Video: Mos Def breaks down in attempted Guantanamo Bay-style forced feeding

American rapper Mos Def has released a video in which he attempts to undergo a force-feeding procedure.

The short film aims to bring attention to U.S. military authorities practice of force-feeding dozens of detainees held at the U.S. detention and interrogation facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“There are currently 120 detainees on hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay,” the video states. “Forty-four of them are being force fed against their will”.

It continues: “Yasiin Bey, better known by his stage name Mos Def, volunteered to undergo the produce used on the detainees. This is what happened.”

The video notes that the practice is performed on each detainee twice a day, and typically takes authorities two hours for each of the 44 detainees.

The YouTube channel distributing the video belongs to the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper, which describes the event as a force feeding “under standard Guantánamo Bay procedure”.

Widespread hunger strikes began at Guantanamo in 2005, with prisoners using the act of civil disobedience as a means of protesting their presumed innocence and the conditions of their confinement. Forced-feeding commenced shortly after as a procedure outlined in the facility’s Standard Operating Procedures. The first complaints of rough treatment during forced-feedings were recorded that same year.

Many of the people held at Guantanamo Bay have remained imprisoned there for more than a decade, some without trial or even access to information related to the crimes for which they are accused.

U.S. president Barack Obama has promised on several occasions to close Guantanamo Bay, first during his 2008 campaign and in several high-profile speeches made since then.

A Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr, holds the distinction of being both the youngest detainee ever held at Guantanamo Bay, as well as the prisoner with a Western passport held the longest.

Khadr was captured at the age of 15 in in Afghanistan in July 2002 and remained at Guantanamo until September 2012, when he was transferred to a Canadian facility. In May 2013, Khadr was transferred to the Edmonton Institution, a maximum-security prison where he remains today.