• From Gandhi to Bobby Sands: Hunger strikers through history

    By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Few forms of civil disobedience attract the same level of public attention as a hunger strike.

    Visceral, agonizing, and striking at a person’s most simple needs, the method of protest has been used the world over to galvanize popular support, unite a cause, and draw attention to issues that otherwise might go ignored.

    Entirely reliant on how long the striker can hold out against his or her most basic instincts, hunger strikes don’t require placards or meeting halls or television cameras. It’s a means of dissent available to almost anyone, anywhere in the world.

    AFP – Getty Images

    Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in an undated file photo

    President Obama vowed on Tuesday to make good on an old campaign promise and close Guantanamo Bay, where more than half of the terror suspects held at the prison camp are on a hunger strike to protest their living conditions and continued detention.

    Here are some others who have achieved notoriety for not eating:

    1. Marion Wallace-Dunlop
    After being arrested for mounting a protest outside the House of Commons in July 1909, Wallace-Dunlop became the first British suffragette to take up a hunger strike. She held out for ninety-one hours before being released by authorities worried for her health. The tactic caught on in popularity among other incarcerated members of the Women’s Social and Political Union.

    2. Mohandas Gandhi
    The man credited with helping found an independent Indian state and the inspiration for countless non-violent protests, Gandhi used hunger strikes as a tactic numerous times. Some proved unsuccessful, like a twenty-one day fast against British rule that Gandhi began in February 1943. Another fast in 1948 ended after five days, with Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus saying they would work toward Gandhi’s vision of greater national unity.

    Sal Veder / AP

    United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez at a rally in Salinas, Calif., in 1970.

    3. Cesar Chavez
    The Latino-American labor rights leader used hunger strikes multiple times while agitating for farm workers. In 1968, Chavez undertook a 25-day fast to gain recognition for the union he helped co-found, the United Farm Workers. He repeated the fast for 24 days in 1972, then carried on a 36-day fast in 1988 at the age of 61.

    4. Guillermo Farinas
    A Cuban journalist and dissident, Farinas has mounted hunger strikes to protest the death of a fellow activist, denounce his country’s position on Internet censorship, and demand the release of political prisoners.

    5. Bobby Sands
    This Irish nationalist died 66 days into a hunger strike in 1981, demanding that Irish Republican Army members be held as political prisoners by the British during the Troubles. The 27-year-old Sands lost 60 pounds before he died. He actions drew the ire of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who called him a "convicted criminal" after he died, who "chose to take his own life." Nine more hunger strikers died after Sands.

    AFP – Getty Images

    Undated picture of North Ireland's Bobby Sands.

    6. Saddam Hussein
    No matter how harrowing, not all hunger strikes elicit the public’s good will. Iraq’s deposed despot announced in February 2006 that he had gone on a hunger strike to protest his trial. Hussein lasted nineteen days, citing health concerns when he threw in the towel.

    7. Mia Farrow
    The actress made it through 12 days of a planned three-week fast to protest the expulsion of aid agencies from the embattled region of Darfur in 2009. The “Hannah and Her Sisters” star called it quits after she lost nearly 13 pounds, she later told “People.”

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  • Lawyers for 9/11 suspects ask military judge to preserve secret CIA prisons as evidence

    Brennan Linsley / AP file

    In this photo, reviewed by a U.S. Dept of Defense official, a detainee shields his face as he peers out through the so-called "bean hole" which is used to pass food and other items into detainee cells, at Camp Delta detention center, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Dec. 4. 2006.

    By Jane Sutton, Reuters
    GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Lawyers for five alleged conspirators who attacked America on September 11 and say they were tortured in secret CIA prisons have asked a U.S. military judge to order that the prisons be preserved as evidence.

    The issue is one of more than two dozen on the docket for a week of pretrial hearings that began on Monday in the war crimes tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba.

    The defendants include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the hijacked plane attacks that killed 2,976 people on September 11, 2001. He wore a camouflage jacket to court over his white tunic and defiantly refused to answer the judge's questions.


    Defense lawyers also have asked the judge to order the U.S. government to turn over all White House or Justice Department documents authorizing the CIA to move suspected al-Qaida captives across borders without judicial review and hold and interrogate them in secret prisons after the September 11 attacks.

    President George W. Bush announced in 2006 that the September 11 defendants were among a group of "high-value" captives sent to Guantanamo from the secret prisons.

    The CIA has acknowledged that Mohammed was subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. The defendants said they were also subjected to sleep deprivation, threats, and being chained in painful positions.

