On August 31, the US Justice Department submitted eight redacted video tapes to a Washington, DC court that shows medical and security personnel force feeding Guantanamo detainee Abu Wa’el Dhiab, The Guardian reported on Monday.
"Look at all the enhanced interrogation techniques… look at what they did in the CIA prisons," David Remes told Sputnik on Wednesday. "This [force feeding] is only one technique in a chamber of horrors."
It took about eight years, Remes explained, for the Justice Department to hand over the tapes to the judge, which have probably been heavily redacted by the CIA because the agency does its utmost to prevent misdeeds from being brought to public light.
The real issue, he noted, is not whether force feeding is illegal, but whether it violates accepted norms of medical ethics, considering that several organizations like the American Medical Association (AMA) and World Medical Association (WMA) forbid the practice.
"The physicians are not doing the force feeding, the nurses are doing the force feeding," in most cases, Remes explained. "Doctors just won’t do this… or they’re not supposed to be doing it in light of the ethical constraints that apply to them."
One nurse, however, refused to engage in force feeding prisoners, which drew a considerable amount of media attention within the past year, he added.
"And this is just one who went public with it," Remes underlined. "Who knows how many others there were? It was a very brave thing to do."
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is opposed to forced feeding, claiming it is essential that prisoners’ choices be respected and their human dignity preserved.
In 2014, the US Senate released the so-called CIA torture report which revealed that the agency lied to the government about its torture practices, including subjecting detainees to low temperatures, simulated drowning, sexual humiliation, forced rectal feeding and sleep deprivation.
