Force-feeding

"Six weeks into his hunger strike, Israels parliament passed a law permitting the force-feeding of prisoners in order to keep them alive. Allan might have become a test case for the law, but doctors made it clear they would not participate, calling it unethical medical treatment. "Its like rape," says Yoel Donshin, a retired anesthesiologist and a member of Physicians for Human Rights. "You will ask a physician to rape a patient for treatment? This is unacceptable." Donshin doesnt believe Israeli politicians who supported the law want to save the lives of prisoners. "They do not care for the welfare of the prisoners," he says. "They just want him not to become a symbol or martyr."

"Romanos has not been charged with terrorism. But two cases concerning terrorism acts are still pending — a fact that has kept Romanos from attending school. The only way he could think to claim his rights was to use his “body as a roadblock, for a breath of freedom,” as he stated at the start of his hunger strike. At N.Gennimatas general hospital, where Romanos was transferred after his health began to deteriorate, the atmosphere is tense. Hundreds of protesters are gathered outside. Inside, police officers are everywhere, trying to control the flow of information. The minister of justice is working on a proposal that would allow Romanos to take distance learning courses. But Romanos has rejected that idea, insisting he should be able to attend classes. With the help of the doctors in the hospital, Romanos is successfully resisting an order issued by a district attorney to force feed him. His lawyer confirmed last week that the order had been issued, adding that “This is obviously torture. It’s something never seen before in Greece.”"

"Mohanded Juma Juma, detainee No. 152307, said he was stripped and kept naked for six days when he arrived at Abu Ghraib. One day, he said, American soldiers brought a father and his son into the cellblock. He said the soldiers put hoods over their heads and removed their clothes. Then, they removed the hoods. "When the son saw his father naked he was crying," Juma told the investigators. "He was crying because of seeing his father." He also said Graner repeatedly threw the detainees meals into the toilets and said, "Eat it."

"Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets. The fresh allegations of prison abuse are contained in statements taken from 13 detainees shortly after a soldier reported the incidents to military investigators in mid-January. The detainees said they were savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers working on the night shift at Tier 1A in Abu Ghraib during the holy month of Ramadan, according to copies of the statements obtained by The Washington Post. The statements provide the most detailed picture yet of what took place on the cellblock. Some of the detainees described being abused as punishment or discipline after they were caught fighting or with a prohibited item. Some said they were pressed to denounce Islam or were force-fed pork and liquor. Many provided graphic details of how they were sexually humiliated and assaulted, threatened with rape, and forced to masturbate in front of female soldiers."

"Doctors force-feeding prisoners at |Guantanamo are acting as an arm of the military and have abrogated their medical-ethical duties."

"Ill fuckin, Ill fuckin, sew your asshole closed, and keep feedin you And feedin you, and feedin you, and feedin you."

"Mr Nowak has not been to Guantanamo, and turned down an invitation to the camp because the US refused to give him unrestricted access to the detainees. He told the BBC that he had received reports that some hunger strikers had had thick pipes inserted through the nose and forced down into the stomach. This was allegedly done roughly, sometimes by prison guards rather than doctors. As a result, some prisoners had reported bleeding and vomiting he said. "If these allegations are true then this definitely amounts to an additional cruel treatment," Mr Nowak said."

"In October, lawyers for detainees told a judge that medics tried to persuade those on a hunger strike to start eating on their own by force-feeding them with unusually large feeding tubes inserted through their noses -- without painkillers."

"60 Minutes has been told that there have been frequent hunger strikes among the Islamic terrorist inmates inside Supermax and to keep the inmates alive there are often force feedings. Thats when an inmate is restrained and liquid nourishment is poured down a tube in his nose. Were told there have been about a dozen hunger strikers and one of them used to be Osama bin Ladens secretary. Former Warden Robert Hood told us that he supervised many of these feedings. "I probably conducted, authorized, conducted 350, maybe 400 of involuntary feedings. Again, not…individuals, because you could have one person, three meals a day for, you know, two months. That adds up," he tells Pelley. Bureau of Prisons records that 60 Minutes has seen show there have been as many as 900 of what the bureau called "involuntary feedings" of terrorists in H-unit since 2001. Why did the prisoners stop eating? What was the complaint? Says Hood, "It was conditions of confinement." Some of the conditions they object to are outlined in a document: inmates get letters only from people approved by the prison and they get one, monitored, phone call a month, for 15 minutes."

"The unfortunate patients had their mouth clamped shut, had a rubber tube inserted into their mouth or nostril. They keep on pressing it down until it reaches your esophagus. A china funnel is attached to the other end of the tube and a cabbage-like mixture poured down the tube and through to the stomach. This was an unhealthy practice, as the food might have gone into their lungs and caused pneumonia."

"One of the nations preeminent bioethics scholars, Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania, testified on Colemans behalf that the feeding of competent prisoners against their will -- even to save their lives -- violates the most basic tenets of the medical profession. Rational, competent adults have a fundamental right to reject medical care. Force-feeding prisoners is no different than forcibly transfusing Jehovahs Witnesses or providing unwanted chemotherapy to terminally-ill cancer patients. The World Medical Associations 1975 Declaration of Tokyo strictly prohibits physicians from engaging in such practices, which it describes as "contrary to the laws of humanity." The AMA has fully embraced this document. When the United States began force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, two hundred fifty prominent physicians signed an open letter to a leading British journal, The Lancet, called for sanctions against the medical professionals involved in these nonconsensual interventions. Among the reasons for this outcry is that forcible feeding through a naso-gastric tube ranks alongside the most unpleasant and downright horrific experiences that one human being can inflict upon another. The British journalist Djuna Barnes volunteered to be "forcibly" fed for a muckraking exposé in The World Magazine (1914) and later wrote that "it is utterly impossible to describe the anguish of it." Others have compared it to being orally sodomized while paralyzed. Having placed such tubes into the noses of willing patients myself, in order to save their lives, I can assure you that driving one down the throat of an unwilling subject must be unspeakably ghastly."

"1914 New York World magazine article. Barnes wrote, "If I, play acting, felt my being burning with revolt at this brutal usurpation of my own functions, how they who actually suffered the ordeal in its acutest horror must have flamed at the violation of the sanctuaries of their spirits. I had shared the greatest experience of the bravest of my sex."