FBI: Koran Mishandled

The Agence France-Presse
26 May 2005

FBI Documents Show Repeated Detainee Complaints Over Koran Mistreatment

Washington: Detainees interviewed by FBI agents at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba complained repeatedly that military guards and interrogators
mistreated the Koran, with one alleging that the Muslim holy book had
been flushed in a toilet, documents show.

The documents -- FBI summaries of interviews with detainees at the
military-run prison in 2002 and 2003 -- show that the treatment of
the Koran was a key point of contention between detainees and their
guards, one that prompted hunger strikes and threats of mass suicide.

Most complaints dealt with the handling of the Koran by guards or its
being taken away from detainees as a form of punishment. In some
cases, the detainees admitted to not having witnessed the alleged
mistreatment themselves.

But detainees also alleged that the Koran had been thrown or kicked
by guards, and one said it had been flushed in a toilet, according to
the documents.

In a summary dated August 1, 2002, a detainee told his FBI
interviewer that he personally had nothing against the United States
but that the guards at the detention facility "do not treat him well.

"Their behavior is bad. About five months ago, the guards beat the
detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet. The guards dance
around when the detainees are trying to pray. The guards still do
these things," the summary said.

Lawrence DiRita, the Pentagon spokesman, said investigators
conducting a "commanders inquiry" into a Newsweek report of a Koran
being flushed down a toilet recently found a log entry from August
2002 that recorded a similar allegation by the same detainee.

Brigadier General Jay Hood, the military commander in Guantanamo,
questioned the detainee who had made the allegation on around May 14,
he said.

"Apparently the inmate was very cooperative and would not reassert
this particular allegation," DiRita told reporters.

He said other allegations of mistreatment of the Koran were looked
into at the time by the commander of the guards, but he insisted
"they just weren't credible on their face" because they ran counter
to the policies in place at the prison.

Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander in Guantanamo at the
time, said there was a small group of hard-core detainees who knew
that allegations of the Koran being mistreated would agitate other
detainees, DiRita said.

"They were very aware that this was a sensitive issue, and the
practice was to be sensitive about it," he said.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan called Wednesday for a
congressional investigation into the reports of desecrations of the
Koran.

"As Muslims, we say enough is enough," the influential African
American leader said from the pulpit of his south Chicago mosque.

Farrakhan said a delegation of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders
should participate in the investigation.

Farrakhan also demanded that the US military either charge and try
the detainees at Guantanamo Bay or release them to their families.

The latest FBI documents were released in response to a lawsuit by
the American Civil Liberties Union, which posted them on its website.
The names and other information were blacked out by censors.

The interview summaries contain a litany of other allegations by
detainees -- that they were beaten by guards, sexually molested by
female interrogators, shown pornographic images or had their heads
and beards shaved as punishment. The theme that the detainees'
religion or culture was under assault by guards runs through many of
the summaries.

In an FBI interview on March 6, 2004, a detainee charged that
military police "have been mistreating the detainees by pushing them
around and throwing their waste bucket to them in the cell, sometimes
with waste still in the bucket, and kicking the Koran."

A summary dated March 11, 2004 said that "some unknown detainees are
not talking in retaliation to an incident where a guard kicked the
Koran."

Another on July 30, 2002 said an uprising at the prison earlier that
month started when a detainee claimed a guard had dropped a Koran.

"In actuality, the detainee dropped the Koran and then blamed the
guard. Many other detainees reacted to this claim, and this initiated
the uprising," the summary said.

One detainee "stated he had heard a detainee had been severely beaten
by a guard and had died. (The detainee said) he heard the altercation
between the detainee and the guards began when the guards
disrespected the Koran," according to a summary dated January 21, 2003.

In a February 4, 2003 summary, another detainee was reported to have
commented that younger guards were a source of the problem. "They
often disgrace the Koran by throwing it on the cell floor and
frequently use profanity which many of the detainees find extremely
offensive," it said.

The treatment of the Koran at Guantanamo came under scrutiny after
four days of riots in Afghanistan earlier this month which claimed
the lives of at least 14 people.

Pentagon officials angrily blamed Newsweek for triggering the riots
with what they said was a "demonstrably false" report that
investigators had found that interrogators at Guantanamo had flushed
a Koran in a toilet to rattle Muslim prisoners.

Newsweek later retracted the story after its main source, an unnammed
senior US official, backed away from it.

© 2005 AFP