More than 100 Guantanamo Bay detainees are now on a hunger strike, prompting officials at the facility to force-feed the detainees the nutritional supplement ensure to prevent the protesting prisoners from dying.
President Barack Obama answered questions in a rare press conference on Tuesday and reaffirmed his promise from his first term campaign to close down the facility.
“I have asked my team to review everything that is currently being done in Guantanamo, everything that we can do administratively and I’m going to re-engage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not something that is in the best interest of the American people,” he said.
The facility still holds 166 individuals down from the hundreds who have resided there since the start of the so-called war on terror.
The hunger strike started Feb. 10 following the search and confiscation of belongings in some of the detainees’ cells. Prisoners say that some of the staff mistreated the Quran, the Muslim holy book.
Host Carmen Russell-Sluchansky spoke with Rachel Ward, managing director of the U.S. Program for Amnesty International USA, to discuss the story.
