US Admits Koran Abuse at Guantanamo

US admits Koran abuse at Cuba base
Guantánamo probe uncovers 'mishandling' by troops

Josh White and Dan Eggen in Washington
Sunday June 5, 2005, The Observer

The US military confirmed yesterday that soldiers and interrogators at Guantánamo Bay did desecrate copies of the Koran. Brigadier General Jay Hood, who led an inquiry into the allegations, confirmed that there had been five cases of intentional or unintentional mishandling of the holy book. They included getting copies wet, standing on a Koran during an interrogation, and 'inadvertently' spraying urine on a copy.

But the Guantánamo commander said he found no evidence to support a further allegation that US personnel flushed a Koran down a toilet at the camp in Cuba. That claim, in a magazine article, led to anti-American riots in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Indonesia in which 16 people died and more than 100 were injured.

Hood's investigation into alleged incidents since the camp opened in January 2002 also found 15 cases of detainees desecrating their own Korans.

'Mishandling a Koran at Guantánamo Bay is a rare occurrence,' Hood said in a statement. 'Mishandling of a Koran here is never condoned. When one considers the many thousands of times detainees have been moved and cells have been searched since detention operations first began here in January 2002, I think one can only conclude that respect for detainee religious beliefs was embedded in the culture of [the task force] from the start.'

Detainees, human rights groups and some military personnel have complained about desecration of the Koran at Guantánamo Bay. Tom Wilner, an attorney for 11 Kuwaiti nationals being held at the prison, said the number and persistence of reports of Koran abuse from detainees indicate a much broader problem than indicated by the Hood inquiry.

'It's sort of amazing today that we define truth as only when the government confirms something happened,' Wilner said. 'I think there is no question that, especially in the early days of Guantánamo, there was a persistent pattern of physical abuse and religious
discrimination, including desecration of the Koran... But it hasn't been fully looked at.'

Hood's investigation was specifically looking at a report in Newsweek in May that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet at Guantánamo Bay. While denying the allegation - which was later retracted by the magazine - it did find that rumours of such an event were swirling around the camp in summer 2002.

The rumour began after a detainee dropped a copy on the floor and others blamed the mishandling on US guards. The story then changed in its retelling, until it related that soldiers had ripped pages out of the book and thrown it down a toilet. Hood's report, detailed in a US Southern Command news release, analysed several other reports of abuse of the Koran.

The first, in February 2002, arose when a detainee complained that guards at Guantánamo Bay had kicked a copy of the Koran in a neighbouring cell to his. Although the incident was noted at the time, there was no further investigation.

In another case, in August 2003, two detainees complained to guards that a number of Korans were wet because night-shift guards had thrown water balloons into their block. No further details of the incident were provided, but Hood's team determined that the complaints were 'credible'.

Other confirmed reports include a two-word obscenity being written on the inside cover of a Koran - although investigators suspected that the detainee who had complained may have defaced his own book.

Another report, in July 2003, detailed an incident in which a contract interrogator stood on a detainee's Koran. He was fired for 'unacceptable behaviour'.

The most recent, and perhaps strangest, case of mishandling was on 25 March, 2005, when a detainee complained to the guards that urine came through an air vent in his cell and 'splashed on him and his Koran'.

The report notes that the guard responsible reported himself to his superiors and was reassigned to different duties, while the detainee was given a new uniform and Koran.

'The guard had left his observation area post and went outside to urinate,' according to a summary of the incident. 'He urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the block.'

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