As the prison-wide hunger strike at Guantánamo reaches its 128th day, we are still awaiting action from President Obama, who promised three weeks ago to resume the release of cleared prisoners (who make up 86 out of the remaining 166 prisoners), and to appoint new envoys in the State Department and the Pentagon to deal with the resettlement of prisoners.

In the meantime, conditions in Guantánamo are harsher than they have been at any time since President Obama took office, nearly four and a half years ago. Two months ago, the authorities staged a violent dawn raid on Camp 6, where the majority of the prisoners are held, and where they had been allowed to spend much of their time communally, and locked everyone up in solitary confinement.

Militarily, this may have restored order, but it has not broken the hunger strike, and morally and ethically it is a disgrace. The reason the men are on a hunger strike is not to inconvenience the guard force, but to protest about their ongoing imprisonment — in almost all cases without charge or trial, and literally with no end in sight, after their abandonment by all three branches of the US government. As a result, a lockdown, which involves isolating these men from one another while they starve themselves, and while many of them are force-fed, is the cruellest way to proceed.

President Obama needs to act to address the hunger strike, primarily by fulfilling the promises he made three weeks ago, with a sense of urgency that he has never demonstrated.

According to the authorities, 104 prisoners are taking part in the hunger strike, and 43 of those men are being force-fed. To add pressure on President Obama, and on the authorities at Guantánamo, three American doctors — Dr. George Annas, Dr. Sondra Crosby and Dr. Leonard Glantz, all senior medical professors at Boston University — have just had an article published in the in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, in which they urge military physicians at Guantánamo to refuse to be involved in the force-feeding of prisoners.

"Military physicians should refuse to participate in any act that unambiguously violates medical ethics," they write, adding, "Military physicians who refuse to follow orders that violate medical ethics should be actively and strongly supported … Guantánamo has been described as a 'legal black hole’. As it increasingly also becomes a medical ethics free zone, we believe it’s time for the medical profession to take constructive political action."

Adding a poignant analysis from within Guantánamo, Shaker Aamer, the last British resident, who is one of the 86 men cleared for release three and a half years ago by President Obama’s inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force, said in a phone call to Clive Stafford Smith, the director of Reprieve, and one of his lawyers, that "force-feeding now takes place 24/7 in Guantánamo, using new metal-tipped tubes to cause extra pain," and that "15 prisoners now weigh between 85 and 102 pounds." According to Shaker, "they look like starving Biafrans."

Shaker also had some words to describe the recent visits to Guantánamo by Sen. John McCain and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, accompanied by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, and by journalists arriving to cover the latest pre-trial hearings in the military commissions. "Gitmo visitors," he said, are "shown the buildings, which are still standing; they do not see the detainees, who are falling down."

In my 2000th post, I hope to shed some light on the men taking part in the hunger strike at Guantánamo by following up on a list of 19 of the 43 prisoners being force-fed, which was published in the Miami Herald. Primarily through the work of Carol Rosenberg, the Miami Herald has consistently provided excellent reporting on Guantánamo, and this list is a good example of that.

As the introduction to the list explains, "Guantánamo prison spokesmen refuse to identify the hunger strikers. But the Justice Department has been notifying the attorneys of captives who have become so malnourished that they require forced-feedings. Nineteen prisoners’ attorneys or family members have, in turn, notified the Miami Herald of their identities."

As my main aim, for the last seven years of researching and writing about Guantánamo, has been to tell the stories of the prisoners, to humanize them and to break through the black propaganda that was used to describe them, when the prison first opened, as "the worst of the worst," I’m delighted to publish below my version of the list, with descriptions of the prisoners based on my research and my published work.

19 of the 43 Men Being Force-Fed in the Prison-Wide Hunger Strike at Guantánamo

The cleared prisoners

Nabil Hadjarab (ISN 238, Algeria) 33 years old, he is one of the 56 prisoners (and one of four Algerians) on a list of prisoners cleared for release by the inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force, established by President Obama, which issued its recommendations in a report in January 2010. The list was made publicly available by the Justice Department in a court case last September. An orphan who has extended family in France, he was first cleared for release under the Bush administration in June 2007, and I wrote about his case last year in an article entitled, "Nabil Habjarab, the 'Sweet Kid’ in Guantánamo, Was Cleared in 2007 But Is Still Held." For further information, see his page on the website of Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity whose lawyers represent him. Also see this newly released animated video about him (in which his words are read by the British actor David Morrissey), and sign the petition to the French government on Change.org.

