10/27/2005

Paul, Weiss Team Achieves Victory for Hunger Striking Detainees at Guantánamo Bay

Today's New York Times reported an important victory for our clients at Guantánamo Bay. Acting on an emergency application brought by lawyers, including partner Julia Tarver and associates Jennifer Ching and Andrea Prasow, United States District Judge Gladys Kessler has ordered the Bush administration to inform defense lawyers about the condition of detainees at the Guantánamo military base who are participating in a hunger strike. In yesterday's ruling, Judge Kessler said that Paul, Weiss and other firms had presented "deeply troubling" allegations of forced feedings in which U.S. personnel violently shoved tubes through detainees' noses and into their stomachs without anesthesia or sedatives. When the government responded that detainees at Guantanamo were receiving appropriate medical care and that no one had died yet, Judge Kessler said she did not need to wait until someone died before ordering the government to disclose information to the detainees' lawyers. "It can hardly serve either the national security interests of this country or enhance its image throughout the world to contribute in any way to the death of a detainee in its custody," Judge Kessler wrote. In the first ruling of its kind, Judge Kessler ordered the government to provide the detainee's lawyer with 24 hours notice before force-feeding a client, and to provide lawyers with copies of the detainee's medical records beginning a week before force-feeding began, with weekly updates. The article says that Judge Kessler's decision is the latest development in a vast change in the legal situation at Guantánamo. Newsday, Reuters and the Associated Press also featured coverage of this story.