Radio: On Day 150 of the Hunger Strike at Guantánamo, Andy Worthington Talks to Michael Slate

Yesterday, I was delighted to speak to Michael Slate on his show on KPFK in Los Angeles, as the monstrosity that is Guantánamo reached another horrible milestone — Day 150 of the prison-wide hunger strike that began in early February. Michael and I have spoken many times before (most recently here and here), and our 20-minute interview is here, at the start of the hour-long show.

According to the authorities, 106 of the remaining 166 prisoners are taking part in the hunger strike (the prisoners claim the true total is around 120). Moreover, 45 of these men are being force-fed, a horrible process whereby they are strapped down into restraint chairs twice a day, and have liquid nutrient pumped into their stomachs through tubes inserted up their noses.

For recent discussions of this process by two of the men being force-fed — who, shockingly, are amongst the 86 men cleared for release who are still held — see “Guantánamo Hunger Strike: Nabil Hadjarab Tells Court, ‘I Will Consider Eating When I See People Leaving This Place‘” and “In Court Submission, Hunger Striker Ahmed Belbacha Tells Obama, ‘End the Nightmare that is Guantánamo.’”

This is how Michael described the show:

Friday July 5 is Day 150 of a prison-wide hunger strike at Guantánamo, the prison and torture camp the Bush and Obama administrations have operated since 2002. Over half of the 166 prisoners have already been cleared for release, and only a small number of the rest are actually facing charges. The heroic actions of the prisoners, which continue, have focused international attention on the horrendous and illegal conditions they face. On May 23, Barack Obama gave a major speech in which he again talked about releasing prisoners and closing Guantánamo. Yet nothing has happened.

Andy Worthington, of CloseGuantánamo.org, and author of The Guantánamo Files, talks about the hunger strike, and the continuing struggle in support of the prisoners.

The show also featured the director and actors from a play in L.A. about imperialism in Africa, and Larry Everest, who I have had the pleasure to meet on visits to the West Coast. Larry is a writer for Revolution newspaper, and the author of Oil, Power and Empire: Iraq and the US Global Agenda.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here – or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the four-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.