Video: Rapper Mos Def (Yasiin Bey) Force-Fed Like Guantánamo Prisoners
My friends and colleagues at Reprieve, the legal action charity whose lawyers represent 15 prisoners in Guantánamo, have just launched a campaign, “Stand Fast for Justice,” in which they are encouraging people to fast in solidarity with the prisoners at Guantánamo, 120 of whom are taking part in a hunger strike that is now in its sixth month. As the website states, “Stand for your belief in basic human rights. Fast to relieve an unjustly-treated detainee. Start your own hunger strike in solidarity — for hours or days, any support helps.”
To launch the #Standfast campaign, the rapper and actor Mos Def (now known as Yasiin Bey) agreed to be force-fed according to the Standard Operating Procedure for force-feeding prisoners at Guantánamo, which was obtained in May by Jason Leopold of Al-Jazeera.
The harrowing results are below, in a four-minute film, made by Reprieve and the Bafta award-winning director Asif Kapadia, in which Yasiin Bey found the procedure so harrowing that he was unable to continue with it. As the Guardian described it, “When the first tube was dislodged, he was unable to go ahead with a second attempt by the medical team to insert it.”
Breaking down, he said, “I can’t do it,” and afterwards explained, The first part of it is not that bad but then you get this burning and then it just starts to get really unbearable and it starts to feel like somethings going into your brain, and then it reached the back of my throat, and I really just couldn’t take it.” Read the rest of this entry »
Who's still at Guantánamo?
