Seeing Guantanamo

A few years ago, an English non-governmental organization, Reprieve, reached out to rapper Mos Def, asking him to illustrate the force-feeding procedure used in the American military prison Guantanamo.

In a video seen hundreds of thousands of times online, the American artist is strapped to a chair and contorts himself in vain while a tube is introduced into his nose to allow the administration of a nutritious liquid. He ends up in tears, pleading for his jailers to stop.

The video aroused the ire of the American Secretary of Defense, who accused its makers of grossly deforming the reality.

The American public might finally have the opportunity to form its own opinion on the subject.

Indeed, a federal judge just ordered the release of videos of real force-feeding sessions made by soldiers within the prison, situated on the island of Cuba.

Their existence was brought to light last year when a Syrian detainee, Abu Dhiab, who was on hunger strike for years, gave in a request not to be fed under duress.

His lawyers affirm that the force-feeding sessions, often preceded by excessive action to “extract” restive prisoners from their cells, constituted a form of intimidation and aimed to convince prisoners to renounce their methods of resistance.

The American administration maintains that the personnel at Guantanamo simply want to prevent prisoners from ending their own lives. Mr. Dhiab — who was never formally accused of anything — was released in December and now lives in Uruguay, as he is unable to return to his country of origin.

The 46-year-old man nevertheless wants the video, in which he appears to be seen, to shed light on what is happening in Guantanamo.

The American Department of Justice believes that their release will inflame the Muslim world and put American soldiers on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan in danger.

This argument is deemed specious by Judge Gladys Kessler, who demands that the videos be made public quickly.

For its part, Reprieve affirms that the government’s real concern is preventing the release of shocking images that would change the tone of the Guantanamo debate in the United States “overnight.”

The prisoners’ general situation should be enough in itself to raise a lasting wave of indignation. Nearly all of them have been detained for more than 10 years, without accusation or trial, in a no man’s land that seems to be straight out of Kafka’s brain.

American President Barack Obama recently declared that what he regretted most about his first term was not having closed the military prison immediately.

Over recent months, Washington has increased its efforts to either return the least problematic detainees to their home countries or send them to third-party countries. But there are still over a hundred remaining.

Rather than trying to block videos likely to galvanize his compatriots, the American head of state and his administration should see this as an additional incentive to definitively close this sad chapter.