Barack Obama has come under heavy criticism for his failure to close down the facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Obama has blamed the Congress for not supporting the closure. But experts and activists suggest that Obama can at least start the process by transferring detainees who have been cleared of all charges.

The detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay opened in 2002. According to reports, 100 out of 166 prisoners are on hunger strike. Some of the prisoners are being force-fed. Human rights groups have strongly condemned this technique of force-feeding prisoners, labeling it a form of torture.

This is not the first time Guantanamo Bay prison has witnessed hunger strikes. The first one dates back to 2005 where close to 200 detainees were on hunger strike.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What do you want to achieve through this hunger strike? As you know, many prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison have been cleared of all charges, but some are still awaiting trial.

A: The facility should be closed down – this is what I want. I am fasting in solidarity with those prisoners at Guantanamo, simply because they want justice. It is pretty much well known that President Obama can shut down Guantanamo right now. He can do it. He should have done it yesterday.

Q: What would you do if your body just gives up, given that you are a 65-year-old woman surviving on water, a pinch of salt and a potassium tablet for 17 days now?

A: Whenever such thoughts cross my mind, I think about those men in Guantanamo."I am a constant reminder of the conditions under which the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay live." -- Diane Wilson

I get to lay down on a soft bed at night. I get to talk with people and I don’t have to sit in a cold, freezing room. I am not humiliated and tortured and I think if they can do it, I can do it.

Moreover, this is not my first time fasting for many days at a stretch. I had fasted for 30 days. The longest I had fasted was for 45 days when I was protesting to stop Valero from processing tar sands in Houston, Texas. I was little bit younger then, but age definitely takes its toll. This is early in the game though.

Basically, I am an optimistic person and I really believe that people can make a difference. In a way I have surrendered to the fast. I will take it as far as I can. I don’t mind collapsing. All I got to do is think of those men in Guantanamo. I know we can shut down the facility, and if required I am ready to go that far.

Q: Why did you choose the White House as the venue for your protest?

A: I am protesting directly in front of the White House. It is a strategic zone. A few days ago I locked myself to the White House gates. I wear an orange jumpsuit and makeshift chains round my legs and neck. I also wear a black hood over my face. This is my way of representing those men in Guantanamo in front of the Obama administration.

I am a constant reminder of the conditions under which the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay live. To propel any change, you have to be in their faces, and I am in their face.

Q: How do people react when they see you protesting outside the White House?

A: Sometimes people know that you are going to be there protesting. Sometimes people out of the blue come up and stand there. Sometimes people are just passing by and they agree with us. I would say almost 90 percent of the people that we speak to are in total agreement with our cause.

There are a lot of children who are brought to see the White House and they are always very curious. We got a huge poster of Obama with a statement that says Guantanamo is inefficient, expensive and in no way keeps America safe. In fact it is a recruiting tool because of the way the prisoners are being treated.

There are a lot of international guests and they are always curious and many people come and speak to us. We have had senators coming up and telling us that we were doing a good job. Actually some came up to us and shook our hands. They said that we should keep it up. In fact, it is a matter of keeping up. That is what it is.

Q: Who is your inspiration?

A: I take a lot of my inspiration from Gandhi. He is my man.

Q: What do you see yourself as – a political activist or an environmental activist or a fisherwoman?

A: When people ask me, I say I am a fisherwoman. I am a fourth generation shrimper. I did not do anything until I reached 40 and I am a really late bloomer.

I think there are a lot of problems with the recent movements – you got the environmental, you got the indigenous, you got the human rights and they tend to remain in separate camps. But there is a connection between all of them.

I guess because I am a fisherwoman and I lived my life on the bay and there is no sense of boundaries so my activism has flowed.

Q: What has been the reaction from your family?

A: I generally don’t tell them what I am doing and I let them find out. My family members are by and large Republicans and they love George Bush. They don’t like this kind of out there and in your face like action from me. So it is not fun.