    The defense lawyers will argue that their clients' treatment was illegal pretrial punishment and constituted "outrageous government misconduct" that could justify dismissal of the charges, or at least spare the defendants from execution if convicted.

    "By its nature, torture affects the admissibility of evidence, the credibility of witnesses, the appropriateness of punishment and the legitimacy of the prosecution itself," the defense lawyers wrote in court documents.

    At least one potential witness was also held in the CIA prisons and his treatment could raise questions about the admissibility of his testimony, said James Connell, defense attorney for Mohammed's nephew, defendant Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali.

    The chief prosecutor, Brigadier General Mark Martins, said the prosecution does not plan to introduce any evidence obtained from the defendants or anyone else via torture, cruelty or inhuman treatment - which is prohibited by U.S. law and international treaty.

    In a departure from the Bush administration, the Obama administration has made it clear that any interrogation techniques must adhere to those long established in the army field manual, which prohibits torture.

    The defendants have been in U.S. custody for a decade, but there are still numerous legal and evidentiary issues that must be resolved before their trial begins on charges that include murder, hijacking, terrorism and attacking civilians.

    Abu Ghraib as 'crime scene'
    The judge presiding over the September 11 trial, Army Colonel James Pohl, ordered in 2004 that the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq be preserved as a "crime scene." He was at the time presiding over the trial of U.S. military police officers accused of torturing and photographing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. 

    Iraq was then under U.S. occupation. It was unclear whether Pohl had authority to order the preservation of the CIA prisons, whose location the government has kept secret, arguing that disclosure could threaten U.S. national security and put allies at risk.

    Polish prosecutors are investigating allegations that one of the sites was in Poland, and there is evidence the CIA set up others in Romania, Lithuania and Thailand, according to reports by the Council of Europe and the United Nations.

    Lawyers for the September 11 defendants first made the request for preservation of the secret CIA prisons under seal in September of last year. The request was unsealed about a month later. But this week's pre-trial hearing marks the first time it has been presented in the Guantanamo court.

    Before considering the CIA prisons issue, the court on Monday began slogging through issues such as whether the defendants had agreed to add lawyers to two defense teams and drop one from another and whether they must show up in court for pretrial hearings.

    When two of them refused to answer whether they had approved the personnel changes, the judge took their lawyers' word for it that they had.

    But he said he would not grant their request to skip some court sessions unless they first acknowledged vocally that they understood they had the right to be present for discussions that could affect their legal rights.

    "They're going to have to tell me out of their own mouths, or they'll be here," Pohl said.

    After a chaotic May 2012 arraignment session that dragged on for 13 hours, the defendants have alternated between refusing to speak to the judge and making accusatory statements against the United States. Although they largely ignored the judge on Monday, they whispered to their lawyers and appeared to be reading legal documents.

    Mohammed and his nephew are Pakistani citizens. The other defendants are Walid bin Attash and Ramzi Binalshibh, both Yemenis, and Mustafa al Hawsawi, a Saudi.

    Family members of 9/11 victims have traveled to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to watch the arraignment of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who reportedly refused to listen to the judge or answer questions during Saturday's proceedings. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports.

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  • Guantanamo prosecutor wants conspiracy charge dropped in 9/11 case

    By Jane Sutton, Reuters

    MIAMI -- The chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal recommended on Wednesday that the Pentagon drop a conspiracy charge against five prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

    The prosecutor, Brigadier General Mark Martins, expressed doubts that the conspiracy charge would withstand legal appeal.

    If that charge is dropped, the defendants would still face seven other charges in the tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, including charges of murdering 2,976 people in the attacks, carried out by al-Qaida operatives using hijacked planes.

    They could still be executed if convicted of planning and executing the attacks that propelled the United States into an ongoing global war against al-Qaida and its affiliates.

    The defendants include the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is alleged to have been al-Qaida's operations chief.

    Defense lawyers had long argued that conspiracy was not recognized as a war crime when the attacks occurred in 2001. The defendants are being tried under a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 2006 and revised in 2009, which designated conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism as war crimes.

    In October, a U.S. appeals court in Washington struck down the material support conviction of deceased al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's driver, former Guantanamo prisoner Salim Hamdan, on grounds that the charge could not be applied retroactively to events that occurred in 2001 and earlier.

    A pending appeal on behalf of another Guantanamo convict, al-Qaida videographer Ali Hamza al Bahlul, was expected to bring a similar ruling on the conspiracy charge.


    The Obama administration on Wednesday indicated it would fight to uphold Bahlul's conviction on that charge, a decision that could eventually put the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Martins said dropping the conspiracy charge from the 9/11 case "would remove an issue that could otherwise generate uncertainty and delay resulting from prolonged litigation in the ongoing capital prosecution."

