{"id":98410,"date":"2013-12-12T18:18:19","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T18:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/the-peaceful-protest-the-us-military-doesnt-want-world-to-see\/"},"modified":"2013-12-12T18:18:19","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T18:18:19","slug":"the-peaceful-protest-the-us-military-doesnt-want-world-to-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/the-peaceful-protest-the-us-military-doesnt-want-world-to-see\/","title":{"rendered":"The Peaceful Protest the US Military Doesn’t Want World to See"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay rally – activists protest in front of the White House demanding President Obama close the US prison camp earlier this year. Now, the military acknowledges that the withholding of information is a deliberate move to undermine public knowledge of a protest that has garnered international support. (Photograph: Larry Downing\/Reuters)<\/span><\/span>First it was the force-feedings, genital searches, and transfers to solitary confinement<\/a>. Then came the media blackout.<\/p>\n

In its latest bid to deprive Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay inmates of what prisoner Ahmed Belbacha has called their “sole peaceful means<\/a>” of protest, the U.S. military announced it will stop providing information to the press about the ongoing hunger strikes within the notorious offshore prison.<\/p>\n

“The hunger strike has been the only way the prisoners can effectively protest and force world attention back on Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay,” said Omar Farah, staff attorney for Center for Constitutional Rights<\/a>, in an interview with Common Dreams<\/em>. “The government has tried to undermine that in many ways. We saw that in the summer with raids on Camp 6 and forcing prisoners into solitary confinement. This is new and different way to silence the protests.”<\/p>\n

“JTF-Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo allows detainees to peacefully protest but will not further their protests by reporting the numbers to the public,” Navy Commander John Filostrat told<\/a> the Miami Herald<\/em> last week.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with Al Jazeera-America<\/em> published Wednesday, Filostrat acknowledged that the withholding of information is a deliberate move to undermine public knowledge of a protest that has garnered international support. “It’s [the strikers’] desire to draw attention to themselves, and so we’re not going to help them do that,” he stated.<\/p>\n

British Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo inmate Shaker Aamer said last week that the hunger strike has resumed behind a wall of silence. The “Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo hunger strike is back on,” stated Aamer in a phone call with his attorney Clive Stafford Smith, director of the U.K.-based human rights charity Reprieve, that was reported<\/a> by Al Jazeera-America<\/em>. Aamer said at least 29 prisoners are still taking part—19 of them being subjected to painful force-feedings that have been widely denounced as torture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We are hearing that there have been increasing numbers of men who are hunger striking,” said Farah. “It is also important to recognize there are a number of men who are long-term hunger strikers. My client Tariq Ba Odah, who has already been cleared for release, has been on unbroken hunger strike since February 2007.”<\/p>\n

Hunger strikes have swept the prison since shortly after it opened in 2002<\/a>, reaching over 100 participants<\/a> who refused food for extended periods, many of whom were subject to the painful forced-feedings.<\/p>\n

U.S. military officials had previously disclosed the numbers of inmates who refused food. Yet, Shayana Kadidal, senior managing attorney of the Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights, previously told<\/a> Common Dreams<\/em> that these numbers should be viewed with skepticism because the military “doctors them down.”<\/p>\n

162 people are still incarcerated at the military prison in Cuba that has been widely condemned for inhumane conditions, systematic use of torture, and absence of due process for inmates, including long-term indefinite detentions without trial or formal charges. At least half<\/a> of all inmates have already been cleared for release.<\/p>\n

In a previous 60 Minutes<\/em> broadcast<\/a> from Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo, Aamer could be heard<\/a> shouting from his cell, “Leave us to die in peace or tell the world the truth!”<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.<\/p>\n

Source: Common Dreams<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay rally – activists protest in front of the White House demanding President Obama close the US prison camp earlier this year. Now, the military acknowledges that the withholding of information is a deliberate move to undermine public knowledge of a protest that has garnered international support. (Photograph: Larry Downing\/Reuters)First it was the force-feedings, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":98411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-98410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98410","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\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}