Seven hundred and seventy-five people have been imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. One hundred and seventy-one people remain in the American military detention and interrogation facility. On the tenth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo, here are some stories from detainees who have been freed from Guantanamo.

More than three weeks later and after building up great support from activists, academics, celebrities and others in the US and around the world, the leaders of the prison hunger strike in the Pelican Bay supermax prison have brought an end to their strike and have begun to eat again. They emphasize that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has given them a few good-faith token gestures and that the end of this strike is entirely conditioned on achieving the long-term policy changes that they have demanded.

Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, Gloria Steinem, Nawal El Saadawi, David Straithairn and Edward Asner speak out on behalf of the Pelican Bay Hunger Strikers.

Even when someone is on a hunger strike medical care should be given. In fact it is critical that there is regular checks as slowly starving can affect other organs and turn south very quickly. This is not happening for the Pelican Bay hunger strikers.

The conditions at Security Housing Units (SHU) at Pelican Bay Prison, and other Supermax prisons, clearly constitute torture and/or cruel, inhumane treatment of prisoners. It relies on the use of severe isolation or solitary confinement, the effects of which I’ve written about before in the context of the Bradley Manning case (see here and here). At Pelican Bay, the prisoners in “administrative segregation” are locked in a gray concrete 8′X10′ foot cell 22-1/2 hours per day. The other time (if that privilege is granted) is spent alone in a tiny concrete yard. There is no human physical contact. No work, no communal activities. If the prisoner has enough money they can purchase a TV or radio. Meals are pushed through a slot in the metal door.

Organizers now say supporters have a challenge to “match the courage of the hunger strikers” and “effectively pressure the CDCR to immediately negotiate on the standards any negotiation should follow: with the prisoners in good faith, addressing all of the demands, and with the prisoner-approved outside mediation team.”

A Freedom of Information Act request for documents on accused whistleblower to WikiLeaks Pfc. Bradley Manning’s treatment at Quantico Marine brig, filed by POLITICO, reveals that on multiple occasions Manning was recommended for removal from “prevention of injury” (POI) status by psychiatrists and psychologists but was not removed.

On July 1, 2011, Pelican Bay prisoners began an indefinite hunger strike to protest the conditions in the prison. Across prison-manufactured racial and geographical lines, prisoners came together behind five core demands to force the prison officials to end the use of “group punishment”; abolish a “debriefing policy and the current criteria for determining who is and who isn’t a gang member; comply with the US Commission 2006 Recommendation Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement and end conditions of isolation.

Jeanne Theoharis is professor of political science at CUNY’s Brooklyn College, one who takes the responsibility of her profession towards her students, and to the society she lives in, very seriously. When she discovered that one of her former students, Syed Farad Hashmi, was being treated unjustly by the U.S. judicial system, she spoke out, and she continues to do so.

Besides conditions of solitary confinement, harassment day and night, restriction of reading material, making him walk in shackles if he leaves his cell, inability to communicate with any other prisoners, all imposed upon PFC Bradley Manning, who has never been convicted of any crime, we must now add the degradation and humiliation of hours-long forced nakedness