• Submitted by: lena campos
• Guantánamo
• 03 / 27 / 2013

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A mission from the International Red Cross Committee is supervising the health of a number of prisoners today that have been on hunger strike for weeks to protest the torture applied to them at the US military base located in Guantanamo.

Bijan Farnudim, spokesman for that world organization, told the media that a doctor and another health specialist were sent to that military center, established in the Cuban southeastern area against the will of the people and authorities of that Caribbean country.

According to the official, the Committee had planned to start visiting the prisoners on April 1 and continuing for two weeks, but decided to move up its schedule "to try to understand the current tensions there and the hunger strike."

The protest began on February 6, with six prisoners in cellblock Camp six, but with the passing of days, more prisoners were radicalized and joined the strike to reject measures like indefinite confinement, the search of their personal effects and confiscation of copies of the Koran, the sacred book of Muslims.

According to prison spokesman Robert Durand at the U.S. base, there are currently 31 detainees participating in the strike and 11 are being fed with a catheter. Others are in the hospital due to serious dehydration.

Attorneys for the prisoners asserted that the real number exceeds 100 strikers and except for some elderly prisoners, none are accepting the feeding offered by the authorities of the prison and are drinking only water.

"This is an unprecedented strike, due to its magnitude, its duration and the strikers' determination," David Remes, legal representative for 15 participants in the protest explained to the media.

President Barack Obama promised during his 2008 electoral campaign, to close that prison but did not keep his promise in his first term of office nor de he mention the issue again after being reelected last year to a second term.

The naval base that the United States maintains in Cuban territory against the will of the people was turned into a prison in 2001 to jail all those considered suspects of terrorism.

Source: Prensa Latina