    He made the request to the Pentagon appointee overseeing the Guantanamo prosecutions, retired Vice Admiral Bruce MacDonald.

    "There is a clear path forward for legally sustainable charges," Martins said in a news release. "The remaining charges are well-established violations of the law of war and among the gravest forms of crime recognized by all civilized peoples."

    The defendants are accused of recruiting, training and funding the hijackers who slammed commercial jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

    Slideshow: Life goes on in Guantanamo

    John Moore / Getty Images

    President Obama's one-year deadline to close the facility has long passed as shutting it down has proven complicated and controversial.

    Launch slideshow

    They were captured in 2002 and 2003 and held in secret CIA prisons before being sent to a detention camp at Guantanamo in 2006. Efforts to prosecute them have moved in fits and starts amid controversy over the fairness of the tribunals set up to try non-U.S. citizens outside the regular court system.

    The five men are scheduled to appear before a military judge on January 27 for the next pre-trial hearing at Guantanamo.

    Mohammed and his nephew, defendant Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, are Pakistani citizens. The other defendants are Yemeni citizens Walid bin Attash and Ramzi Binalshibh, and Saudi captive Mustafa al Hawsawi.

    The remaining charges against them are attacking civilians and civilian objects, murder in violation of the law of war, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, hijacking aircraft, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, and terrorism.

    Martins said that dropping the conspiracy charge now "would reduce the potential risks in the prosecution of the 9/11 attacks and allow the case to move forward without unnecessary delay."

    Only seven cases have been completed in the Guantanamo court and four of them involved only charges of conspiracy and material support.

    Related stories:
    Conviction of Osama bin Laden driver thrown out by appeals court 
    9/11 mastermind, alleged accomplices return to Guantanamo court
    Guantanamo detainee found dead; Navy investigating

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  • 9/11 mastermind, alleged accomplices return to Guantanamo court

    Janet Hamlin / AFP - Getty Images

    This courtroom sketch shows alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as he holds up a piece of paper during a court recess at his hearing on Monday at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

    By NBC News' Courtney Kube and wire reports

    Updated at 5:20 p.m. ET: The self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, which resulted in the deaths of 2,976 people, appeared before a military judge at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba on Monday after months of delays due to scheduling conflicts, religious observances, an Internet outage and a tropical storm.

    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed shocked some observers by appearing with a long, full beard that had been dyed bright reddish-orange. He appeared before Judge Army Col. James Pohl for the start of a week of pretrial hearings, along with co-defendants Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a Pakistani; Mustafa Al Hawsawi, a Saudi; and Walid Bin Attash and Ramzi Binalshibh, two men from Yemen.

    Unlike their last appearance in court in May, which was disrupted several times by the defendants, the five men sat quietly at the defense table, under the watchful eyes of military guards and several family members of the 9/11 victims, The Associated Press reported. All seemed to be cooperating with their attorneys. Mohammed read legal papers. Two others responded politely to the judge when they were asked questions, according to the AP.

    All the defendants wore white robes and turbans, and spoke openly with one another throughout the course of the day.


    The men, being prosecuted in a special military tribunal for war-time offenses, are charged with conspiring with al-Qaida, attacking civilians and civilian targets, murder in violation of the laws of war, destruction of property, hijacking and terrorism. All five could face the death penalty if convicted.

    Associated Press

    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, is seen shortly after his capture in Pakistan in this photo taken on March 1, 2003.

    The families of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks were invited to military installations in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and New York City to watch the pretrial hearings on closed-circuit television, NBCNewYork.com reported.

    Getting the terror suspects to this point has been a years-long process mired in political and legal arguments over the defendants' rights, the use of evidence that may have been derived through torture, and the proper venue for the proceedings. The actual trial is expected to be at least a year away.

    The pretrial hearings this week will cover a series of motions filed by the various defense teams, dealing primarily with secrecy issues and the detainees' rights.

    The most controversial issue, which was not taken up by the end of the first day, is a challenge to the government's gag order on any information gained during interrogation of the detainees. The ACLU and more than one dozen news organizations filed a motion to oppose to government's gag order. The government maintains the order is necessary to protect classified intelligence-gathering techniques.

    Defendants may skip hearings
    On Monday, prosecutors and lawyers spent hours arguing the most preliminary of issues, including whether the defendants have to be in court at all, with one attorney saying the hearings may dredge up bad memories of their harsh treatment in CIA detention.

