Imagine being held captive for a crime for 11 years without a trial. Any day you could finally be released, or at least tried and found guilty, but you never are. For 11 years all you know are the confines of your cell wall and the hope that your captor will go ahead and make up their mind. For a handful of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay this nightmare is a reality, and they are doing whatever they can to be heard.
At least twenty four inmates are currently on a hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay, protesting the lack of any formal trial or sentencing since they were brought there. Most of the men have lived in this prison for around 11 years, and have lost all hope that they may ever receive a fair trial. They have stopped eating as a sign of resistance for their treatment, and are currently being fed through tubes in their noses.
Back when President Obama first took office, he promised to shut down Guantanamo Bay and end these detention practices first started by President Bush and viewed by many to be immoral. Rather than go through with this plan, however, Obama completed changed his stance on the issue in March of 2011 and issued an executive order that allows for the ongoing indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Under international law it is currently allowable to hold prisoners of war indefinitely until the conclusion of the war. The problem with this is, we do not appear to have any desire to pull our troops out of the Middle East. President Obama promised during his campaign in 2008 to end these wars on terror, and five years later we are still at war and will be for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, since we are involved in a "war on terror" and not in one against a particular nation, anyone deemed to be a terrorist can become indefinitely detained. Most of the hunger strikers hail form the country of Yemen, not Iraq or Afghanistan.
Periodically these hunger strikes have taken place at the prison ever since it first opened at the beginning of 2002. 166 prisoners have been detained at this prison on Cuba's coast, and nearly half of them have been cleared for transfer or release. And yet, it simply hasn't happened.
More than 50 lawyers representing the detainees have sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel requesting that he do something to stop the hunger strike. The lawyers claimed that their clients had lost upwards of 20-30 pounds and that their health was in serious jeopardy. The cost to run the Gauntanamo prison is about $114 million a year, which means the U.S. is currently spending $687,747 annually per a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay to detain people that they refuse to judge as innocent or guilty.
