Reuters

The human-rights group Reprieve arranged for Yasiin Bey, better known as hip-hop artist Mos Def, to be force-fed using the standard operating procedure at Guantanamo Bay, a session they videotaped. In the disturbing footage, posted at The Guardian, Bey has a tube shoved down his nasal cavity and down his throat, at which point he pleads for the process to stop. The footage is below, and while I don't know whether or not forced feeding crosses the line of torture, the exercise reminded me of the late Christopher Hitchens volunteering to be waterboarded.

The Obama Administration is force-feeding numerous Gitmo prisoners twice daily as a response to a hunger strike inmates launched to protest being held indefinitely without charges or trial.

The standard procedures used include "strapping detainees to a chair, forcing a tube down their throats, feeding them large quantities of liquid nutrients and water, and leaving them in the chair for as long as two hours to keep them from purging the food," The Washington Post has reported. Detainees say the procedures are abusive, verge on torture, and have "caused them to urinate and defecate on themselves and that the insertion and removal of the feeding tube was painful."