US cities protest Obama's inaction towards closing Gitmo

With Guantanamo prisoners on hunger strike for over two months, human rights activists across the United States demonstrated against the country's treatment of detainees in the offshore US prison camp.The rallies, held in New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Yemen, saw demonstrators dress in the orange jumpsuits worn by detainees, with some donning the black hoods made infamous by images taken at Gitmo and at similar black sites throughout the Middle-East, RT reported.The American Civil Liberties Union joined Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and 22 other rights organizations that signed an open letter calling on Obama to close the prison. "The situation is the predictable result of continuing to hold prisoners indefinitely without charge for more than 11 years," the letter read. "We urge you to begin working to transfer the remaining detained men to their home countries or other countries for resettlement, or to charge them in a court that comports with fair trial standards."Before he was elected in 2008, Obama campaigned on the promise he would right the wrongs committed by the Bush administration, which began with the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo in January 2002. In total, 26 cities participated in the global protest, dubbed the "Day of Action to Close Guantanamo and End Indefinite Detention".The increased scrutiny also coincides with news that almost all of the inmates at Guantanamo have joined a two-month-long hunger strike in a desperate attempt to attract media attention to their plight. Pentagon officials and government employees at the US Department of Justice have come forward in recent weeks to admit that inmates are being force-fed via feeding tubes inserted through their nostrils. Prison authorities have asserted the force-feeding is barely uncomfortable, while the inmates' defense attorneys say they are told it is an exceedingly painful procedure to endure.