Major trigger warning. The hip-hop artist and actor formerly known as Mos Def and currently going by Yasiin Bey underwent the force-feeding procedure administered to some of Guantanamo Bay inmates on hunger strike. Over 100 prisoners are on a hunger strike, which started in February and 44 of them are being fed against their will. Bey made the video with the Human Rights organization Reprieve “to rally support for Guantanamo Bay prisoners who are on hunger-strike in protest against their detention without charge or trial” and to urge the Obama Administration to halt the force-feeding during the month-long day-time fast of Ramadan observed by Muslims. The video was released on Monday, to coincide with the start of Ramadan. The procedure performed in the video is based on a 30-page long Standard Operating Procedure manual on force-feeding Guantanamo Bay prisoners, which was leaked to Al-Jazeerain May. Jason Leopold describes the brutality of the procedure,
that requires them to wear masks over their mouths while they sit shackled in a restraint chair for as long as two hours… The prisoners remain this way, with a 61cm – or longer – tube snaked through their nostril until a chest X-ray, or a test dose of water, confirms it has reached their stomach.
At the end of the feeding, the prisoner is removed from the restraint chair and placed into a “dry cell” with no running water. A guard then observes the detainee for 45-60 minutes “for any indications of vomiting or attempts to induce vomiting”. If the prisoner vomits he is returned to the restraint chair.
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