The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Monday demanded the United States explain abuses allegedly committed at Guantanamo prison, especially its practice of force-feeding inmates on hunger strike.
“The information we have indicates that there was a general and systematic violation of human rights” in Guantanamo, said Rodrigo Escobar Gil, one of the Washington-based body’s seven commissioners.
The allegations of forced feeding of Guantanamo prisoners on hunger strike constituted “cruel and inhumane treatment,” he added.
“We want to know … what research is being done about it” and “what steps have been taken to meet the demands of the prisoners,” the commissioner said.
At its peak, some 106 out of 164 detainees were on hunger strike in protest against the legal limbo in which detainees are held at the prison, which is on a US naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba.
According to US authorities, who say that the strike ended in late September after more than six months, up to 46 of the detainees were force-fed through nasal tubes at some point in the protest.
The government has argued in US court that the practice, called enteral feeding, “is used only when medically necessary to protect life and health.”