Letters detail punitive tactics used on Guantánamo hunger strikers

Mark Townsend, home affairs editor
The Observer, Saturday 12 October 2013 13.21 BST

The US military secretly used a variety of tactics to break the resolve of the Guantánamo Bay hunger strikers, including placing them in solitary confinement if they continued to refuse food, newly declassified interviews with detainees reveal.

One prisoner also said that the last British resident held inside the camp, Shaker Aamer, had been targeted and humiliated by the authorities to the point where it became impossible for the 44-year-old to continue his protest.

The US military recently announced the end of the six-month mass hunger strike among detainees at Guantánamo Bay. But human rights groups, however, argue that such proclamations are disingenuous as at least 16 inmates are still strapped down and force-fed daily, and two are currently in hospital.

One detainee, 42-year-old Syrian national Abu Wa'el Dhiab, reported that the Extreme Reaction Force team, the camp's military riot squad, would "storm" Aamer's cell on average five times a day in an attempt to crush his resolve during the strike.

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