Chapter 3 Conditions of Detention | 65 every hour or so […] I would try and get a response out of them as some of them were so weak that they looked as if they were dead.” 155 138. A series of hunger strikes, reportedly involving 150 to 200 detainees (more than a third of the camp), took place in 2005. The prisoners protested against their indefinite detention and the conditions of confinement, in particular with regard to some incidents involving the Koran and the alleged abuse of a prisoner when he returned to his cell after an interrogation session. 156 Tariq Ba Odah, a Yemeninational detained at Guantanamo since February 2002, was one of the detainees who engaged in the hunger strike. Since February 2007 he has been on an uninterrupted hunger strike, he has not had any food, water or liquid by mouth and is, according to his defense counsel, force fed every day. At some point he reportedly weighed 78 pounds (35 kg). Because of the hunger strike, he is allegedly held in solitary confinement and has virtually no human contact. Mr. Ba Odah was captured in Pakistan at the age of 23 by local authorities and allegedly sold to the United States for bounty. He has been cleared for transfer since 2009 but remains deprived of liberty due to transfer restrictions on transfers to Yemen. 157 139. The hunger strike that started in February 2013 is in many ways qualitatively different from those that occurred in the past, mainly because of the numbers. According to the Government, at the peak of the hunger strike the number of prisoners who participated reached 106 (120-130 according to civil society organizations), which represented around 70% of the total population at that time, including almost all the detainees held at Camps 5 and 6. This hunger strike took place after a period of about two years in which public attention had turned away from the situation in Guantanamo. The U.S. Government had closed the office of the Special Envoy for the closure of Guantanamo; transfers had been ceased in part because of restrictions imposed by the U.S. Congress; and federal courts, in particular the DC Circuit Court, ruled against the detainees in the great majority of cases. According to representatives of the detainees, this hunger strike came about with a very strong perception among the detainees that they were facing a dead end. 140. Further, according to defense counsel, since late January 2013 prison officials had been searching the prisoners’ cells in a punitive fashion, confiscating personal items, mats for sleeping, family photos and keepsakes, religious CDs, and letters, including mail from counsel. In addition, several prisoners had reported “that what ultimately triggered the hunger strike [was] the decision amongst prison officials to search the pages and binding of the men’s Qur’ans in ways that constitute desecration 155 156 157 Testimony of Spc. Brandon Neely, The Guantánamo Testimonials Project, Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, December 4, 2008. The New York Times, Guantanamo Prisoners Go on Hunger Strike, September 18, 2005. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/politics/18gitmo.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1410 447671-g/nbXpDJXz0Rd1k4dB9 lw IACHR’s Expert Meeting on the situation of detainees held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Washington DC, October 3, 2013. See also, Ba Odah v. Obama, Center for Constitutional Rights. Available at: http://ccrjustice.org/BaOdah Inter-American Commission on Human Rights | IACHR