U.S. urged to abandon force-feeding at Guantanamo

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http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6536985&cKey=1141949116000

LONDON (Reuters) - More than 250 doctors from seven countries urged the U.S. government on Friday to abandon force-feeding and the use of restraints on hunger strikers at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

The doctors from Britain, the United States, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands said prisoners at the camp in eastern Cuba have the right to refuse treatment and that physicians must respect their decision.

"We urge the U.S. government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned," the doctors said in an open letter published in The Lancet medical journal.

They added that the World Medical Association, a global body representing physicians, specifically prohibits force-feeding in two declarations dating back to 1975. The American Medical Association is a co-signatory of the declarations.

The letter also questions how seriously the American medical profession takes allegations of torture by its own members.

[Canuckistanian]

1. Those aren't doctors in Gitmo

They're torturers with a medical degree. They broke the first rule of the Hippocratic oath.

[Jacobin]

2. This is so sick

They torture the guys, insult them, interrogate them and then when they just want to check out of this world and end the years of misery by not eating, they force feed them?

This is beyond sick. It is utterly and contemptibly insane