    Defense attorney Capt. Michael Schwartz argued that the detainees should not be forced to come to court because the process of forcibly removing them from their cells is traumatic and reminiscent of harsh interrogation techniques.

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    Schwartz said that if the court was considering forced cell extraction it had to talk about torture.

    "No we don't," the judge said quickly.

    "I think we do," Schwartz said.

    "I'm telling you I don't think that's relevant in this issue. That's the end of that, move on to something else," Pohl retorted.

    But Schwartz persisted, saying he needs to address the issue of torture.

    "No you don't," the judge said more forcefully this time, adding that the defense does not have the opportunity to make an argument that he sees as irrelevant.

    After a prolonged and heated back-and-forth, the detainees were granted the right to waive their attendence at the hearings at least until jurors are assembled for the actual trial, but they must sign a waiver each day they choose not to attend.

    Toward the end of the day, the judge asked each of the five detainees a series of questions to ensure they understand their new rights to waive attendance at their sessions.

    Binalshibh answered each of his questions in imperfect English, veering into a perplexing discussion about escaping from Guantanamo and alleging unfair treatment from his guards.

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    When asked whether he understands that the trial could ultimately continue even if he is not present, Binalshibh looked perplexed, saying, "that is a very wide word, can you be concrete?"

    "I'm not implying that I think you are going to escape," the judge said, adding that if that were to happen, the trial could continue without him being there.

    "Escaping from custody?" Binalshibh asked.

    "I'm not saying you're going to," the judge said, asking again whether he understands that the trial could continue without him. Binalshibh seemed to smile as he said, "Yes I do."

    Guantamo guards make things 'difficult'
    He raised concerns about the fact that guards would be sent to bring him to the hearings, though, saying, "dealing with the guard is very difficult. They didn't report everything so correctly. Problems with guards can misreporting all things."

    "Some guard when you have problem with them they can make it very difficult for us," he said.

    Despite President Obama's vow to shut down Guantanamo Bay, the nation's most expensive prison is undergoing some costly new updates that would allow the facility to remain open for years. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports.

    When the judge recommended reporting any problems to his attorney, Binalshibh said, "Where can I call him? There is no time to contact him. Very difficult communication for us."

    Mohammed answered his questions through his interpreter. He looked down and answered simply "yes" to every question, until at the end when asked whether he understands he doesn't have to attend the sessions.

    "Yes, but I don't think there is any justice in this court," he said through his interpreter.

    The court was in session for about five total hours, with several breaks throughout the day. It then adjourned until 9 a.m. ET. Tuesday.

    Pohl was also expected to hear requests from news organizations on limiting closed courtrooms for secret sessions and be asked to decide whether the U.S. Constitution governs tribunals held at the U.S. base in Cuba.

    The testy exchanges occurred during a hearing that was otherwise calm and orderly, in stark contrast to the chaotic 13-hour arraignment hearing in May, when defendants made defiant outbursts and refused to answer the judge's questions or listen through earphones to an Arabic-English translation of the proceedings. In those proceedings, one of the men was briefly restrained and two of them stood up to pray at one point.

    Subsequent hearings had been pushed back for various reasons.

    A hearing in July was postponed to allow the defendants to observe the holy month of Ramadan. Hearings in August were delayed when an Internet outage left the lawyers unable to access their electronic legal documents. That hearing was later canceled altogether as Tropical Storm Isaac approached. The storm caused no damage to the base.

    A hearing scheduled for late September was also delayed because the work space for the defense lawyers was shut down due to a rat infestation and mold, which lawyers claimed were making them sick, Reuters reported.

    Pohl ruled on Oct. 5 there would be no further postponements to the hearings.

    An earlier attempt to try the five men at Guantanamo ended when the Obama administration tried to move the trials to New York City, where two of the hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center.

    That was abandoned under pressure from Congress and from New Yorkers, and the charges were re-filed in Guantanamo.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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  • Guantanamo detainee found dead, Navy investigating

    Despite President Obama's vow to shut down Guantanamo Bay, the nation's most expensive prison is undergoing some costly new updates that would allow the facility to remain open for years. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports.


    By Michael Isikoff, NBC News

    A Guantanamo detainee who died Saturday was a former hunger striker who had recently been placed in a disciplinary cell after splashing a guard with a "cocktail"-- typically containing urine, a U.S. military official tells NBC News. 

    The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the death of the detainee, whose identity and country of origin will not be released until his family is notified, said Navy Capt. Robert Durand, a spokesman for the U.S. detention facility.

