NOVANEWS
A leaked document showing the standard operating procedure for force-feeding detainees was used by a human rights organization to conduct a live torture session on US actor and rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), to show how brutal and inhumane the procedure is.
Mos Def Undergoes Guantanamo Torture (Photo: Youtube)
By JG Vibes
According to his Wikipedia Page Mos Def is an American actor and MC also known as Yasiin Bey /jæˈsiːnˈbeɪ/. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which released the album Black Star in 1998. He was a major force in late 1990s underground hip hop while with Rawkus Records. As a solo artist he has released the albums Black on Both Sides in 1999, The New Danger in 2004, True Magic in 2006, and The Ecstatic in 2009.
Although he was initially recognized for his musical output, since the early 2000s, Mos Def’s screen work has established him as one of only a handful of rappers who has garnered critical acclaim for his acting work. He is well known for his portrayal of Brother Sam in the American drama series Dexter. Mos Def has also been active in several social and political causes.
One of his recent causes has been to raise awareness about the force feeding procedures at Guantanamo bay. Footage of this horrible display of torture was released this week by The Guardian.
Many have been reminded of the time where Christopher Hitchens agreed to be water boarded, the only difference was Hitchens actually didn’t believe that waterboarding was torture beforehand, but then changed his mind after undergoing the procedure.
The attitude among many people, especially in America, has been one of indifference, because people actually believe that these detainees deserve what they are getting.
However, many of these people don’t understand that all of these Guantanamo Bay detainees have never been found guilty of any crime, or even charged with a crime to begin with. They just happen to be captured and declared an enemy combatant by the government one day and taken to a torture camp.
It is probably true that some of the prisoners are guilty, even a broken clock is right twice a day, but a good number of them are probably innocent, and even a guilty person deserves due process.
Some of the detainees where children when captured, throughout the prisons dark history there have been multiple cases of children as young as 12 or 13 years old who were either tortured or sold for bounties, as was the case with Abdul Qudus. In fact, although the prison still holds nearly 200 people, almost 1000 have passed through, and many of them were proven innocent and released years after being declared an “enemy combatant” and submitting to torture and imprisonment.
Over the years the military dungeons at Guantanamo Bay have become largely forgotten by the general population back home in the US. Since the election of Barack Obama many of the people who protest wars and the inhumane acts of the military industrial complex are now silent as if nothing has ever happened.
Obama’s supporters have failed to even call him out for breaking a promise to close Guantanamo. In fact, many of them actually believe that he did close it, simply taking a politicians word at face value without even doing the research. This same fallacy has led many to believe that the war in Iraq is over, and that the US governments pillaging of the Middle East and Africa is winding down.
