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US Senator Dianne Feinstein urged the Pentagon yesterday to stop force-feeding hunger-striking prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and called the practice "out of step" with medical ethics and international norms.
Feinstein, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, sent a letter to Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, saying the Guantanamo force-feeding policy was also out of synch with policies in the civilian federal prisons.
"Hunger strikes are a long-known form of non-violent protest aimed at bringing attention to a cause, rather than an attempt of suicide," she wrote. "I believe that the current approach raises very important ethical questions and complicates the difficult situation regarding the continued indefinite detention at Guantanamo."
Speaking in Berlin yesterday, President Barack Obama said the United States would redouble efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo.
A Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale, said he would not respond to Feinstein's letter to Hagel via the press, but added that "we will continue to treat the detainees in our charge humanely and that we will not allow them to harm themselves."
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