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Rapper, actor and activist Mos Def submitted to the standard force-feeding practices used on Guantanamo Bay detainees for a shocking video.
U.K.-based human rights group Reprieve teamed up with BAFTA-award-winning director Asif Kapadia to produce the video, published on the Guardian website.
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More than 100 of the 166 Gitmo prisoners have been on a hunger strike since February, and the facility force-feeds about 45 of them regularly. Guantanamo authorities have defended the practice as “humane, high-quality medical care to preserve life and health.”
The video shows Mos Def, credited here by his given name Yasiin Bey, shackled and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, being restrained by several men as a tube is inserted into his nose and forced downward toward his stomach while he pleads for them to stop.
The Brooklyn-born musician is known for his political activism. In 2008, he was arrested in front of the MTV VMAs ceremony in New York City for an unauthorized street performance of his song “Katrina Clap,” a critique of the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
Warning: Video contains graphic imagery.
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