The complaint was submitted on the eve of NATO’s 60th Anniversary Summit, following a conference organized by CCR, FIDH, and ECCHR on the nature and significance of NATO’s commitment to international human rights. CCR, FIDH, and ECCHR find it deeply problematic that NATO has at the head of its military command a man responsible for world-decried human rights violations that took place under his watch before he took the NATO post. It is illustrative of NATO’s failure to break from unlawful practices and policies implemented in the name of the U.S.-led "War on Terror."
Guantanamo hunger strikers protesting their abusive detention conditions and lack of rights were and continue to be brutally force-fed through abnormally large nasal tubes while strapped into a six-point restraint chair. In 2006, General Craddock suggested that the restraint chair method served as an "effective deterrent" to hunger striking, and went so far as to joke that at least hunger strikers got to choose the flavor of the lozenges used to soothe irritation caused by the feeding tubes. (Source: Adam Zagorin, At Guantanamo, Dying is not Permitted, Time Magazine, June 30, 2006)
The brutal force-feeding of Guantánamo detainees amounts to torture, or at the very least, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under international human rights law. In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights found that "repeated force-feeding, not prompted by valid medical reasons but rather with the aim of forcing the applicant to stop his protest, and performed in a manner which unnecessarily exposed him to great physical pain and humiliation, can only be considered as torture." (Ciorap v. Moldova)
CCR, FIDH, ECCHR, Appeal for Justice, and NLP ask the Special Rapporteurs "to demand that the U.S. Department of Justice immediately open an independent criminal investigation into General Craddock’s responsibility over the crimes alleged." Because "the Obama Administration continues the unlawful and unethical force-feeding practices of the Bush Administration against more than fifty men who peacefully protest their confinement and detention conditions using the only means available to them – their bodies", authors of the communication also demand that the Special Rapporteurs "issue an urgent appeal to the Obama administration, requesting that it bring its hunger striker policies into legal and ethical compliance by instituting [a series of] urgent measures."
While General Craddock’s replacement has been announced by the Obama Administration, the groups note that the commander replacing him, US Admiral James Stavridis, is the current USSOUTHCOM Commander that replaced Craddock in 2006. In that capacity, he has authority over Guantanamo and is responsible for having allowed and continuing to allow this unlawful force-feeding to take place.