Wtf! Mos Def Demonstrates How Prisoners Are Force Fed At Guantanamo Bay

WASHINGTON – Yasiin Bey, the actor and activist formerly known as Mos Def, submitted to the type of force-feeding imposed on hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay — and it wasn’t pretty.
The Brooklyn-born entertainer joined with the human rights group Reprieve to demonstrate what the hunger strikers are enduring at the U.S. military lockup. The demonstration was videotaped and posted online Monday.

In the graphic footage, Bey, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, writhes in his restraints, then wretches and coughs as a feeding tube is inserted up his nose and down into his stomach.

When the tube comes out and is about to be re-inserted, Bey pleads for those administering the feeding to stop and partially breaks free from his restraint.

“This is me, please stop, I can’t do it,” Bey says. A voice off camera then told the group to “stop.”

Then, Bey is shown weeping and is comforted by a member of the group.

The U.S. government has used the detention center on the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to hold terrorism suspects apprehended since 9/11.

Detainees upset over the handling of their Korans during cell searches launched a hunger strike in February. The hunger strike has grown to 106 participants, 45 of whom were being force fed due to weight loss as of Monday, according to the Pentagon.

Called “enteral feeding,” the force-feeding begins by restraining the hunger striker in an upright chair, followed by insertion of the feeding tube. A nutritional shake is forced into the detainee’s stomach via a large syringe attached to the back of the tube.

The Pentagon asserts that he practice is humane and necessary for the detainees’ safety and survival.

Human rights activists claim the force feeding amounts to torture.

A federal judge hearing a Syrian detainee’s suit for a halt to force-feeding ruled Monday that she lacks jurisdiction to rule, but said the practice appears to violate international law.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said there appears to be a consensus that force-feeding amounts to inhumane treatment and she noted President Obama has the power to address the issue.

Obama has sought to close the prison since taking office in 2009, and his administration ruled that 86 current detainees are clear for release to their home governments—most of them Yemeni.

Instability in Yemen and other countries, however, has prevented the transfers abroad, while Congress has repeatedly barred transfer of prisoners into the U.S.












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