Mohammed al-Hamiri (ISN 249, Yemen) Now in his 30s, he is one of the 56 prisoners on a list of prisoners cleared for release by the inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force, established by President Obama, which issued its recommendations in a report in January 2010. The list was made publicly available by the Justice Department in a court case last September. 26 of these 56 men are Yemenis, and 30 others — all Yemenis — were also cleared for release, but were placed in "conditional detention" by the task force, to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved. He was first cleared for release under the Bush administration in April 2007, and is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. In January, Omar Farah, a staff attorney at CCR, wrote an article about him which I made available, with my own commentary, here.

Ahmed Belbacha (ISN 290, Algeria) 44 years old, he is one of the 56 prisoners (and one of four Algerians) on a list of prisoners cleared for release by the inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force, established by President Obama, which issued its recommendations in a report in January 2010. The list was made publicly available by the Justice Department in a court case last September. A former footballer who had fled Algeria because of persecution by extremists, Belbacha fought a long legal battle to prevent his enforced repatriation, after being first cleared for release under the Bush administration in 2006. He had lived briefly in the UK, although the British government has shown no interest in offering him a new home, and communities in the US have agreed to offer him a new home — if political opposition to such a plan could be overcome. For further information, see his page on the website of Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity whose lawyers represent him, and my archive here.

Jalal Bin Amer (ISN 564, Yemen) Also identified as Jalal Bin Amer Awad, he is 40 years old, and is one of the 56 prisoners on a list of prisoners cleared for release by the inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force, established by President Obama, which issued its recommendations in a report in January 2010. The list was made publicly available by the Justice Department in a court case last September. 26 of these 56 men are Yemenis, and 30 others — all Yemenis — were also cleared for release, but were placed in "conditional detention" by the task force, to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved. He is represented by lawyers at Killmer, Lane & Newman in Denver, Colorado. As I explained in an article in February 2011, "The 11-Year Old American Girl Who Knows More About Guantánamo Than Most US Lawmakers," when Sammie Killmer, the 11-year old daughter of one of the lawyers, Darold Killmer, wrote about Guantánamo for a school project, and came up with short descriptions for each of her father’s firm’s clients, which were wonderfully descriptive. Sammie was told that Jalal "talks very fast and likes pictures of very beautiful animals."

Abu Wa’el Dihab (ISN 722, Syria) Also identified as Jihad Diyab, he is 41 years old, and is one of the 56 prisoners (and one of four Syrians) on a list of prisoners cleared for release by the inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force, established by President Obama, which issued its recommendations in a report in January 2010. The list was made publicly available by the Justice Department in a court case last September. After moving with his family to Afghanistan, where he ran a food import business (mainly involving honey), he moved to Lahore, Pakistan after 9/11, where he was seized on April 1, 2012. Disturbingly, his health is so poor that he is confined to a wheelchair, and is profoundly depressed, and it is, therefore, particularly troubling that he is being force-fed. For further information, see his page on the website of Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity whose lawyers represent him.

The long-term hunger strikers

Abdul Rahman Shalabi (ISN 42, Saudi Arabia) 35 years old, he has been on a hunger strike for nearly eight years. He began his hunger strike in August 2005, as part of the largest hunger strike in the prison’s history. He weighed 124 pounds when he arrived at Guantánamo in January 2002, but has rarely weighed more than 110 pounds since. At one point, in November 2005, he weighed just 100 pounds, and when the authorities took harsh steps to bring the strike under control in January 2006, importing a number of restraint chairs to make sure that it "wasn’t convenient" for the strikers to continue (as Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the head of the US Southern Command, explained to the New York Times), Shalabi, Tarek Baada (see below) and another Saudi, Ahmed Zuhair (who was released in June 2009), refused to give up. In September 2009, after four years of being force-fed daily, Shalabi weighed just 108 pounds, and wrote a distressing letter to his lawyers, in which he stated, "I am a human who is being treated like an animal." In November 2009, when his letter was included in a court submission, one of his lawyers, Julia Tarver Mason, stated, "He’s two pounds away from organ failure and death." For further information, see my article from October 2010, "Secrecy Still Shrouds Guantánamo’s Five-Year Hunger Striker."

Tarek Baada (ISN 178, Yemen) Also identified as Tariq Ba’Awda or Tareq Baada, he is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, where staff attorney Omar Farah explained, as the Miami Herald put it, that his client "has been on an uninterrupted hunger strike since February 2007." In a letter in April, he wrote, "I haven’t tasted food for over six years. The feeding tube has been introduced into my nose and snaked into my stomach thousands and thousands of times." He was previously part of the prison-wide hunger strike that began in the summer of 2005, and as I ascertained through an analysis of the weight records released by the Pentagon in 2007, he weighed 121 pounds on arrival at the prison, but in January 2006, when he was one of a handful of hunger strikers to continue after the prison-wide strike of 2005 was largely halted, he weighed just 94 pounds.