Q: Diane, you are the author of book called “An Unreasonable Woman”. Do you think you are being unreasonable in your demands?

A: No, I am not unreasonable. I am asking for these men’s lives.

Excerpt:

Palestinians demonstrating outside the UN office in Gaza calling for freedom for political prisoners. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett
GAZA CITY, Feb 23 2013 (IPS)

A few stoic lines from Palestinian political prisoner Samer Issawi, 33, transmitted to his sister Shireen have given new strength to Palestinian resolve to fight Israeli occupation and its prison policies. As has the hunger strike of four others in Israeli prisons along with Issawi.

“The battle waged by me and by my heroic colleagues, Tariq, Ayman and Ja’affar, is everyone’s battle, the battle of the Palestinian people against the occupation and its prisons,” he told his sister last week. He added that his health has deteriorated dramatically and “I’m hung between life and death.”

The day he sent that message, Feb. 16, was the 208th day of Issawi’s hunger strike. Held under administrative detention in an Israeli prison, Issawi is one of five long-term Palestinian hunger strikers protesting indefinite detention by Israel without charge or fair trial.

On Feb. 19, three days after proclaiming his dedication to hunger striking until justice or death, an Israeli court rejected an appeal for the near-death Issawi’s bail, instead postponing a decision until mid-March. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) notes that in addition to his hunger strike, Issawi, now 46 kg, recently began refusing water and vitamins.

A Jerusalemite, Issawi was re-arrested months after being released in the October 2011 prisoner swap exchanging Israeli tank gunner Gilad Shalit for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel re-arrested Issawi, Ayman Sharawna, 37, and 12 others using article 186 of Israeli military order 1651, which the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer, notes “allows for a special Israeli military committee to sentence released prisoners to serve the remainder of their previous sentence based on secret evidence provided by the military prosecution without disclosing the evidence to the prisoner or his lawyer.”

Re-arrested on Jan. 31, 2012, Sharawna has been on and off hunger strike for over 200 days collectively since Jul. 1, 2012, stopping briefly when he believed there was hope for his release. Already in November 2012, Addameer reported that Sharawna’s health had “drastically deteriorated” and that he was “unable to stand, speak easily or urinate.” A recent independent report suggests Sharawna is now in solitary confinement despite his critical condition, and his health is rapidly failing.

According to Addameer, there are currently over 4,743 Palestinians detained by Israel, including 193 children and 178 held under administrative detention.

“Administrative detention is an illegal Israeli policy where the Israelis imprison Palestinians without any trial or charges, claiming that they have secret information that certain Palestinians are dangerous to Israeli security,” says Gaza-based Osama al-Wahidi, head of the information department at the Hussam association for Palestinian prisoners and ex-prisioners.

“Two of the hunger strikers were arrested immediately after the November 2012 Israeli attacks on Gaza,” notes Wahidi.

One of the two, Jafar Ezzedine, 41, is likewise nearing death on his quest to freedom.

“After nearly three months of hunger striking, he is very thin, very weak and ill. He looks like he shouldn’t still be alive,” says Tarek Ezzedine, Jafar’s brother. Also imprisoned by Israel, Tarek Ezzedine, director of Voice of Prisoners Radio, was likewise released in the prisoner swap, and immediately exiled by Israel to Gaza.

“This isn’t his first hunger strike,” says Tarek Ezzedine. “He went on a 54-day hunger strike in March 2012, part of a mass prisoners’ hunger strike.” In May, 2012, through Egyptian mediation, more than 1,000 prisoners agreed to end their strikes when Israel agreed to improve conditions for Palestinian prisoners.

“We have no direct contact with Jafar. His lawyer says that Jafar’s health is extremely poor now.”

Ezzedine and two others arrested in the early hours of Nov. 22, 2012, went on hunger strike on Nov. 28.

Tarek Qa’adan, 40, and Yousef Shaaban Yassin, 29, participated in demonstrations against the November 2012 Israeli attacks on Gaza. They were among 55 Palestinians arrested on Nov. 22, in what Tarek Ezzedine says is punishment for peacefully protesting the Israeli attacks.

