Guantanamo Bay: Hunger Strikes Zach Salton 5/3/14 Politics 105W: Dissent What factors resulted in the failure of the Guantanamo Bay Hunger Strikes? Guantanamo Bay is a United States military prison established in January 2002. The prison is located on the fronts of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. This issue is vitally important because there are many human rights violations still present in the detention camp today, namely the medical practice of force-feeding. This practice is in response to the 2005 and 2013 hunger strikes in which prisoners refused to eat in order to have their perceived injustices addressed. The use of force-feeding has been deemed unethical, cruel and inhumane by both The World Medical Association and American Medical Association. Despite this, there is a continuation of this barbaric practice on unconvicted detainees by military physicians. These hunger strikes failed to create political change because they lacked international pressure, powerful NGO’s, and domestic support due to an altered public perception. The Guantanamo Bay Hunger Strikes began during the m...
The Salem witch trials and the situation at Guantanamo Bay are similar as well as different. Both involve torture, unfairness, false accusations and inconclusive outcomes. They violate human rights and the justice process. The Salem witch trials revolve around the fear of neighbors and outsiders and the Guantanamo Bay situation revolves around the fear of terrorism. Although the fears are very different, the results are similar.
How do you judge the atrocities committed during a war? In World War II, there were numerous atrocities committed by all sides, especially in the concentration and prisoner of war camps. Europeans were most noted for the concentration camps and the genocide committed by the Nazi party in these camps. Less known is how Allied prisoners were also sent to those camps. The Japanese also had camps for prisoners of war. Which countries’ camps were worse? While both camps were horrible places for soldiers, the Japanese prisoner of war camps were far worse.
The federal government ruled most of the reasons behind Japanese internment camps. Further than two-thirds of the Japanese who were sentenced to internment camps in the spring of 1942 were in fact United States citizens. The internment camps were the centerpiece for legal confines of minorities. Most camps were exceedingly overcrowded and with deprived living conditions. The conditions included “tarpaper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind.” Unfortunately, coal was very hard to come by for the internees, so most would only have the blankets that were rationed out to sleep on. As for food, the allotment was about 48 cents per internee. This food was served in a mess hall of about 250 people and by other internees. Leadership positions within the camp were only given to the American-born Japanese, or Nisei. Eventually, the government decided that...
There are many more reasons.Guantanamo Bay should be closed because innocent people are suffering and its inhuman.
Rodriguez, Sal. "Day 41 of California Hunger Strike: CDCR Still Insists It’s A Gang Power
In the 1970s, prison was a dangerous place. Prison violence and the high numbers of disruptive inmates led prison authorities to seek new ways to control prisoners. At first, prison staff sought to minimize contact with prisoners by keeping them in their cells for a majority of the day. As time went on, the prison authorities began to brainstorm the idea of having entire prisons dedicated to using these kind of procedures to control the most violent and disruptive inmates. By 1984, many states began construction on super-maximum prisons. In California, two supermax facilities were built by the state: Corcoran State Prison in 1988, and then Pelican Bay in 1989. The federal government soon followed suit and in 1994, the “first federal supermax opened, in Florence, Colorado.” It was not much longer before supermax prisons could be seen all over the country (Abramsky). In Wisconsin’s supermax facility, with similar conditions being found in a majority of supermaxes, there are “100-cell housing units” that are in groups of 25 cells. These cells all face a secured central area. Technology plays a major role in keeping the facility to the highest security standards. Every cell’s doors are controlled remotely and the cells include “video surveillance, motion detection and exterior lighting” (Berge). With these technological securities, there are also procedural precautions. Inmates are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day until their sentences are done. This is said to be for prisoner and staff safety, although some feel otherwise. In 2001, 600 inmates at Pelican Bay went on a hunger strike, demanding reform. Those on hunger strike believed that the isolation and deprivation they faced was against their Eighth Amendment rights. ...
In human history, the most famous prison camp is the Auschwitz concentration camp where millions of human beings spent the last of their days. The most notorious group from Auschwitz being the Jews who lost the greatest number of its people and also the most remembered from the concentration camp. A prison camp is defined as “a camp for the confinement of war or political prisoners” (“Prison camps,” Dictionary.com). Prison camps found in the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPNK) have been found to treat its prisoners little more than beasts. The atrocities done in North Korea are unknown but the severity of the camps have left great scars on the people of North Korea. If left unknown, the prison camps in North Korea can mirror Auschwitz’s mass genocide on millions of people.
