Revealed: man force-fed in Ice custody at risk due to 'substandard care' says doctor

[bronxiteforever]

Ajay Kumar, who is on a hunger strike while detained in El Paso, is receiving ‘abysmal’ treatment, doctor said in court documents
Amanda Holpuch in New York
The Guardian
Published: 02:00 Friday, 30 August 2019


The life of an Indian asylum seeker on hunger strike in US detention is at risk because of the “abysmal” treatment he is receiving from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which began force-feeding him two weeks ago, a doctor warned in court documents filed this week.

Dr Parveen Parmar, chief of the division of global emergency medicine at the University of Southern California, said in an affidavit that the 33-year-old asylum seeker, Ajay Kumar, is receiving “the worst medical care I have seen in my 10 years of practice.”

Kumar is one of three Indian men on hunger strike in an El Paso, Texas immigration detention center who is currently being force-fed, an act medical bodies and human rights groups have argued it is a form of inhumane and degrading treatment.

The advocacy group Freedom for Immigrants has documented at least 1,396 people on hunger strike in 18 detention facilities since May 2015....In December and January, Ice force-fed at least six Indian men through plastic nasal tubes. Orders to allow force-feeding had been secured before, but there was no record of them being acted on until then. Four other detainees were also on hunger strike at the time in Miami, Phoenix, San Diego and San Francisco.


Much longer article worth the read
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/30/ajay-kumar-hunger-strike-asylum-seeker-us-detention?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[nolabear]

1. Maybe it's because of the torrent of horrors

but I’d heard absolutely nothing about this. When there’s so much abuse it just can’t be kept up with.

We are dying as a nation.

[bronxiteforever]

3. +1 I had not heard about this either until I read this.

I agree that we are dying as a nation. We have to win 2020 just to stop the progression of the GOP disease.

[Newest Reality]

2. Brutal. Cruel. Unpardonable.

This is a horrendous nightmare unfolding day by day. What can you call a country that stoops this low and persecutes people like that? Well, it may be time to peel off the veneer about this country and its now defunct values about justice, liberty, etc. The imprisonment is one thing, but the foul treatment and neglect are deplorable, uncivilized and cruel.

It smacks of Gitmo and we now hear that the term of "detention" may become indefinite, and I take that as a very ominous sign that portends a deeper and darker descent into a Fascist state of tyranny. It begs the question, who else might be subjected to this if it continues?

I don't go for newspeak. Nope. I don't buy it. Regardless of whether anyone wants to quibble about definitions in this situation.

When I read words like "detainee" and "detention center" they sound soft and more acceptable. When I read them it is, "prisoner" and "concentration camp". We have adults and children that are being imprisoned and are subjected to something approaching gulag conditions and that's not acceptable at all.

And now, the Trump Epidemic is underway as the camps become vectors for the spread of diseases that can then spread to the general population.

Debacle is to soft a word for this travesty.

[bronxiteforever]

4. +1 Asylum seekers are being treated like this!

My God it is horrifying.

[marble falls]

5. Having had my first nasal tube (to drain fluid in my gastro-tract) after my last surgery,...

I am qualified to say, especially because I was co-operating with my procedure, forced feeding by nasal tube is all about torture. Its used not humanely or in an humanitarian process. Its used to modify a behavior to bring about an outcome not in the victims choice or benefit. Its used to manifest an authority's will in the guise of a medical intervention.

[bronxiteforever]

6. +1 I do hope you are well now.

I saw several shows on the suffragette movement and the use of force feeding as a way to control them.