{"id":17559,"date":"2013-04-26T08:30:16","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T12:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=17559"},"modified":"2013-04-26T08:30:16","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T12:30:16","slug":"gitmo-is-killing-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2013\/04\/gitmo-is-killing-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Gitmo is Killing Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"0415OPEDrota-popup\"<\/a>GUANT\u00c1NAMO BAY, Cuba<\/span><\/p>\n

ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been detained at\u00a0Guant\u00e1namo<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.<\/span><\/p>\n

I could have been home years ago \u2014 no one seriously thinks I am a threat \u2014 but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a \u201cguard\u201d for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don\u2019t even seem to believe it anymore. But they don\u2019t seem to care how long I sit here, either.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I\u2019d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was wrong to trust him. There was no work. I wanted to leave, but had no money to fly home. After the American invasion in 2001, I fled to Pakistan like everyone else. The Pakistanis arrested me when I asked to see someone from the Yemeni Embassy. I was then sent to Kandahar, and put on the first plane to Gitmo.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can\u2019t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn\u2019t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am still being force-fed. Two times a day they tie me to a chair in my cell. My arms, legs and head are strapped down. I never know when they will come. Sometimes they come during the night, as late as 11 p.m., when I\u2019m sleeping.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are so many of us on hunger strike now that there aren\u2019t enough qualified medical staff members to carry out the force-feedings; nothing is happening at regular intervals. They are feeding people around the clock just to keep up.<\/span><\/p>\n

During one force-feeding the nurse pushed the tube about 18 inches into my stomach, hurting me more than usual, because she was doing things so hastily. I called the interpreter to ask the doctor if the procedure was being done correctly or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was so painful that I begged them to stop feeding me. The nurse refused to stop feeding me. As they were finishing, some of the \u201cfood\u201d spilled on my clothes. I asked them to change my clothes, but the guard refused to allow me to hold on to this last shred of my dignity.<\/span><\/p>\n

When they come to force me into the chair, if I refuse to be tied up, they call the E.R.F. team. So I have a choice. Either I can exercise my right to protest my detention, and be beaten up, or I can submit to painful force-feeding.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen. This makes no sense. I am a human being, not a passport, and I deserve to be treated like one.<\/span><\/p>\n

I do not want to die here, but until President Obama and Yemen\u2019s president do something, that is what I risk every day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where is my government? I will submit to any \u201csecurity measures\u201d they want in order to go home, even though they are totally unnecessary.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will agree to whatever it takes in order to be free. I am now 35. All I want is to see my family again and to start a family of my own.<\/span><\/p>\n

The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply. At least 40 people here are on a hunger strike. People are fainting with exhaustion every day. I have vomited blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

And there is no end in sight to our imprisonment. Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made.<\/span><\/p>\n

I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guant\u00e1namo before it is too late.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GUANT\u00c1NAMO BAY, Cuba ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,21,185,84,189,97],"tags":[320,197,345],"class_list":["post-17559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-international","category-prisons","category-statements","category-us-military","category-us-news","tag-cuba","tag-imperialism","tag-reactionary-watch"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0415opedrota-popup.jpg?fit=429%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}