Wilson's Blogmanac: Force-feeding from Pankhurst to Guantanamo to Falun Gong

Nora over at Extra!Extra reports on the force feeding at Guantanamo:

"Article 5 of the 1975 World Medical Association Tokyo Declaration, which US doctors are legally bound to observe through their membership of the American Medical Association, states that doctors must not undertake force-feeding under any circumstances. Dr David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist at Queen Elizabeth's hospital in Birmingham, is co-ordinating opposition to the Guantánamo doctors' actions from the international medical community. 'If I were to do what Edmondson describes in his statement, I would be referred to the General Medical Council and charged with assault,' he said."

Click to embetterment

See also extracts from Jane Purvis: Suffragettes in Prison, such as:

"Hunger striking and force feeding were acts committed by, and on, individuals in their own cells. Whether force fed by a cup, tube through the nostril (the most common method) or tube down the throat into the stomach (the most painful), the individual suffragette struggled on her own and often feared damage to the mind or body. Kitty Marion’s screaming in prison greatly upset the other women, but she found it was the only way she could fight against the torture of forcible feeding and remain sane. Rachel Peace, an embroideress, who had already experienced several nervous breakdowns, was not so fortunate. During a period of prolonged hunger striking and forcible feeding three times a day she feared, 'I should go mad ... Old distressing symptoms have re-appeared. I have frightful dreams and am struggling with mad people half the night'. Her fears became true when she 'lost her reason in prison' and spent the rest of her life in and out of asylums, with Lady Constance Lytton, an upper-middle-class WSPU worker, maintaining her.

And Prison force-feeding, from Pankhurst to Gitmo:

"With the US now force feeding 13 illegally detained persons in Guantanamowho were sold into slavery by its allies in Afghanistan and Iraq (see 2nditem below), it's interesting that this should be released after 70 years ofsecrecy by the British public records office. 210 men are currentlyreported to be on hunger strike in Guantanamo. Force feeding didn’t work inthe case of Emily Pankhurst and she had the law and the media on her side.How much less effective will it be in the US gulag where no hope of releaseexists after 3-and-a-half-years of detention without trial for itsoccupants. Note the brutality of the process and the disgust of the medicalofficer in charge - obviously US torturers of 2005 are made of sterner stuffthan British torturers of 1913. - SMcG"

"New details have emerged of how the growing number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay are being tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs to keep them alive. They routinely experience bleeding and nausea, according to a sworn statement by the camp's chief doctor, seen by The Observer."
Scandal of force-fed prisoners

Pankhurst: my force-feeding ordeal in jail :: More at Spartacus