“Some researchers estimate more than 80,000 prisoners are held in social isolation” (Lisee, Chris). At any given time, eighty thousand inmates are being stripped of humanity, not including those who may have already spent time in and been released from these torture chambers. Government Accountability also reported that as of May 2013, “… the population of solitary confinement increased faster than the general prison population between 2008 and 2013” (Rhodan, Maya). These statistics show that not only is solitary confinement still implemented, it is becoming more popular among prisons. One group, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, leads by example through their protest against solitary confinement. The group joined in on a “23-hour nationwide fast June 19 at a press conference in Washington following the first-ever congressional hearing on solitary confinement” (Chris Lisee). The duration of the fast symbolized the general number of hours prisoners are contained without any social interaction or movement outside of their cells. The protests of interest groups, although not yet nationally effective, are making an impact. In Colorado, reforms are in
Guantanamo Bay is located at the southeastern tip of Cuba; it is a United States owned territory dating back to the Spanish American war. The territory contains a high security military detention center and a functional base. The detention center houses high priority Al Qaeda operatives and conspirators to the September 11th attacks on the world trade center. Guantanamo bay is an important asset to keeping the United States safe. In recent years the operation of the base has been slowed down due to the efforts of president Obama. He vowed to shut the base down and move the high risk targets to a high security prison in the United States main land. Without Guantanamo bay the United States wouldn’t be able to contain high risk detainees that the base currently holds. Guantanamo bay should stay open.
Although many people believe that the cruel treatment and torturing of prisoners is wrong and against everything that they stand for the act is still committed on a very frequent basis. Over the years there has been many incidents where evidence of brutal treatment of prisoners where they starved them, deprived them of sleep, and threatened them with execution. The prisoners were also forced to stay in stressful positions for up to 30 hours at a time while they were beaten and even in some cases tortured through electrical shocks. In many prisons in the UK muslims have started an uprising and are forcing inmates to convert using bullying and intimidation. The prison guards and administration fear this may lead to an outbreak in terrorist attacks. The officers claim nothing is being done about it and the people are too afraid to speak out. This is a very obvious problem that is ...
Life in prison can be a difficult experience to properly comprehend as an individual who has never been behind bars or somebody who has not been subjected under criminal law and incarcerated. Researcher Muzammil Quraishi, a British Muslim has undergone a year of research from July 2001 to July 2002 investigating Muslim prisoners in the United Kingdom. Muzammil goes through numerous challenged in his year worth of research investigating a sum of three anonymous prisons. Doing such Muzammil had gone through numerous obstacles, generic research validity, to the side effects of the field research. This paper will separate three columns of obstacles Muzammil had to go through, Technical issues, which would outline the challenges, he as a researched had to adapt to due to the setting he was investigating. The second is Political issues, which mostly stem from outside interferences; most notable would be the incident on September 11, 2001. Finally, the third is administration issues, which has the spotlight on regulations Muzammil had to abide by to get on with his research in a legitimate manner.
...en and women. The “victims” sitting in Guantanamo are being tortured for crimes not committed by them and are being rewarded with no families or loved ones and psychological trauma. Through many studies it has been proven that these victims will commit to false information just to stop the pain. Enhanced interrogation is one of the more popular techniques used to induce information from possible suspects; however, this technique is immoral in ways such as, but not limited to, impacting the victims life, family, and friends, the side effects of enhanced interrogation are disgusting, and in most cases victims admit to the false accusations which is in no way beneficial to the main problem. It has been proven that these methods are ineffective and are often misleading, in fact there are other much more humane methods which have been proven beneficial in many cases.
...s." While the unlawful combatants held at Gitmo receive daily sick calls, the U.N. Special Rapporteur criticized the "widespread incidence" of "tuberculosis, scabies, hepatitis, parasitic infections, and malnutrition" in Cuban prisons.
Two meals a day, less than 2500 calories, not enough to fill a toddler. Where and what is this place? Who is getting this food? Prisoners in the jails of the United States are where they are receiving these meals. One of the biggest complaints that come from Inmates is their food. Studies have shown when an inmate is released from incarceration, the first conversation they have with the outside world is the food but is it honestly all that bad? Is there no variety? The average American thinks of a prisoner's meal as a punishment, but they receive a mandatory set of meals and some food they are able to purchase themselves.
Gresham M. Sykes describes the society of captives from the inmates’ point of view. Sykes acknowledges the fact that his observations are generalizations but he feels that most inmates can agree on feelings of deprivation and frustration. As he sketches the development of physical punishment towards psychological punishment, Sykes follows that both have an enormous effect on the inmate and do not differ greatly in their cruelty.