Six Questions for Cynthia Smith on the Legality of Force-feeding at Guantánamo
By Luke Mitchell
The apparent suicide Monday (6-1-09) of thirty-one-year-old Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, who had been protesting his long imprisonment at Guantánamo Bay by refusing to eat, has brought U.S. force-feed policy back into the news. Many human rights organizations have called for an end to force-feeding, which as practiced at Guantánamo amounts to torture. InMayApril, for an article to be published in the July Harper's Magazine, I attempted to query Dr. Ward Casscells, then
the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, about how he
might modify that policy since Barack Obama had become president.
Cynthia Smith, a Pentagon spokesperson, responded to my written queries
(which I have edited here for length) under the requirement that I
attribute the answers to her and not Casscells. At the time of the
interview, at least thirty prisoners at Guantánamo were being
restrained and fed via enteral tube.
By Luke Mitchell
![[Image]](http://harpers.org/media/image/blogs/misc/forcefeedingkit.jpg)
The apparent suicide Monday (6-1-09) of thirty-one-year-old Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, who had been protesting his long imprisonment at Guantánamo Bay by refusing to eat, has brought U.S. force-feed policy back into the news. Many human rights organizations have called for an end to force-feeding, which as practiced at Guantánamo amounts to torture. In
Here are the questions by Harper's senior editor Luke Mitchell
