Yemeni detainees go on hunger strike [Archives:2005/884/Front Page]

SANA'A- Oct. 8- A number of Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo Bay including Abdussalam al-Hilah and another 30 detainees with different nationalities are continuing their hunger strike from last december.

The 26 September Newspaper said that half of the hunger strikers suffer from bad health and now they are fed through pipes, and the U.S. Administration summoned a number of civil physicians to treat the strikers.

The sources added that Abdussalam al-Hilah, one of the Yemeni detainees has become very thin after he took part along with another 200 detainees in a hunger strike in protest against their mistreatment and their detention without legal justification.

Sources close to Abdussalam revealed that the U.S. authorities attempted more than once to attract al-Hilah to cooperate and work with them in Yemen under the advocacy of human rights.

Some U.S. attorneys have visited Sana'a recently and met with relatives of Guantanamo detainees. When they returned home, they carried with them letters to the detainees from their relatives.

Al-Hilah's family confirmed that Abdussalam agreed with higher authorities to be responsible for the supervision of deporting some extremists and Arab Afghans from the Yemeni territory.

The U.S. attorneys called for an official letter from the Yemeni Government stating that al-Hilah was working with it, but their request was rejected, said reliable sources.

A high ranking security source disclosed in the middle of last August that there was a dispute between the U.S. and Yemen over the extradition of a number of Yemenis who, counted by fingers, are detained by the U.S. authorities.

The Amnesty International urged the U.S. Administration to withdraw from all its demands forwarded to the Yemeni Government and other government concerning the continuity of detaining any person.

The Amnesty International accused Yemen and the U.S. of maltreating three Yemeni nationals who have been transferred recently from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to Yemen, and under security preservations, they victims are landed in prisons in Sana'a, Aden, Taiz and al-Mahrah.

Several detainees including Walid al-Qadasi Mohamed Faraj Ba Shumaila, Salah Salim, Mohamed Salim al-Asad were handed over to Yemen over the last few months.

This year, a Yemeni committee made up of security leaders paid two visits to Guantanamo Bay for verifying identities of Yemeni detainees.

During its last visit, the committee got acquainted with 86 Yemeni nationals out of 110 people on the U.S. list of terrorists, however the committee found that four of them have no Yemeni citizenship.
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