“On the same day that they stopped bombing Gaza, the Israeli army took Jafar from his house,” says Tarek Ezzedine. “He participated in a demonstration in Jenin, where over 1,000 people were demonstrating, why arrest him? He didn’t organise the demo, he was like anyone participating.”

As with Samer Issawi, Addameer reporrs that already as of Jan. 24, 2012, Qa’adan was at risk of a fatal heart attack due to his weakened state.

“The road of prisoners, and the road of Palestinians in general, is not paved with flowers, it’s paved with thorns,” says Mahmoud Sarsak, a Palestinian footballer from Rafah, and one of the prisoners’ movement victors.

Waging a 92-day hunger strike in protest over being held for three years by Israel in a similar form of administrative detention specific to the Gaza Strip, Sarsak was released in July 2012.

Like Sarsak, Hana Shalabi and Akram Rikhawi were likewise released back to the Gaza Strip after their extended hunger strikes.

“If any of the hunger strikers die, it will not be in vain,” says Sarsak. “Their martyrdom will be a message to re-awaken the struggle for freedom. There will surely be a third Intifada (uprising) against the Israeli prison system and the occupation.”

Although hashtags like #ReleaseIssawi, #PalHunger, and #FreeSamer have been trending on Twitter, and news of the hunger strikers is all over Facebook, little has been said or written in international media about the plight of the five Palestinian strikers nearing death.

“When Shalit was being held in Gaza, the whole world, especially America and Obama, was focused on Shalit, talking about democracy, calling on the Red Cross to be able to visit him,” says Tarek Ezzedine.

“So why is the world silent on our prisoners?”

On Feb. 13, 2013, Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur, called for the release of Palestinian prisoners held without charge, saying “Israel must end the appalling and unlawful treatment of Palestinian detainees. The international community must react with a sense of urgency and use whatever leverage it possesses to end Israel’s abusive reliance on administrative detention.”

For 21 days Wayne Kublalsingh sat in the scorching sun outside the office of Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar. He sat in support of his belief that constructing a highway in southern Trinidad would damage the environment and affect hundreds of lives in the surrounding area.

On Wednesday night, Kublalsingh, an Oxford graduate and lecturer at the University of the West Indies (UWI), called off his strike as his weight plunged dramatically and the government continued to insist that the 45-kilometre highway, expected to be completed within four years, would be constructed. But the 53-year old environmentalist ended his strike only after being assured that a deal had been brokered to take into account the environmental concerns raised by his Highway Re-route Movement (HRM).

For 21 days, Wayne Kublalsingh did not eat or drink in protest against the construction of a highway in southern Trinidad. Credit: Peter Richards/IPS

Kublalsingh and the HRM have argued that the construction of the 1.1-billion-dollar highway would destroy not only more than 300 homes and 65 oil wells, but also over a dozen communities as well as places of worship. The Oropouche lagoon, a 56-square-kilometre mangrove known for its rich biodiversity, rare butterflies and birds, would be destroyed as well.

“It is going to compromise the agriculture future of the lagoon and it is going to create an embankment and create permanent flooding,” Kublalsingh told IPS. The HRM added that if the present design from Point Fortin to San Fernando is maintained, thousands of acres of fertile lands will also be destroyed.

On Wednesday, the powerful Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) led a demonstration against plans to cap the 65 oil wells, claiming that no dialogue had been held with relevant stakeholders.

OWTU President General Ancil Roget told IPS that the government is claiming that the wells are no longer productive. Roget, however, countered, “We need to get a report of the potential of those wells and…determine what’s the viability to close off those wells.”

“At the end of the day it will be the oil revenue that will pay for any development and if you cap off wells you will be capping off oil revenue,” he added.