The others, not cleared for release

Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman (ISN 27, Yemen) He is 32 years old, and, although he is not one of the 56 prisoners cleared for immediate release from the prison by President Obama’s inter-agency task force in January 2010, it is not known if he is amongst the 30 additional Yemenis cleared for release but held in "conditional detention," to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved. He had his habeas corpus petition granted in February 2010, but had that successful ruling overturned on appeal in March 2011. I analyzed those rulings in articles entitled, "Judge Rules Yemeni’s Detention at Guantánamo Based Solely on Torture" and "Mocking the Law, Judges Rule that Evidence Is Not Necessary to Hold Insignificant Guantánamo Prisoners for the Rest of Their Lives."

Muaz al-Alawi (ISN 28, Yemen) Also identified as Moath al-Alwi, he is about 35 years old, and, although he is not one of the 56 prisoners cleared for immediate release from the prison by President Obama’s inter-agency task force in January 2010, it is not known if he is amongst the 30 additional Yemenis cleared for release but held in "conditional detention," to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved. His lawyer Ramzi Kassem has explained that he was injured during the dawn raid on Camp Six in Guantánamo on April 13, after which those who had been able to spend communal time together were placed in solitary confinement. Ramzi Kassem also explained that his client "was shot in the chest with rubber bullet pellets," as the Miami Herald described it. In December 2008, al-Alawi had his habeas corpus petition denied, in a ruling that I analysed in an article entitled, "No End in Sight for the "Enemy Combatants" of Guantánamo." He also lost his appeal in July 2011, which I mentioned in my article, "Guantánamo and the Death of Habeas Corpus."

Samir Moqbel (ISN 43, Yemen) Also identified as Samir Mukbel, he is in his 30s, and his plight — and that of the hunger strikers in general — gained a wide audience in April 2013 when "Gitmo Is Killing Me," an op-ed he wrote, with assistance from his lawyers, was published in the New York Times. He has always stated that he was tricked into going to Afghanistan, and as I noted, in Guantánamo, in response to allegations that he was a bodyguard for bin Laden, and that he fought with the Taliban in various locations, he stated, "These accusations make you laugh. These accusations are like a movie. Me, a bodyguard for bin Laden, then do operations against Americans and Afghanis and make trips in Afghanistan? I don’t believe any human being could do all these things … This is me? I have watched a lot of American movies like Rambo and Superman, but I believe that I am better than them. I went to Pakistan and Afghanistan a month before the Americans got there … How can a person do all these operations in only a month?" He is not one of the 56 prisoners cleared for immediate release from the prison by President Obama’s inter-agency task force in January 2010, but it is not known if he is amongst the 30 additional Yemenis cleared for release but held in "conditional detention," to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved.

Mohammed Ghanem (ISN 44, Yemen) Also identified as Mohammed Ghanim, he is in his late 30s. Although he is not one of the 56 prisoners cleared for immediate release from the prison by President Obama’s inter-agency task force in January 2010, it is not known if he is amongst the 30 additional Yemenis cleared for release but held in "conditional detention," to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved. In a report from a former prisoner published many years ago by Cageprisoners, it was stated that Ghanim was subjected to prolonged sleep deprivation in Guantánamo, as part of what was euphemistically termed "the frequent flier program," and was also denied medical treatment: "Every two hours he would get moved from cell to cell, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, sometimes cell to cell, sometimes block to block, over a period of eight months. He was deprived of sleep because of this and he was also deprived of medical attention. He had lost a lot of weight. He had a painful medical problem, haemorrhoids, and that treatment was refused unless he cooperated. He said he would cooperate and had an operation. However, the operation was not performed correctly and he still had problems. He would not cooperate. [H]e was [then] put in Romeo Block where the prisoners would be made to stand naked. It was then left to the discretion of the interrogators whether a prisoner was allowed clothes or not."

Fawzi al-Odah (ISN 232, Kuwait) 36 years old, al-Odah is one of the last two Kuwaiti prisoners in Guantánamo. He does not currently have legal representation,  but the Miami Herald explained that, his father Khalid "said his son told him via a Red Cross video teleconference on May 21 that he was being force fed twice daily." The Herald added, "Defense lawyers say other detainees have confirmed this as well, although without a lawyer of record the Justice Department has not sent notification." I know the cases of the remaining two Kuwaiti prisoners very well (and visited Kuwait to campaign for them in February 2012 — see here, here and here), and I believe that neither man is a threat to the US. I was disappointed when, in August 2009, al-Odah had his habeas corpus petition denied, which I wrote about in an article entitled, "No Escape From Guantánamo: The Latest Habeas Rulings."

