Still on hunger strike at Guantanamo: Prisoner number 028

President Obama’s renewed vow to release the prisoners have led some to abandon their hunger strike.

A sketch of the 'torture chair' by al-Awki [Al Jazeera]

I write this following my return from the morning’s force-feeding session here at Guantánamo. I write in between bouts of violent vomiting and the sharp pains in my stomach and intestines caused by the force-feeding.

The US government now claims that, among the 164 prisoners at Guantánamo, there are fewer than two dozen hunger strikers, down from well over 100 back in August. I am one of those remaining hunger strikers. I have been on a hunger strike for almost nine months: since February.

The guards dragged me out of my cell at around 8:20am. As they took me, shackled, past the other cells towards the restraint chairs – my brothers and I call them torture chairs – I could barely breathe because of the smell. Some of my brothers are now tainting the walls of their cells and blocking the air conditioner vents with their own feces, in protest.

The force-feeding remains as painful and horrific as the last time I described it. The US military prison staff’s intent is to break our peaceful hunger strike. The results can be seen all over my body. It is visible on my bloodied nose and in my nostrils, swollen shut from the thick tubes the nurses force into them. It is there on my jaundiced skin, because I am denied sunlight and sleep. It is also evident in my bloated knees and feet, and my ailing back, from prolonged periods spent in the torture chair and from the riot squad’s beatings. You can even hear it in my voice – I can barely speak because they choke me every time they strap me into the chair.

Al Jazeera talks to Reprieve about the hunger strikes at Guantanamo

No form of pressure is too cruel or petty for our captors. They have deprived me of medication for as long as I remain on hunger strike. They have also taken away electric razors necessary for proper grooming, requiring all hunger strikers to share a single razor, despite the serious health risks that poses. A rash spread among some of my fellow prisoners as a result of this measure by prison authorities.

Not even our rare calls with our families are held sacred. Three weeks ago, as the guards took me to make a telephone call with my family, they subjected me to a humiliating and unnecessary search of my private areas. I resisted peacefully, as best I could, and tried to reason with the guards. To avoid these humiliating searches, some of my fellow hunger strikers have abstained from calls with their loved ones or meetings with their attorneys.

Many brothers have ended their hunger strike because of these brutal force-feeding practices and the cruel punishment inflicted by the American guards and military medical staff.

Others have chosen to suspend their hunger strike to give US President Barack Obama time to make good on his renewed promise to release the prisoners in Guantánamo.

But for myself and my brothers here, we will remain on hunger strike. We pray that the next thing we taste is freedom.

I know you might not believe this, but one of my fellow prisoners now weighs only 75 pounds. Another weighed in at 67 pounds before they isolated him in another area of the prison facility. These men survive only by the grace of God. May God continue to sustain us all until we achieve our goal of justice.

Moath al-Alwi is a Yemeni national who has been in U.S. custody since 2002. He was one of the very first prisoners moved to Guantánamo, where the U.S. military assigned him Internment Serial Number (ISN 028).

This article was translated from the Arabic by his attorney, Ramzi Kassem.