The 2013 Guantánamo Bay Hunger Strike

The 2013 Guantánamo Bay hunger strike was the second large-scale detainee hunger strike since the detention camp was opened in 2002. The first occurred in 2005. It was claimed that the number of hunger strikers then was as high as 84 and was in response to the prisoners not being treated according to the Geneva Conventions. According to prison authorities, the 2013 hunger strike involved, at its peak, 106 of the 164 continuing detainees in Guantanámo. Also according to the prison authorities, the prisoners have been force-fed nutritional formula and electrolyte solutions by nasogastric feeding tubes. This practice has been condemned by the American Medical Association as contrary to medical ethics and, depending on the manner in which is done, as torture.

According to detainee and defense lawyer testimony, the 2013 strike is in response to deteriorating conditions in the prison itself. This includes the continued detention of inmates who have been cleared for release, the introduction of a stricter disciplinary policy for detainees, and a lack of visibility to the global public. The strike resulted in a speech by President Obama stating the opening of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp had been a mistake and reiterating his intention to have the facility closed. At the time of writing, no such action has been taken.

Tracking the Hunger Strike

The most recent publicly available document regarding the management of hunger strikes at Guantánamo is a March 5, 2013 Standard Operating Procedure. According to this document,

• A hunger striker is defined as a detainee who communicates intent to refuse meals and misses either 9 consecutive meals or drops to a weight below 85% Ideal Body Weight (IBW).
• An enteral feeder is a detainee on hunger strike who has been approved for forced feeding by the Commander, Joint Task Force Guantanamo.
• A hunger striker on medical observation is a striker not yet approved for involuntary feeding, but under hospital observation.

The statistics charted here have been compiled from information forwarded to the Guantanamo Testimonials Project by LTC Samuel House and Maj. Christian Hodge, consecutive Deputy Directors of Public Affairs at JTF-GTMO. The statistics range from March 15, 2013 to May 24, 2013. Although Maj. Hodge told us no statistics were tracked outside those dates, a reporter from The Miami Herald told us that newspaper continued to track—through December 2, 2013—the statistics it received from prison authorities.

Statistics from the following dates are missing and were confirmed unavailable by the JTF-GTMO: March 16-17, March 23-24, March 30-31, April 13-15, April 18, May 1, May 4-7 (see gaps in the chart below).

This data is inconsistent with the numbers reported by hunger striking prisoners and their lawyers. Thus, according to Ramzi Kassem, a defense lawyer for several of the Guantánamo prisoners, the strike began on February 6, 2013 and involved a majority of the prisoners at the camp. The conditions of the strike have been described in the following documents:

This letter from Defense Lawyers to Defense Secretary Hagel dated March 14, 2013 details some of the conditions that led to the hunger strike, including perceived religious desecration of detainees' Qur'ans, confiscation of personal items, and an escalation of the severity of conditions in the camp. Moreover, the lawyers claim the hunger strike began in Camp Six, the largest camp in the prison, and began February 6, 2013.

This letter from Defense Lawyers to Rear Admiral Smith dated March 4, 2013 details the confiscation of detainees' personal items such as books, razors, blankets, and family photos. It also raises the concern that the hunger strike, if permitted to continue, will affect the detainees' access to effective legal counsel. 

Muaz Hamza Ahmad al-Alwi (ISN 028) details here the practice of forced enteral feeding, the conditions in solitary confinement, and the intentions of the hunger strikers. Samir Naji al-Hasan Moqbel (ISN 043) describes the conditions of his detention and forced-feeding in this New York Times editorial.

The data for this chart comes from correspondence with JTF-GTMO collected between October 9, 2013 to November 6, 2013.

This report was prepared by Nicolai Haddal and released on November 20, 2013. Two weeks later, U.S. Southern Command ordered Guantanamo authorities to stop issuing figures of their hunger-striking prisoners. Navy Cmdr. John Filostrat, chief of the public-relations team at the Guantanamo prison, explained that JTF-GTMO "will not further [the prisoners'] protests by reporting the numbers to the public."

This report has been reviewed by the Guantánamo Blog.

Last revised: December 17, 2013.