marked<\/a> the 100th day of the protest with
\n\u201ctwitterstorms, email bombs and fax bombs\u201d<\/i> aimed at drawing
\nworldwide attention to the hunger strikers. The US Military
\nresponded to \u2018Operation Guantanamo\u2019 by restricting wireless
\ninternet access at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.<\/p>\nRT\u2019s Marina Portnaya spoke with Ramzi Kassem, who represents Moath
\nal Alawi, a prisoner held at Guantanamo without charge for 11
\nyears.<\/p>\n
RT:<\/b> Thank you for your time. When was you client shot and
\nwhat were the circumstances of the shooting?<\/i><\/p>\n
Ramzi Kassem:<\/b> On Saturday, April 13, 2013 the Guantanamo
\nmilitary prisoner administration decided to raid Camp 6, which is a
\nprison facility at Guantanamo, where my client Mr. Alawi is being
\nimprisoned. They conducted that raid in order to move all of the
\nprisoners into solitary confinement. And that was just one
\nadditional way that the prison administration wanted to try to
\nbreak the hunger strike.<\/p>\n
What happened on that day according to Mr. Alawi is that in that
\nprocess he was shot without any warning for absolutely no good
\nreason by one of the US Army guards at dangerously close range
\nusing rubber-coated steel bullets that are only safely used outside
\nof a certain range. He was shot in five places: One shot was around
\nthe heart, another shot was in his elbow, another was in his
\nshoulder, and there were a couple of impacts on his thighs.<\/p>\n
Particularly, the shot that went to his heart at that close of a
\nrange, even a rubber-coated steel bullet, can penetrate skin and
\ncan be fatal. The authorities of Guantanamo endangered Mr. Alawi\u2019s
\nlife for no reason. They gave him no warning, fired at him
\nrepeatedly and then, following that fact, they delayed medical
\ntreatment that he should have received immediately.<\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/rt.com\/files\/news\/1f\/26\/00\/00\/000_was6148854.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
RT:<\/b> Has the US government acknowledged that this
\nshooting did take place?<\/i><\/p>\n
RK:<\/b>Absolutely. I have received confirmation in writing by
\nan email from the Department of Justice that Mr. Alawi sustained
\nwhat they described as minor injuries. But when I heard the
\ndescription from Mr. Alawi himself, it was very different from what
\nI saw on the government\u2019s email. We also received confirmation in
\nwriting from the US government via email that Mr. Alawi was
\nforce-fed. This is also a violation of international law.<\/p>\n
The fact that it is done in an unnecessarily painful and brutal
\nway \u2014 prisoners are strapped down to these restraining chairs, that
\nthey have tubes forced down through their noses into their stomach.
\nThere are many other ways to tube-feed prisoners, even if these
\nprisoners wished to be tube-fed, and the US government is again
\ndoing this in a deliberately violent way in order to break the
\nhunger strikers.<\/p>\n
RT:<\/b> Correct me if I am wrong: He is being held in
\nGuantanamo without charges against him?<\/i><\/p>\n
RK:<\/b>That\u2019s correct. Mr. Alawi has never been charged with
\nany crime. We have no reason to believe that the US government has
\nany interest in charging him with an actual crime be it at a real
\ncourt or at the military commission. The reality is that Mr. Alawi
\nhas been at Guantanamo for over 11 years without fair process and
\nthat is a reason he is on hunger strike today.<\/p>\n
RT:<\/i><\/b> US President Barack Obama is expected to
\naddress the nation on Thursday speaking about Guantanamo detention
\ncenter, and I assume he would address this hunger strike. What
\nwould you like to hear?<\/i><\/p>\n
RK:<\/b>I can tell what I would not like to hear. I don\u2019t want
\nto hear the repetition of the promises that President Obama has
\nbeen making for years. I don\u2019t want to hear that he is going to
\nappoint some official who will be responsible for closing
\nGuantanamo. We\u2019ve had an official like that for years, and
\nGuantanamo was not closed. I don\u2019t want to hear about the
\nadministrative review mechanisms, because we had many before that
\nand they did not lead to any meaningful progress.<\/p>\n
The only official who is responsible for the existence of
\nGuantanamo today as far as I am concerned and my client is
\nconcerned is President Obama himself. He need to take concrete
\nsteps towards closing that prison and I don\u2019t believe the men in
\nGuantanamo will interrupt their hunger strike unless President
\nObama take such concrete steps. One very obvious concrete step he
\ncan take is to begin by releasing some prisoners, who are approved
\nfor transfer, who can be repatriated or resettled in another
\ncountry like another one of my clients Shaker Aamer, who has been
\napproved for transfer for years. The UK has been asking for his
\nrelease, that\u2019s the US oldest and most trustful allies. He is a
\nvery natural first step if the president is about closing the
\nGuantanamo. We need actions, deeds, not words.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on : RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over 100 Guantanamo prisoners continue their hunger strike in protest against unlawful \u2014 and as it turns out, violent \u2014 detention. RT met with the lawyer of inmate Moath al Alawi, who has been shot by guards, denied medical treatment and force-fed. A reported 103 of Guantanamo\u2019s 166 prisoners are participating in the hunger strike, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}