Brutality at Guantanamo
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
LET me tell you about a wonderful English doctor, Dr. David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist. Unassuming as he is, Dr. Nicholl is a giant among men and towers above one American medic in particular, Dr. JS Edmondson, who instigated the brutal force-feeding methods of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay.
The heroic doctor Nicholl reluctantly stepped out of the shadows and into the limelight this month to condemn one of the most primitive, backward and uncivilized activities carried out at Guantánamo .
Dr. Nicholl had my television viewers in tears as he revealed exactly how the illegally-held detainees are being force-fed using a medical procedure so brutal it was outlawed in Victorian Britain. I felt sick as he graphically described on my TV show, The Agenda, how about half a dozen men from the ERF squad (Emergency Reaction Force) would forcibly hold down a patient as someone else rammed a long tube up the nasal cavities of struggling, screaming prisoners. The tube would then be passed down into the stomach of prisoners as their noses bled from the brute force used to insert the tube.
Shortly after his appearance on my show, Dr. Nicholl wrote a graphic account of the force-feeding procedure in a letter to the prestigious Lancet medical journal. Co-authors include Dr. Oliver Sacks (author and neurologist), Dr. Holly G Atkinson (President of Physicians for Human Rights) and Dr. John Kalk (who oversaw hunger strikes in apartheid-era South Africa).
He now has the support of 250 doctors worldwide, including distinguished medical experts from the UK, the USA, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Australia. Eminent medics from Harvard and Yale are also supporting Dr. Nicholl in his condemnation of what is happening in Guantánamo Bay.
Since his appearance on my show, Dr. Nicholl has appeared on many other TV channels across the globe, such as CNN. He has also appeared in US newspapers and on American radio stations and has been quoted in most UK national dailies.
"This is a call to action for the American Medical Association and the State medical boards," Dr. Nicholl said. "Are they going to look the other way or are they going to investigate these serious allegations? After this response, they can't say they don't know about it."
The Lancet letter states that international medical ethics standards forbid force-feeding of hunger strikers who make an informed decision to mount a hunger strike. It specifically condemns the actions of the former commander of the hospital at Guantánamo, Dr. JS Edmondson, who instigated force-feedings at the prison camp. The letter also attacks the use of "restraint chairs" to immobilize prisoners before forcibly inserting feeding pipes into detainees' nasal passages. The letter calls on the US government to "ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians" and that "force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned forthwith in accordance with internationally agreed standards."
The World Medical Association specifically prohibits force-feeding in the Declarations of Tokyo and Malta, to which the American Medical Association is a signatory. Physicians attending hunger strikers have a responsibility to respect prisoners' informed decision, even if they disagree.
Approximately 500 prisoners of some 35 nationalities are being held at the prison camp and most have not been charged with an offence. Though some prisoners have now been held for over four years, not one has yet received a fair trial by international standards.
More than 200 are on hunger strike and some are weighing less than 70 pounds because they simply can not bear to live anymore in this shame to America - nothing more than a concentration camp.
"This letter really shows the strength of feeling amongst the world's leading medical experts," Dr. Nicholl said. "They are saying with one voice that force-feeding of hunger strikers by medical staff at Guantanamo is unequivocally wrong."
A few weeks ago, I heard more graphic accounts of force-feeding from former Guantánamo detainee hunger striker Mamdoub Habib in an exclusive down-the-line interview from his home in Australia. I've also listened to the family of Guantánamo detainee 727, Omar Deghayes, one of eight British residents detained at the US prison camp. In a statement through his lawyers he said: "We are dying a slow death in here, and you have to remember that we have not been charged with any crime."
Omar and other British residents detained in Guantánamo are the subject of a judicial review, challenging the British Government's lack of action on their behalf. The challenge is led by lawyer Gareth Peirce and is to be held on March 22 10.30am, at the Royal Courts of Justice (Strand, London).
Jackie Chase from the Save Omar campaign who has been a regular Agenda guest said: "I commend these doctors for taking a stand and distancing themselves from this disgrace to their profession. The force-feeding at Guantánamo amounts to torture and is yet another humiliation and abuse of detainees. Guantánamo Bay needs to be shut down and the British Government need to exert their influence to make it happen."
On a final note, I just want to let you know that Dr. Edmondson recently received a medal for his sterling work from the Bush Administration. What a badge of honor! I wouldn't let this man loose with a stethoscope in an abattoir. He is a disgrace to his profession and I hope that one day the full extent of his unethical behavior will be laid bare for all to see.
Another contributer to Bush's administration that I'd like to see given a medal, however, is the female intelligence officer who was flown to Guantánamo from Washington to interrogate three of the now released Britons.
The men, known as the Tipton Three, were interrogated by this peroxide witch who tried to convince them they had attended an Osama bin Laden lecture in Afghanistan in 1999.
In a faithfully reproduced episode of the interrogation, she is screaming and shouting at one of the Brits, saying, "look, there you are in the video. That is you. I know it is you."
One of the boys responded: "Well it can't be me. I was on bail and in and out of court that year on fraud charges."
Turns out one of the Tipton Three was a petty criminal -- hardly the most evil of the evil, as Donald Rumsfeld would have us believe. One can't have a much better alibi than a British policeman to vouch for your whereabouts.
But no -- this intelligence officer could almost have put the ditzy in blonde. The only person she had convinced of their guilt was herself.
The medal, of course, would be awarded for bringing unbridled humor into the most disgraceful human rights episode in which America has ever embroiled itself. And I know exactly where I would like to pin it ... ma'am.
How many times do I have to say this? "Thank God I was captured by the most evil brutal regime in the world and not by the American military!"
If you want more information about the force-feeding then please contact DR. DAVID NICHOLL on his email: david.nicholl@blueyonder.co.uk or JACKIE CHASE on her email: Jackie.Chase@virgin.net or log onto http://www.save-omar.org.uk/ for further details and resources.
(Yvonne Ridley is the political editor of the Islam Channel and presenter of the political and current affairs show The Agenda which broadcast week-days on Islam Channel from 10 am and 10 pm GMT from London, UK. Her show can be viewed from anywhere live at www.islamchannel.tv . Her website address is www.yvonneridley.com)
Kilde: www.DailyMuslims.com