Kenyan held in Guantanamo prison on hunger strike

By Philip Mwakio

Mombasa, Kenya: The sole Kenyan detainee at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba has joined the hunger strike by over 100 prisoners protesting their indefinite incarceration, his family in Nairobi and Mombasa claimed on Wednesday.

Family members who live in these towns told The Standard that they have spoken with the prisoner who has been detained by the Americans since February 2007 about the hunger strike and other conditions in Guantanamo through the assistance of the Red Cross Society.

The relatives said the Kenyan detainee renewed in a telephone conversation urged the Kenyan government to secure his return to Kenya.

Some of the striking detainees are being fed through nasal tubes, according to media reports.

A BBC report has said that American authorities have sent extra medical staff to the Guantanamo detention camp to help deal with a growing hunger strike by its inmates which began in February.

Like the Kenyan detainee most of the inmates at Guantanamo are being held and have not been charged with any crime.

According to Abdulmalik's foster mother, Ms Mwajuma Rajab, his son called him on Tuesday and told her that he was on hunger strike and has been boycotting full meals for 83 days.

‘’ He said that he has only been drinking half of glass of water and a teaspoonful of honey for survival,’’ Mama Rajab who raised Abdulmalik from age of 15 years after his biological mother, Mwanaisha died said on Wednesday.

Mama Rajab said that she spoke with Abdulmalik for one and half hours and he, allegedly narrated episodes of immense suffering he was encountering in the hands of American soldiers guarding them.

The Kenya Red Cross Society had initiated the communication between Abdulmalik and his Kenyan relatives.

A call was placed to Abdulmalik’s younger sister Mariam Mohamed who lives in Nairobi and who in turn alerted Mama Rajab who lives in Mombasa to come to Nairobi to speak with the detainee on Tuesday.

‘’Abdulmalik maintains his innocence and said that he was being held in solitary confinement  and had not been allowed outside his cell room for more than 2 months,’’ she said.

Abdulmalik is said to have started the hunger striker after a US guard accosted him and beat him up when he was found reading the Holy Quran.

 ‘’ He told me that the guard in question pounced on him with kicks and blows and later stepped on the Holy book,’’ she said.

She said that Abdulmalik told him that since he was taken into the highly guarded prison facility, he had not been accorded medical attention.

He told his mother that he was always in handcuffs and has his legs shackled.

‘’ My son has sent me to appeal to President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy, William Ruto to intervene and have him repatriated back home.

Kenya’s first known attempts to have Abdulmalik repatriated back home was in December, 2009 when the late former Justice Minister, Mutula Kilonzo while on a visit to Mombasa ‘broke silence’ and requested the US government to repatriate Abdulmalik.

The late Mutula was presiding over a function at the Fort Jesus Museum organised by Muslim for Human Rights (Muhuri) to mark the International Human Rights Day.

In 2010, Foreign Affairs Ministry reported that it had written to Abdulmalik’s lawyers informing them that they had initiated the process of getting Abdulmalik back home.