    But Durand provided some new details about the detainee's death -- the ninth to occur at Guantanamo since the prison opened in early 2002 and the first since an Afghan prisoner committed suicide in May of last year.

    The detainee was found unconscious in his cell in Camp 5 on Saturday afternoon and was taken to the Naval hospital at Guantanamo where efforts to revive him failed. There were no cuts on his wrist or any other obvious signs of self-inflicted wounds, Durand said.

    The detainee also had no serious medical problems. He had participated in a hunger strike last spring but ended it in June and was examined as recently as Aug. 22 when he was at 95 percent of his body weight, Durand said.

    He had "fairly recently" thrown the "cocktail" at a prison guard, causing him to be placed in a solitary cell at Camp 5, said Durand. 

    Although the death occurred on Saturday, military officials did not announce it until Monday in order to give officials time to notify the host country and family members of the detainee. That process has not yet been completed, but officials decided to release some details Monday because of concerns that some visitors to the base-- such as defense lawyers -- would learn about it anyway, Durand said. 

    Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com 

    The Miami Herald reported that a pathology and mortuary team was brought to the base on Sunday to attend to the body. A Muslim imam was summoned in order to give the man Islamic rites.

    The dead man’s remains will be returned home after an autopsy, the Navy said.

    The detention camp was set up to hold non-American captives suspected of involvement with al-Qaida, the Taliban or other Islamic militant groups after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Of the 779 men held there, 167 remain.

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    Two of the earlier deaths were from natural causes and six were designated as suicides, most of them by hanging.

    NBC News staff and Reuters also contributed to this report.

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  • Anyone for karaoke at Gitmo tonight?

    By Shawna Thomas, NBC News Producer

    GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA – After people ask me if I have been to the detainee camps at GTMO (the answer is yes) and what I'm covering (Omar Khadr's military commissions trial), they usually ask me, "What do y'all do for fun at Guantanamo Bay?"

    Well, first I would say that the 32 U.S. and international TV and print journalists who made the trip this time have a very limited amount of downtime. In my case, I'm up by about 7 a.m. to make sure we can go live for any NBC or MSNBC show by 8 a.m. I will watch court proceedings, write, shoot tape and edit video until at least 7 p.m. On Tuesday night, I had to setup a 9:30 p.m. live shot, so the days can be quite long.

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    (Click above to see a typical live shot NBC's Shawna Thomas helped produce from GTMO with Michael Isikoff).

    But when I’m done with work, the answer to the above question for myself, and many members of the media here, is pretty straightforward: alcohol, cheap alcohol. It’s the Red Stripe, red wine, Jameson's and vodka kept in freezers in the media operations center (MOC) to facilitate the making of Bloody Mary's, once court and work has concluded for the day.

    The MOC is our communal home away from home. We take notes, write stories, watch movies and log tape together in these three rooms where we spend more than 12 hours a day. Either we buy the booze at the Naval Exchange, the base's version of Target, or we go out on the town.

    I use the term "out on the town" loosely. Unlike many other military bases around the world, you can't go out into Cuba when you're at Guantanamo Bay. All you have is what's on the base. And in the case of journalists who are covering military commissions, you are limited to where you can be escorted by a military public affairs officer (PAO) on the windward side of GTMO (the military’s abbreviation for the base).

    So if we want to go to the bar, a PAO is right behind us. Majority rules among the journos at GTMO, so we have to agree on where the group is going for dinner or drinks.

    In other words, there's no striking out on your own to find a frothy beer and a cute guy or gal to flirt with.

    There's a choice of three bars on this side of the base, though the favorite tends to be O'Kelly's. Yes, the top choice is an Irish bar on an American base that sits on a Communist island. Unfortunately, O'Kelly's is closed for renovations right now, which leaves the restless media with the Tiki Bar and the Officers Club.

    The media mingles with the military, lawyers and human rights activists who are here because of the ongoing trials. However, we're easy to avoid striking up a conversation with because we are required to wear red and green badges around our necks that have the word “MEDIA” emblazoned on them and we travel in packs.

    There are also beautiful beaches here, but that tends to be a weekend event. Other activities include bowling (never been there), outdoor movies (haven't partaken) and my favorite, karaoke night on Wednesdays.

    Yes folks, last time I was here I was able to convince someone to stay with me at the bar so I could indulge in my love of singing popular songs in front of strangers.

    By the way, the last time I sang Metallica's “Enter Sandman” in front of at least 50 or 60 members of our armed forces. Tonight, if I can find an escort, I plan on going back. Any ideas for what song I should choose this time?

    SLIDESHOW: Life inside Guantanamo Bay detention center