To Force Feed or Starve?

Remember when Christopher Hitchens and “Mancow” requested to be waterboarded so that they could experience how unpleasant the whole sensation is?

Well, enter Actor and rapper Mos Def:

Rapper Mos Def, now known as Yasiin Bey, has been filmed being force fed to highlight the treatment of inmates Guantanamo Bay.

Made in conjunction with human rights group Reprieve, the video is directed by Bafta award-winning film-maker Asif Kapadia and is released to coincide with build-up to the Islamic holy period of Ramadan, when inmates will be force fed after dark, in line with the rules of the month-long religious fast.

It shows the former rapper being force fed using the same method enacted by the US military on hunger striking detainees at the controversial prison.

During the four minute film, the former rapper is seen pleading for the doctors to stop as he becomes increasingly upset and agitated.

The video’s release comes as a US federal judge ruled that she lacked the authority to halt the practice.

For more on the judge’s decision, click here.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/z6ACE-BBPRs[/youtube]

Mediaite:

The act was in protest of the Obama administration’s decision to proceed with force-feeding during the month-long fast of Ramadan, which begins at today’s sunset.

According to The Guardian, the U.S. government has decided to proceed with the force-feeding by doing it only at nighttime, respecting the daytime fast undertaken by Muslims during Ramadan. However, Muslim rights groups argue that the continuation of force feeding during a high holiday is particularly insulting.

“We believe it’s wrong to force feed at any time but it is particularly upsetting to do it through Ramadan,” said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council On American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In protest of current policy, another group named Reprieve released a video showing rapper Yasiin Bey (best known as Mos Def) undergoing the force-feeding methods currently being used on detainees at Gitmo, as a demonstration of just how gruesome they believe the procedure to be.

Following the guidelines set forth in a Gitmo manual leaked to the press,

The procedure:

The four-minute video, directed by Bafta award-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia, seeks to reconstruct the specific force-feeding instructions set out in standard operating guidelines from Guantánamo leaked to al-Jazeera. It shows a plastic tube being inserted through Bey’s nostril into his stomach. The “Medical Management Standard Operating Procedure” document leaked from the detention camp defines a hunger striker as a detainee who has missed at least nine consecutive meals or whose weight has fallen to less than 85% of his ideal body weight.

If force feeding is deemed medically necessary, medical personnel shackle the detainee “and a mask is placed over the detainee’s mouth to prevent spitting and biting”. A feeding tube is then passed through the detainee’s nostril into the stomach.

The process takes about 20 to 30 minutes but they can be required to stay in the restraint chair for up to two hours until a chest x-ray confirms the nutrient has reached their stomach.

The prisoner is then removed from restraint chair to “dry cell” where they are observed by a guard for up to an hour “for any indication of vomiting or attempts to induce vomiting”. If they do vomit, they are returned to the restraint chair for the entire duration of the observation period in subsequent feeds.

If they bite the tube, the guards hold their head still for “as long as necessary for the detainee to relax his jaw”.

Aside from the restraints, how much worse is this than what medical patients go through when they have to receive a nasogastric enteral feeding tube, themselves?

The document leaked to al Jazeera is described in the headline blurb as “the brutality of force-feeding”; while the document itself states that its policy is to “protect, preserve, and promote life”.

Like killing over capture and interrogating, I suppose allowing the detainees on hunger strike to starve themselves to death would be more humane, huh? Would that shut the critics up?

No, of course not.