- CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Contrary
to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo
published by Newsweek on May 9, 2005, are common among ex-prisoners and
have been widely reported outside the United States. Several former detainees
at the Guantanamo and Bagram prisons have reported instances of their handlers
sitting or standing on the Quran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and
urinating on it. Prior to the Newsweek article, the New York Times reported
a Guantanamo insider asserting that the commander of the facility was compelled
by prisoner protests to address the problem and issue an apology.
-
- One such incident (during which the Quran was allegedly
thrown in a pile and stepped on) prompted a hunger strike among Guantanamo
detainees in March 2002. Regarding this, the New York Times in a May 1,
2005, article interviewed a former detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi,
who said the protest ended with a senior officer delivering an apology
to the entire camp. And the Times reports: "A former interrogator
at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of
the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the
treatment of the Korans." (Neil A. Lewis and Eric Schmitt, "Inquiry
Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay," New York Times, May 1, 2005.)
-
- The hunger strike and apology story is also confirmed
by another former detainee, Shafiq Rasul, interviewed by the UK Guardian
in 2003 (James Meek, "The People the Law Forgot," Dec. 3, 2003).
It was also confirmed by former prisoner Jamal al-Harith in an interview
with the Daily Mirror (Rosa Prince and Gary Jones, "My Hell in Camp
X-Ray," Daily Mirror, March 12, 2004).
-
- The toilet incident was reported in the Washington Post
in a 2003 interview with a former detainee from Afghanistan:
-
- "Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially
questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and
taunted him by dumping the Quran in a toilet. 'It was a very bad situation
for us,' said Ehsannullah, who comes from the home region of the Taliban
leader, Mohammad Omar. 'We cried so much and shouted, "Please do not
do that to the Holy Quran."'
- (Marc Kaufman and April Witt, "Out of Legal Limbo,
Some Tell of Mistreatment," Washington Post, March 26, 2003.)
-
- Also citing the toilet incident is testimony by Asif
Iqbal, a former Guantanamo detainee who was released to British custody
in March 2004 and subsequently freed without charge:
-
- "The behavior of the guards towards our religious
practices as well as the Quran was also, in my view, designed to cause
us as much distress as possible. They would kick the Quran, throw it into
the toilet, and generally disrespect it."
- (Center for Constitutional Rights [.pdf], Aug. 4, 2004.)
-
- The claim that U.S. troops at Bagram prison in Afghanistan
urinated on the Quran was made by former detainee Mohamed Mazouz, a Moroccan,
as reported in the Moroccan newspaper, La Gazette du Maroc. (Abdelhak Najib,
"Les Américains pissaient sur le Coran et abusaient de nous
sexuellement," April 12, 2005.) An English translation is available
on the Cage Prisoners site (which describes itself as a "nonsectarian
Islamic human rights Web site").
-
- Tarek Derghoul, another of the British detainees, similarly
cites instances of Quran desecration in an interview with Cage Prisoners.
-
- Desecration of the Quran was also mentioned by former
Guantanamo detainee Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost and reported by the BBC in
early May 2005. (Haroon Rashid, "Ex-Inmates Share Guantanamo Ordeal,"
May 2, 2005.)
-
- "Calgacus" has been employed as a researcher
in the national security field for 20 years.
-
- http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert376.shtml
|