The power of protest

“I feel an enormous gratitude to the people of Trinidad and Tobago,” Kublalsingh told IPS soon after he announced that he had called off his strike. He also said that he was “feeling extraordinarily weak” and needed to see doctors and get blood tests. During his hunger strike, doctors had warned of “multiple organ failure” and at times described Kublalsingh’s health as on a “precipice”.

The deal to end the hunger strike was brokered by the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry (JCC), the Federation of Independent Trade Unions and Nongovernmental Organisations (FITUN), Women Working for Social Progress and the Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute (TTTI).

On Monday, following a four-hour round of talks, they reached an agreement on Monday allowing for the appointment of an independent working group to examine concerns raised within a 60-day period.

The agreement included a review of all documentation from state agencies and an invitation to interested parties for written or oral submissions. An assessment will be conducted of the “implications for social, economic and environmental impacts of the highway development”.

JCC president Afra Raymond said as a result of the accord, civil society groups invited Kublalsingh to end his hunger strike “so that we can have his submissions and active participation in this important matter”.

“This is a real advance in the development of our country,” he added, “so we would like all parties to work in good faith within this process.”

Taking sides

But the project and Kublalsingh’s strike have divided both the government and the country.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Dookeran called on Prime Minister Persad Bissessar to meet with the environmentalist. He said that while there are both positive and negative aspects of the highway’s construction, the nation should recognise Kublalsingh’s actions.

“Whether right or wrong, (it) stems from a deep conviction of a case for which he seems prepared to die. As a government, we must understand that such a fast emanates from deep spirituality and as such represents the soul of human endeavour,” Dookeran said.

But the national security minister, Austin Jack Warner, was not impressed.

“If some people choose to fast over ten miles of highway and if they believe life is worth ten miles of a highway, then go ahead,” he said, urging the environmentalist to hurry up kill himself “quickly”.

Persad Bissessar, the prime minister, said she would not allow a “few people determine what is good for 300,000 people”.

“My compassion, as painful as it may be, must be going to making the decisions for the benefit of the greater majority of our citizens,” she said in justifying her decision to construct a highway that “would open the south to development”.

But a Roman Catholic priest, Father Clive Harvey, who had been at Kublalsingh’s side during his 21-day vigil, said the issue extends beyond development. He said the environmentalist’s action had been for “transparency and truth and to be able to be able to restore some level of trust to governance in the country”.

Michael Theodore of the Council of Legal Education, in a letter published in the local media, said “whatever the merits of the highway may be, we are now confronting the issue of how we as a people deal with persons who challenge the status quo, who buck the system with a passion and commitment that few of us possess or for which we are prepared to die.

“Dr. Kublalsingh also represents those of us who aspire to hold an independent view or seek to improve our environment, society and even the organisations in which we work. We are often targeted, vilified and ridiculed when those views call for change and challenge the status quo,” he wrote.

But prominent criminal attorney Israel Khan said that Kublalsingh should have been arrested on attempted suicide charges. “It appears that Kublalsingh has a death wish and the DPP (director of public prosecution) must not abdicate his responsibility by ignoring the commission of a criminal offence,” he added.

JERUSALEM, Feb. 19, 2012 (IPS) – On the day Israel released some 550 Palestinian prisoners in the second half of a swap for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who had been held for five-and-a-half years by Hamas in Gaza, an Islamic Jihad activist started an agonising hunger strike.

Two months have passed since the 33-year-old baker and alleged spokesman for a group which killed scores of Israelis in suicide bombings and mortar attacks refused to eat in protest against his “administrative detention”.

The provision is used by Israel to detain Palestinians indefinitely, for months or years, without trial or charges.

Adnan was arrested at his home in Arabeh in the occupied West Bank, on the night of Dec. 17, hours before the prisoners’ exchange. He testified in an affidavit that he was beaten and humiliated during his 18-day interrogation.

According to a military statement, Adnan was arrested “for activities that threaten regional security.” The military court judge extended his administrative detention to four months. Defendants can be imprisoned repeatedly for up to six months. No evidence is presented before them or their lawyers.