Abdulatif Nasir (ISN 244, Morocco) Also identified as Abdul Latif Nassir, or Abdulatif Nasser, he is 48 years old. According to his lawyers, he had worked as a small-scale businessman in Libya and Sudan, and had also spent time in Yemen and Pakistan. In Guantánamo, he has experienced particularly harsh treatment, because he has stood up for the rights of his fellow prisoners, and has refused to stay silent in the face of injustice. I presume that he is one of the 46 prisoners designated for indefinite detention without charge or trial by President Obama in the executive order he issued in March 2011, even though there appears to be no reason for him to be regarded as a threat to the United States.

Mohammed Haidel (ISN 498, Yemen) Also identified as Mohammed Haydar, he is about 35 years old. A long-term hunger striker at Guantánamo, he weighed just 105 pounds on arrival in May 2002. In November 2002, his weight dropped to just 90 pounds, and at the time that the Pentagon’s declassified weight records – publicly released in March 2007 — came to an end, in November 2006, he weighed just 102 pounds. He is not one of the 56 prisoners cleared for immediate release from the prison by President Obama’s inter-agency task force in January 2010, but it is not known if he is amongst the 30 additional Yemenis cleared for release but held in "conditional detention," to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved.

Yasin Ismail (ISN 522, Yemen) Also identified as Yasin Ismael, he is in his 30s. He lost his habeas corpus petition in April 2020, and that decision was upheld on appeal in April 2011. For my responses to these rulings, see, "An Insignificant Yemeni at Guantánamo Loses His Habeas Petition" and "More Judicial Interference on Guantánamo." He is not one of the 56 prisoners cleared for immediate release from the prison by President Obama’s inter-agency task force in January 2010, but it is not known if he is amongst the 30 additional Yemenis cleared for release but held in "conditional detention," to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved.

Fayiz al-Kandari (ISN 552, Kuwait) Also identified as Fayez al-Kandari, he recently turned 35 in Guantánamo. I know the cases of the remaining two Kuwaiti prisoners very well (and visited Kuwait to campaign for them in February 2012 — see here, here and here), and I am dismayed that the US regards Fayiz as a threat, as there is no evidence that he was ever involved in terrorism or any kind of militant or military activity. Despite this, he was put forward for a trial by military commission under the Bush administration in 2008 (although those charges never proceeded to a trial), and his habeas corpus petition was denied in September 2010. See my articles, "Resisting Injustice In Guantánamo: The Story Of Fayiz Al-Kandari" and "Fayiz Al-Kandari, A Kuwaiti Aid Worker in Guantánamo, Loses His Habeas Petition."

Zohair al-Shorabi (ISN 569, Yemen) Also identified as Suhail Abdo Anam Shorabi, he is about 35 years old. In January 2011, he was described as being on a hunger strike, and being force-fed, by his lawyers, at Killmer, Lane & Newman in Denver, Colorado, who also explained that he "likes to read books about all different cultures." He is not one of the 56 prisoners cleared for immediate release from the prison by President Obama’s inter-agency task force in January 2010, but it is not known if he is amongst the 30 additional Yemenis cleared for release but held in "conditional detention," to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved.

Zahir Bin Hamdoun (ISN 576, Yemen) Also identified as Zahir Hamdoun, he is 33 years old. His attorney, John Chandler, "said he was previously a long-term hunger strike who was force fed for more than a year since 2006." He is not one of the 56 prisoners cleared for immediate release from the prison by President Obama’s inter-agency task force in January 2010, but it is not known if he is amongst the 30 additional Yemenis cleared for release but held in "conditional detention," to be freed only when it was somehow decided that the security situation in Yemen had improved.

Hayil al-Mithali (ISN 840, Yemen) Also identified as Ha’il al-Maythali, he is 36 years old, and is one of six men still held who were seized in a house raid in Karachi, Pakistan on September 11, 2002, on the same day that, in another, apparently unconnected location, the "high-value detainee" Ramzi bin al-Shibh was also seized. Before he was sent to Guantánamo, he was taken to the CIA-run "Dark Prison" in Afghanistan, where, he said, "there was very bad torture conducted on people," including himself, which was "so bad that he knew by making up and agreeing to the training [accepting that he undertook training at a camp in Afghanistan] it would stop the torture." He added that "his testicles were disfigured to the point where they cannot be repaired."

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the "Close Guantánamo" campaign, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo" (available on DVD here – or here for the US).

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