Yemeni GTMO detainees launch hunger strike
The Source: www.sabanews.net - 10/1/2009
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Yemeni detainees at the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have started a hunger
strike in protest against maltreatment at the US-run prison and the
lengthy custody.
The state-run 26sep.net reported that the
strike has been for 40 days and aimed at expressing refusal of the
detainees' prolonged detention without trying them.
According
to information the website has obtained, the health condition of Abdul
Salam al-Hilah, one of the Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo, has much
deteriorated because of a hunger strike he launched for a long period
and lack of proper medical care.
The Yemeni detainees also complain that they are always maltreated and are allowed to call families only briefly.
The
International Red Crescent Committee has intervened lately to convince
US authorities to allow Yemeni detainees at the prison phone their
families.
About 120 Yemeni detainees are held at the Guantanamo Bay.
Yemen
for many times renewed calls to release them, expressing readiness to
receive its nationals and re-qualify them in the country.
Yemen
also renewed calls for the release of Sheikh Muhammad al-Moayad and his
companion Muhammad Zayed detained in the US for more than five years on
alleged terrorist financing charges.
In 2005, the two were sentenced for 75 and 45 respectively.
Finding
that a Yemeni cleric and his assistant had been deprived of a fair
trial because of errors by the presiding judge, a federal appeals panel
in New York on October 8 overturned their convictions in a prominent
terrorism case once hailed by the Bush administration as a significant
blow to Al Qaeda.
Many Yemenis along with others from different countries were arrested by the US after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
On November 27, Yemen received one of its GTMO detainees, the former Bin Laden's driver Hamdan Salim.
Hamdan was sent to the Guantanamo Bay after he was arrested in 2001 in a battlefield in Afghanistan.
he
was tried under new military commission standards in August and was
found charged with providing material support for terrorism.
He
received a 66 month jail sentence after his attorneys recognized his
minor role, the decision which surprised US defense officials.
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