{"id":32685,"date":"2023-06-07T14:35:46","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T18:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=32685"},"modified":"2023-06-07T14:35:54","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T18:35:54","slug":"showtime-pulls-documentary-about-desantis-controversial-history-at-guantanamo-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/06\/07\/showtime-pulls-documentary-about-desantis-controversial-history-at-guantanamo-bay\/","title":{"rendered":"Showtime Pulls Documentary about DeSantis\u2019 Controversial History at Guantanamo Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Showtime did not air an episode of the Vice documentary series about Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 (R-Fla.) Navy service at the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison, according to The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>\u2014a period of DeSantis\u2019 military career that has been dogged by accusations that he oversaw torture tactics and had a role in an alleged cover-up of suspicious deaths, claims the 2024 candidate has denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis listens to his wife speak to a crowd on\u00a0June 2, 2023, in Gilbert, South Carolina. (Photo by Sean Rayford\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Showtime pulled promos from its website for episode four of the Vice series titled \u201cThe Gitmo Candidate & Chipping Away,\u201d originally scheduled to air May 28, according to The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>, which noted the network instead aired a repeat episode of the documentary on May 28 and referred to the June 4 program as episode four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The network teased details from the episode about the GOP presidential candidate\u2019s tenure serving as a Navy JAG lawyer at the U.S. military prison in Cuba, including an investigation of allegations that \u201cDeSantis witnessed acts condemned by the United Nations as torture.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Showtime did not provide a reason for pulling the episode and told Forbes \u201cwe don\u2019t comment on scheduling decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis has faced questions about his role working as a lawyer at the prison during a turbulent time, when the U.S. military admittedly engaged in what were deemed<\/a> torture tactics by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Former Guantanamo prisoner-turned-activist Mansoor Adayfi alleged<\/a> in his 2021 memoir that DeSantis supervised as he was force-fed to break a hunger strike that prisoners\u2014many being held without charges\u2014had started to protest inhumane conditions at the facility and lack of a fair judicial process. Around that same time, in 2006, three prisoners were found hanging in their cells, and DeSantis, then a 27-year-old recent Harvard Law graduate, was called in to help collect evidence, the <\/a>Washington Post reported<\/a>. While the deaths were ruled suicides by the Navy Criminal Investigative Service, the prisoners\u2019 families and human rights lawyers have cast doubt on the official account, alleging it is rife with inconsistencies and missing information. DeSantis, recalling the deaths in a 2018 CBS Miami interview<\/a> said the detainees \u201ccommitted suicide with hunger strikes,\u201d explaining that he and other legal advisers helped commanders decide how to combat prisoners\u2019 protest tactics: \u201cOne of the jobs of the legal adviser would be like \u2018hey you actually can force feed, here\u2019s what you can do, here\u2019s kind of the rules of that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis has denied Adayfi\u2019s allegations as \u201ctotally BS,\u201d claiming they were designed to generate publicity. \u201cDo you honestly believe that\u2019s credible?\u201d DeSantis asked reporters in a heated exchange in Jerusalem in April. \u201cSo, this is 2006. I\u2019m a junior officer. Do you honestly think that they would have remembered me from Adam? Of course not.\u201d DeSantis\u2019 commander during his time in Cuba, where he spent approximately six months, told McClatchy<\/a> in March DeSantis \u201cserved honorably and professionally in a very complex mission,\u201d retired Navy Capt. Patrick McCarthy said, noting that one of DeSantis\u2019 duties involved speaking \u201cwith detainees when there were any complaints to ensure they were lawfully addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Emmy-winning Vice first aired on HBO in 2013 in collaboration with Vice Media and chronicles investigations of geopolitical issues, including Edward Snowden\u2019s 2013 leak of National Security Agency documents, climate change and terrorism in the Middle East. Showtime acquired the program in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Showtime did not air an episode of the Vice documentary series about Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 (R-Fla.) Navy service at the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison, according to The Hollywood Reporter\u2014a period of DeSantis\u2019 military… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[5182],"class_list":["post-32685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-showtime-pulls-documentary-about-desantis-controversial-history-at-guantanamo-bay"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32687,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32685\/revisions\/32687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}