Guantánamo hunger strike of 2002

The Guantánamo hunger strike of 2002 was a collective protest against detainee treatment and continued confinement without trial or legal process. Mohamedou Ould Slahi later identified himself as a participant, making the strike both a specific act of resistance and an early instance in a pattern of hunger protests at the prison.

Background and grievances

A later footnote in the manuscript places the strike in late September and October 2002, citing news reports and an FBI document that attributed the protest to anger over guards’ treatment and ongoing detention without trial or legal process. The strike took place near the end of Major General Michael E. Dunlavey’s command of Joint Task Force 170, which oversaw intelligence operations at Guantánamo. Dunlavey’s tenure ended in October; Major General Geoffrey Miller assumed command of the broader Guantánamo operation in November.

Participation and immediate response

Writing about a later hunger strike, Slahi recalled that the protest in September 2002 was not the first and stated that he had taken part in it. He added that the government did not seem impressed. The account establishes his participation and his assessment of the response, but does not specify the 2002 strike’s duration, the number of participants, or how it ended.

A recurring protest amid changing policy

The 2002 strike appears in Slahi’s account as part of a recurrence: detainees again resorted to hunger strikes over old and new grievances. The later protest he describes was distinct from the 2002 action, but the comparison gives the earlier strike its significance as a precedent rather than an isolated episode. The footnote situates it amid a period when abusive interrogation practices were increasing: the Senate Armed Services Committee documented that trend in October and November 2002, and Donald Rumsfeld authorized additional interrogation methods in a December memorandum. The evidence places these developments in sequence, without establishing that the hunger strike caused the policy changes.

Place in the record

The event is preserved through Slahi’s retrospective statement of personal participation and through the editor’s reference to news reports and an FBI document about the protest’s timing and stated grievances. That combination supports the basic account while leaving particulars of the strike unresolved. In the larger narrative, the brief recollection links an earlier collective protest to later detainee resistance and to Slahi’s continuing appeal for the conditions and treatment at Guantánamo to be publicly examined.