Guantanamo: U.S. Navy Nurse Refuses To Force-Feed Detainees, Believes It To Be A Criminal Act

A U.S. military nurse has refused to conduct forced feedings of inmates who are on an extended hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, a rights lawyer and U.S. official said Tuesday. Of the 147 personnel attached to the Joint Medical Group of prisoners, 83 are known to be responsible for direct detainee care.

Cori Crider, an attorney for the British legal rights group Reprieve, spoke in a phone interview from London about the reported actions of an unidentified male nurse declining to participate after deciding the practice is a criminal act, CNN reported. The narration of events was shared last week by his client, Abu Wa'el Dhiab, who has been at the U.S. Navy base on Cuba since August 2002, and is part of a group of detainees who are participating in a hunger strike to protest their continued, open-end detention without charges being filed, said Crider.

"Initially, he did carry out his orders and participate in the tube feedings. But when he came, as soon as he saw what was happening, he started talking to the brothers," meaning the inmates, Dhiab was quoted as saying. "He explained to us: 'Before we came here, we were told a different story. The story we were told was completely the opposite of what I saw.' Once he saw with his own eyes that what he was told was contrary to what was actually taking place here, he decided he could not do it anymore."

Late Tuesday, a Pentagon official confirmed, "There was a recent instance of a medical provider not willing to carry-out the enteral feeding of a detainee. The matter is in the hands of the individual's leadership. The service member has been temporarily assigned to alternate duties with no impact to medical support operations."

It is the first time that a nurse or doctor is known to have refused the controversial process of "enteral feeding," which is designed to provide liquid nutrition and medicine via a tube inserted in the nose directly into the stomach, said Army Col. Greg Julian, a spokesman for Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo.

"This nurse showed incredible courage -- to see the basic humanity of the prisoners and to recognize that force-feeding is wrong is a historic stand," Crider told CNN. "It meant a great deal to my client and to the other cleared detainees who are hunger striking."

Hunger strikes at Guantanamo began shortly after the prison opened in 2002, with force-feeding starting in early 2006 following a mass hunger strike. A new strike began in February 2013, with more than 100 of 154 prisoners in custody participating at one point, according to the Associated Press. The U.S. military, however, has justified its actions as humane and necessary to keep the inmates alive.

Currently, there are about 150 inmates at Guantanamo.

Real Time Analytics