US Judge denies Gitmo detainee's request to end force feeding, doesn't have the authority but Obama

[laserguided]

[QUOTE]A US judge on Monday denied a Guantánamo prisoner's request to halt the force-feeding of hunger strikers and said that only President Barack Obama had the power to intervene.

US district judge Gladys Kessler, based in Washington, DC, said she would be overstepping her authority if she issued an injunction against force-feeding as requested by inmate Abu Wa'el Dhiab.

Dhiab, a Syrian, is one of four prisoners, all of whom are hunger strikers, to make such a request. The court has yet to rule on the other three: Algerian captives Ahmed Belbacha and Nabil Hadjarab and Shaker Aamer, a Saudi prisoner with British residency.

The four were rounded up during counter-terrorism operations but were among the 86 prisoners cleared for release or transfer years ago. Obama came into office in 2009 with a goal of closing down Guantánamo but has run into opposition in Congress.

The US military holds 166 foreign captives at the detention camp on the Guantánamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba. Of those, 106 are on hunger strike with 45 being force-fed as of Monday, according to a Guantanamo spokesman.

They are protesting the failure to resolve their fate after more than a decade of detention.

In reference to Obama, Kessler said in her four-page order that "there is an individual who does have the authority to address the issue".

She noted that Obama had voiced concerns during a speech in May about the merits of force-feeding detainees, asking: "Is that who we are?"

"It would seem to follow," Kessler wrote, that Obama had the authority "to directly address the issue of force-feeding the detainees".

[B]She also said that Dhiab had "set out in great detail in his papers what appears to be a consensus" that force-feeding violates international law.[/B][/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/08/judge-denies-guantanamo-force-feeding[/url]

[DeafNoEyes]

Well, they don't have authority to hold them to begin with so that's funny.

[Zenreon]

Doesn't seem likely;

"The government is us and we’re doing things right"

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZfmgo8RQzQ[/media]

[Groat]

Well, Obama doesn't want them to go hungry! He's just being thoughtful.