Guantanamo force feeding Detainees held in the United States ' Guantanamo Bay detention camp s have initiated both individual and widespread hunger strikes , and camp medical authorities have initiated force - feeding programs . In 2005 , Captain John Edmonson , who was then Naval Base ' s chief medical officer , asserted that force feeding was a last resort , used only when counseling failed , and when the detainee ' s body mass index fell below the healthy range . According to Edmonson detainees normally cooperated , and restraints were unnecessary . According to Edmonson detainees were normally only given 1500 Calories per day . The UN Human Rights Commission said it regards force - feeding at Guantanamo as a form of torture and the World Medical Association specifically prohibited force - feeding in its Declaration of Tokyo . Rapper Yasiin Bey , also known as Mos Def , volunteered in a demonstration based on the leaked documents of the procedure at Guantanamo . Bey immediately submitted when doctors attempted to insert the tube into his nose for the second time . Medical concerns . More than 250 doctors from the UK , the US , Ireland , Germany , Australia , Italy and the Netherlands condemned the US for force - feeding of hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba . They said " We urge the US government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force - feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned , " The doctors said also that the World Medical Association specifically prohibited force - feeding and they want the association to instigate disciplinary proceedings against any members known to have violated the code . In 1975 the World Medical Association issued the Declaration of Tokyo , guidelines for physicians . The declaration states : " Where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the physician as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgement concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of nourishment , he or she shall not be fed artificially . " Torture Claims . Former prisoner Fawzi al - Odah told the BBC in 2006 that force - feeding of hunger strikers in Guantanamo amounts to torture and the UN Human Rights Commission said it regards force - feeding at Guantanamo as a form of torture , a charge the US firmly has repeatedly denied . On 29 February 2006 , Richard G . Murphy Jr . and other lawyers for detainee Mohammad Bawazir filed a claim that force - feeding was torture . The lawyers claim that the military made the force - feeding process unnecessarily painful and humiliating to break a hunger strike that at one point included more than 100 detainees . History . The earliest known case of force - feeding prisoners in Guantanamo Bay occurred in early 2002 when two hunger strikers were hospitalized for malnutrition . The pair were holdouts from a hunger strike which began as a response to Guantanamo guards removing a makeshift turban from one of the prisoners . The strike initially had up to 194 participants , however that number dropped precipitously when the general in charge of the prison announced that prisoners would be allowed to wear turbans . In these initial cases , prisoners were sedated as opposed to restrained prior to being given nutrition . Restraints were used in force feeding at least as early as early 2005 in response to another hunger strike by prisoners to protest prison conditions . In this case , 105 prisoners were refusing food , although to varying extents . The military acknowledged that twenty prisoners were being force fed . In these cases , many prisoners passively accepted nasal feeding , though others were restrained with leg shackles and handcuffs . Practice . Though initially denied , the military acknowledged use of " restraint chairs " for feeding hunger - striking prisoners in 2006 to prevent them from vomiting up forced nutrition . In 2005 , the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the military to provide to prisoners ' attorneys : notice within 24 hours of the commencement of force feeding , the prisoners ' medical records , and weekly status updates about the prisoners ' health .