Force Feeding Continues in Guantanamo

A YouTube, posted July 8, show how musician, actor and activist Yasiin Bey, better known as Mos Def,  recently underwent force feeding procedure in solidarity with Guantanamo Bay prisoners on hunger strike.

Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) Demonstrates Guantanamo Force-Feeding Standard Operating Procedure was recorded in a four-minute video by Bafta award-winning director Asif Kapadi.

There are about 166 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay Prison. More than half of which have been cleared for release, but have yet to see it through. In reaction, some prisoners have launched a hunger strike. Bey goes through the painful procedure that more than 100 Guantanamo Bay prisoners have had to go through continually since their strike begun. As Ramadan begins, there are questions on whether or not daytime force-feeding will take place.

In a recent ruling, Judge Gladys Kessley explained that only President Barack Obama has the authority “to address the issue of force-feeding the detainees, responding to an injunction request by Guantanamo inmate Abu Wa’el Dhiab ”

“It is perfectly clear from the statements of detainees, as well as the statements from the organizations just cited, that force-feeding is a painful, humiliating and degrading process,”Kessley wrote.

 Activists have spoken out against the U.S. government’s actions in Guantanamo.  In 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Commission said it regards force-feeding at Guantanamo as a form of torture, a charge the United States has denied.

Bey, 39, has a past of public activism from speaking out against the government response to Hurricane Katrina to the conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal.