Seven years ago, Barack Obama pledged to close down the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, telling the crowds that flocked to his campaign speeches that the United States must “restore habeas corpus” in order to “lead by example.” Though the Department of Defense is still weighing options on how to close the facility before Obama leaves office, the process seems to be going nowhere. Some of this blame rests on Congress, which has repeatedly refused to lift restrictions on moving detainees even though nearly half of them are cleared for transfer.
Despite Obama’s professed concern for civil liberties, his administration is currently challenging the habeas corpus petition of a Guantánamo detainee on hunger strike. Tariq Ba Odah has spent 13 years at Guantánamo and is now on the verge of starvation. The 36-year-old currently weighs 74 pounds. In 2009, the Obama administration cleared Ba Odah for transfer due to lack of evidence that he posed a threat to national security, yet he remains imprisoned due to his Yemeni citizenship.
From the United States to Israel, hunger strikes like Ba Odah’s are often portrayed as crimes rather than as protests of last resort. According to a recent Guardian report, an anonymous US official claims that certain members of the Defense Department believe that hunger strikes are “functionally a method of warfare.”
“We are undeterred, even if we are weaker physically. Our mental determination gets stronger with each day.”
On the South Side of Chicago, 12 parents are currently on a hunger strike to protest the closure of Dyett High School. One of the hunger strikers has been arrested twice for trying to talk to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who shut down…