Guantanamo detainees clash with guards

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, April 14 (UPI) -- Hunger striking Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees used improvised weapons to clash with guards before being confined to single cells, military officials said.

The incident occurred early Saturday as officials tried to move the detainees from a communal living space in Camp 6 to individual cells, CNN reported.

Guards were moving the men because they had begun covering security cameras with cereal boxes and other items, prohibiting "round-the-clock monitoring" in the facility, Guantanamo spokesman Capt. Robert Durand said.

"Suspending the detainees' communal living privileges was in response to a coordinated effort by detainees to create an unsafe situation and limit the guard force's observation," he said.

"Some detainees resisted with improvised weapons and, in response, four less-than-lethal rounds were fired," a statement issued by the prison said. "There were no serious injuries to guards or detainees."

The security camera incident is just the latest in protests the detainees have made against their detention and what they consider the Obama administration's desertion of its plans to close the facility, David Remes, a lawyer for some of the detainees said.

As of Saturday, 43 of the prison's 166 captives were on hunger strike and 13 were being force fed, The Miami Herald reported.

Attorneys for the detainees said the immediate cause for the protest, which started in February, was a decision to search detainees' Korans. Military officials said Korans were searched for contraband but were handled by interpreters, most of whom are Muslim, not guards.