Attorneys defending more than a dozen Guantanamo
prisoners have asked a federal court judge to immediately suspend a new policy
enacted at the detention facility over the past month that requires the
prisoners to submit to a genital search when they exit the camps to speak with
their lawyers and return to their cells.
In an emergency motion filed late Wednesday in
US District Court for the District of Columbia, attorneys for Yemeni Saeed
Mohammed Saleh Hatim and 12 other prisoners argued the intent of the new policy
was to deny their clients access to counsel and was implemented in retaliation
for a mass hunger strike the prisoners have waged since February.
The filing also includes declarations from
attorneys alleging prisoners have been subjected to psychological abuse in the
form of solitary confinement, stress positions, sleep deprivation and
temperature manipulation.
"Things are very hard in the extreme,"
Yemeni prisoner Bisheer al Marwalah told his attorney, Erin Thomas, according
to a declaration she filed. "We no longer have any respect in this prison.
They don't respect our life, our dignity, they don't respect our religious
feelings ... As for tomorrow, we have no idea what it will bring."
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