Force feeding of mentally competent detainees at Guantanamo Bay

Chrispin, Eleanor; Nathanson, Vivienne

doi:10.1136/bmj.f4454

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…75 The British Medical Association denounced force-feeding as a 'stain on medical ethics'. 76 American physicians George Annas, Sondra S. Crosby, and Leonard H. Glantz remonstrated in the New England Journal of Medicine that military physicians should adhere to the same standards of practice as civilian physicians, even if they do work in unusual conditions. Hunger strikes, the authors asserted, are not a medical problem and should never be treated as one.…”

Section: Public Protestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction

Miller¹

2016

A History of Force Feeding

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, a group of detainees at Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, Cuba, went on hunger strike. At the height of their protest, 106 individuals were refusing to eat. For detainees incarcerated for over a decade without charge or trial, food refusal offered a potent way to rebel. Having been stripped of their capacity for political communication and placed in an institution that severely restricted personal freedom, the simple act of not eating allowed detainees to reassert control over their bodies. It granted autonomy and self-determination, posing a challenge to Guantánamo's disciplinary ethos. These hunger strikes were also highly political. By rejecting food, detainees openly defi ed the authority of the American government which had incarcerated them. They used their bodies as weapons, the last remaining resource available for remonstrating against adverse institutional conditions. 1 In turn, the newsworthy nature of these protests drew international attention to allegations of institutional torture and violence seemingly supported by the Obama administration. The protestors knew that hunger strikes attract worldwide interest from journalists, human rights activists, politicians, ethicists, and doctors. They had posed a formidable moral question: Is it acceptable to allow a prisoner to starve to death? Corpses present problems. A dead hunger striker can offer evidence of deplorable prison conditions. A death also goes some way towards validating dissident political perspectives. These, after all, had been worth dying for. Surely they must have some value? In the event of a death, less sympathetic

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Section: Public Protestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction

Miller¹

2016

A History of Force Feeding

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“…Back across the Atlantic, the British Medical Journal called for the international medical community to support military medics at Guantanamo who speak out against ethical abuses. Furthermore, it encouraged its readers to take practical steps, such as writing to government ministers to publicly call for the US to suspend immediately any medical involvement in force‐feeding and to allow detainees full access to independent medical assessments (Chrispin & Nathanson ).…”

Section: The Global Medical Community Respondsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical abuse at Guantanamo Bay Military Prison – what do we do now?

Buckley

Rokadiya

Kessel

et al. 2014

Tropical Med Int Health

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A la fin de 2013, l'Institut de Médecine comme Profession (IMAP) et les Fondations Open Society ont publié un rapport qui révélait que les politiques du Département Américain de la Défense et de l'Agence Centrale de Renseignement (CIA) ont institutionnalisé un éventail de pratiques par les agents de santé militaires et de l'agence de renseignement travaillant à la prison militaire de la Baie de Guantanamo, qui violent globalement les normes acceptées de l’éthique médicale. Il s'agit notamment de la participation du personnel médical à des interrogatoires abusifs, l'utilisation des informations médicales personnelles à des fins d'interrogatoire et le gavage des grévistes de la faim. Cet éditorial souligne ces pratiques continues et appelle à une action cohérente de la communauté médicale mondiale.

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Making the medical notes of hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay available to trusted doctors

Arnold¹

2013

BMJ

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Force feeding of mentally competent detainees at Guantanamo Bay

Cited by 3 publications

References 1 publication

Introduction

Introduction

Medical abuse at Guantanamo Bay Military Prison – what do we do now?

Making the medical notes of hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay available to trusted doctors

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