Today in Herstory: Suffragist Alice Paul Kept in Hospital During Hunger Strike

[niyad]

Today in Herstory: Suffragist Alice Paul Kept in Hospital During Hunger Strike






November 18, 1917: Suffragist Alice Paul has finally been transferred out of the psychopathic ward of Washington, D.C.’s District Jail, and today succeeded in smuggling a note out of the hospital ward where she is now being kept during her hunger strike and force-feedings.
Her confinement to the psychopathic ward was never really about her sanity. She was singled out for extra punishment as the leader of the suffragists who have been picketing President Wilson by standing along the White House fence with large banners each day since January 10th.

These “Silent Sentinels” are highlighting the contrast between the President’s untiring advocacy of democracy around the world and his lack of any meaningful effort to help win it here for the female half of his own country. He has yet to even endorse the Susan B. Anthony (nationwide woman suffrage) Amendment, or use his considerable influence to help get it passed by Congress and then sent to the States for ratification.


Over the past few days a number of prison officials have admitted that they had no doubts about Alice Paul’s sanity, and at that point, the policy of subjecting her to the conditions of the psychopathic ward became so obviously punitive, unjustified and illegal that her confinement there could no longer be continued. In a note to Doris Stevens, who is temporarily heading the National Woman’s Party in Paul’s absence, Paul wrote:

“Miss Winslow and I are at opposite ends of the building, each locked in her room, with an iron barred door. I saw her as they brought me on a stretcher from the psychopathic ward, but I have not seen her since. We are each in a ward with three windows. Today they nailed two of my windows shut so that they cannot be opened. The third window has been nailed shut at the bottom, so that the only air I have now is from the top of one window.

. . . .

http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2014/11/18/today-in-herstory-suffragist-alice-paul-kept-in-hospital-during-hunger-strike/

[DreamGypsy]

1. And, 97 years from now, the post in the DU U.S. Human Rights group will be...

...ACLU Joins Human Rights Coalition Opposing Force-Feeding at Guantánamo (05/14/2013):

The hunger strike in Guantanamo is now in its fourth month. At the military’s latest count, 100 of the 166 prisoners are on strike, motivated in large part by their indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial. Twenty-nine of those men are being force-fed, the largest number yet during this hunger strike. Force-feeding in Guantánamo is a brutal, degrading experience.

On Monday, the ACLU and 19 other organizations sent Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel a letter stating our opposition to the ongoing force-feeding. As the letter makes clear, the Guantánamo force-feeding procedures constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment:

The prisoner is strapped into a chair with restraints on his legs, arms, body, and sometimes head, immobilizing him. A tube is inserted up his nostril, and snaked down his throat into his stomach. A liquid nutritional supplement is then forced down the tube. The prisoner is restrained in the chair for upwards of two hours to prevent him from vomiting. As Guantánamo hunger-striker Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel explained recently: “I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn't’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before.” Debilitating risks of force-feeding include major infections, pneumonia, collapsed lungs, heart failure, post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological trauma.

The most recent standard operating procedure (SOP) used by the military in Guantanamo regarding hunger strikes was published yesterday by Al Jazeera. The newest version of the SOP, which was previously updated in 2005, was adopted in March 2013, and makes a few key changes. Critically, the chief medical officer in Guantanamo no longer makes the final call as to who is labeled a hunger striker. Now, the military commander of the base – who is not a doctor – makes that determination. Deleted is the 2005 SOP’s language directing military personnel to make “every effort … to allow detainees to remain autonomous” up to the point the military believes force-feeding is necessary. The current SOP does not mention autonomy even once. Whereas the 2005 version required personnel to “make every effort to convince the detainee to accept treatment,” the current SOP only requires “reasonable efforts.”

NB: This is NOT an attempt to hijack the thread away from Women's Rights & Issues, but to underscore the continuing hypocrisy of United States (and Presidential) policy on the rights of protesters against U.S. human (protester's, prisoner's, woman's,..) rights violations. The crimes go on and on, justified by the same meager excuses.