Israeli defence attorney Tamar Peleg said in her plea: “There’s no intelligence information that warrants the arrest…the security officials don’t have the option…to put the accused on trial.” A fortnight ago, Adnan’s appeal against the sentence was rejected.

Israeli military courts generally use administrative detention against Palestinians who are suspected of constituting an imminent risk to national security.

According to the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, the number of administrative detainees currently stands at 315. Though harming due-process rights, the measure is allowed under international law if it prevents danger that cannot be thwarted by less harmful means.

Yet, “Israel’s use of administrative detention blatantly violates such restrictions, thus mocking the protections specified in Israeli and international law of the right to liberty and due process of defendants, and the presumption of innocence”, says the Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem.

This is reportedly the eighth time Adnan has been arrested. In 1999, he was held for six months without trial. He was again detained in 2000, 2002-2003 and in 2004. Then in 2005-2006, he was imprisoned for 18 months, and in 2008 for six months. In 2010, he started his first hunger strike – against his 12-day incarceration by the Palestinian Authority.

Were it not for his solo hunger strike, Adnan’s predicament would be no exception. Over the years, Israel has administratively detained thousands of Palestinians.

In 1970, a group of security prisoners went 65 days without eating. In an open letter attributed to him and released Feb. 15, Day 61 of his action, Adnan declared he doesn’t intend to enter the Guinness Book of Records but to denounce his detention.

Adnan has been transferred to an Israel Prison Service medical facility. His health deteriorating, he has been moved to various hospitals. He’s now at the Rebecca Sieff hospital in the Israeli holy city Safed.

Prison wardens guard him round the clock. Until last week, he was shackled to his bed with both feet and one arm. “The decision to use restraint on a patient in custody lies with the law enforcement authorities responsible for him,” said a hospital spokesperson. The “authorities” said the initial purpose was to preserve public safety.

Adnan has refused to be examined by hospital or Prison Service doctors. The International Committee of the Red Cross facilitated three medical visits last week, and four visits the week before.

Adnan eventually agreed to be also monitored by a doctor of the NGO Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), and to take liquid infusions of salts, glucose and vitamins.

The latest released PHR-I medical opinion reports that on Day 61 of his hunger strike, Adnan had “lost 30 kilograms and suffered from stomach aches, vomiting, sometimes with blood, and headaches.”

He was “completely lucid…his general condition is pale and very weak, his tongue is smooth, he has slight bleeding from the gums, dry skin, loss of hair and significant muscular atrophy…his pulse is weak, blood pressure 100/75. He is permanently connected to a heart monitor.”

The PHR-I statement warns that Adnan “is in immediate danger of death…it may occur suddenly, due to heart failure, or as the result of infection following the collapse of the immune system…a fast in excess of 75 days does not permit survival.”

“There’s no immediate danger to his life,” cautioned Dr. Raymond Farah, head of the hospital’s Internal Medicine Department, “but he’s at a critical point.”

Hoping to entice Adnan to stop his protest, the Shin Bet and the Prison Services agreed to allow family visits. His pregnant wife Randa, their two daughters, and his father last visited him on Feb. 15. “These are my last days,” she heard him whisper. He didn’t give up the fight.

Adnan’s lawyers submitted an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court that same day. A hearing will review his detention “as soon as possible”, a PHR-I update read. Mahmoud Hassan, one of the lawyers, says: “Adnan might die before the court hearing.”

If most Israelis haven’t heard of him, Palestinians are ‘all Khader Adnan’. In a rare display of unity, thousands of all political persuasions have rallied around their hero with the beard and round glasses. “Dignity above food,” is the chant.

Other prisoners in Israeli jails have reportedly started hunger strikes. Islamic Jihad has vowed revenge if Adnan dies. In a statement released on Saturday, Day 64, European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton urged Israel to “do all it can to preserve Adnan’s health”, reiterating the longstanding EU criticism of “extensive use of administrative detention.” (END/IPS/MM/IP/HD/PI/PK/SS/12)