Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005
Encyclopedia
The 2005 Qur'an desecration controversy began when Newsweek
's April 30 issue contained a report asserting that United States prison guards or interrogators had deliberately damaged
a copy of Islam's holiest book, the Qur'an
.
A week later, Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker, reporting the words of Pakistani politician Imran Khan
: "This is what the U.S. is doing—desecrating the Koran." This incident caused upset in parts of the Muslim world.
The Newsweek article, part of which was subsequently retracted, stated that allegations that United States personnel at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had deliberately damaged a copy of the book by flushing it in a toilet in order to torment the prison's Muslim
captives had been confirmed by government sources.
The Newsweek article stated that an official had seen a preliminary copy of an unreleased U.S. government report confirming the deliberate damage. Later on, the magazine retracted this when the (still) unnamed official changed his story. A Pentagon
investigation uncovered at least five cases of Qur'an mishandling by U.S. personnel at the base, but insisted that none of these were acts of desecration. The Pentagon's report also accused a prisoner of damaging a copy of the Qur'an
by putting it in a toilet. In 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union
, suing under the Freedom of Information Act, secured the release of a 2002 FBI report containing a detainee's accusation of ill-treatment, including throwing a Qur'an into a toilet.
This specific accusation had been made on several occasions by other Guantanamo detainees since 2002; Newsweeks initial account of a government report confirming it sparked protests throughout the Islamic world and riots in Afghanistan
, where pre-planned demonstrations turned deadly. A worldwide controversy followed.
The Newsweek affair turned the spotlight on earlier media reports of such incidents. Accusations of Qur'an desecration as a part of U.S. interrogations at prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq
as well as Guantánamo Bay had been made by a number of sources going back to 2002.
magazine published an article claiming that an unnamed United States official had seen a government report supporting a "previously unreported" charge. Among the previously unreported cases that sources reportedly told Newsweek: interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and dog leash. The prospect that U.S. personnel may have deliberately defaced the Qur'an provoked massive anti-U.S. demonstrations throughout the Islamic world, with at least 17 deaths during riots in Afghanistan
.
The Newsweek article, by reporter Michael Isikoff
, was one of over a dozen such reports of similar incidents that had surfaced in prior months in the U.S. and UK media, but the first involving a U.S. government source acknowledging an inquiry into the event. The Isikoff article was later retracted by Newsweek, which nonetheless defended both its reporter and the story, stating "neither we nor the Pentagon had any idea it would lead to deadly riots." The case turned the spotlight on other reports of desecration of the Qur'an at Guantánamo.
The article went largely unnoticed for five days. On May 6, a popular member of the Pakistani parliament, Imran Khan
, held a press conference. Khan, who is a sharp critic of both Islamist terrorism and of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
, criticized his country's government, saying, "This war on terrorism is self-defeating if, on the one hand, you [Musharraf] are demanding that we help them and on the other hand, they are desecrating the book on which our entire faith is based." Khan's press conference was rebroadcast throughout the Muslim world.
The Newsweek report cited an anonymous source, said to be a senior government official, who claimed to have seen a confidential investigative report documenting the alleged incident — in which interrogators, "in an attempt to rattle suspects, reportedly flushed a Qur'an down a toilet." However, on May 16, Newsweek retracted the statement that the abuse had been uncovered by an "internal military investigation." after the source of the story was later unable to confirm where he had seen the information. In its May 23 issue, Newsweek stated that:
The New York Times
quoted Isikoff as saying:
, demonstrations that began in the eastern provinces and spread to Kabul
were reported to have caused at least seventeen deaths. The United Nations
, as a precautionary measure, withdrew all its foreign staff from Jalalabad
, where two of its guest houses were attacked, government buildings and shops were targeted, and the offices of two international aid groups were destroyed. Demonstrations also took place in Palestine
, Egypt
, Sudan
, Pakistan and Indonesia
, leading to the death of at least 15 people.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan
said, "The report had real consequences, people have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged." However, in a press release issued by the United States Department of State
on May 12, General Richard B. Myers claimed that the Newsweek story was not a chief cause of the riots: "He has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else."
On May 27, thousands of demonstrators gathered in what The New York Times
referred to as "waves of protest" in Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and the Middle East, "mostly centered on Friday prayer gatherings." The Times reported that U.S. flags were burned at some demonstrations, and that, although most of the protests were peaceful, overt calls for an "Islamic revolution" were loudly supported by the crowds in Pakistan, further complicating a difficult political situation for General Musharraf.
A Red Cross spokesperson Simon Schorno confirmed that U.S. personnel at Camp X-ray
had displayed "disrespect" to the Qur'an, and that U.S. officials knew of this activity. Delegates from the International Committee of the Red Cross informed U.S. authorities, who took action to stop the alleged abuse, said Schorno. He declined to specify the nature of the incidents.
Shehzad Tanweer
, who participated in the 7 July 2005 London bombing, may have had his ideology reinforced by allegations of Qur'an abuse. His cousin Mohammad Saleem noted that "Incidents like desecration of the Koran have always been in his mind."
CBC News
reported:
According to the Hood report:
The report laid out the circumstances of these incidents and disciplinary actions taken. It also stressed that such mishandling was rare, and that guards were usually respectful of the Qur'an, following strict regulations the military laid down for handling the Qur'an.
(The Qur'an handling policy was codified in a policy letter in January 2003 in response to reports by the Red Cross of Qur'an abuse.)
The Hood report also listed 15 reported incidents of detainees mishandling their own copies of the Qur'an, including complaints made by other detainees.
One of these cases involved a prisoner "attempting to flush a Qur'an down the toilet and urinating on the Qur'an."
The statement did not provide any explanation about why the detainees might have abused their own holy books.
"[P]rior to his capture, [name redacted] had no information against the United States. Personally, he has nothing against the United States. The guards in 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 ruling of the court forcing the release of this and other documents came under the Freedom of Information Act
The ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said, in a news release, that "The United States government continues to turn a blind eye
to mounting evidence of widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody."
The FBI declared that it could not investigate the matter, as it was up to the Defense Department to do so. For its part, the Pentagon, through its spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, appeared to have transitioned from flat denials to vagueness and unsettled syntax: "There have been instances, and we'll have more to say about it as we learn more, but where a Qur'an may have fallen to the floor in the course of searching a cell." Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told reporters that "past accusations have had credibility issues."
James Jaffer, an attorney working for the ACLU, was quoted by the New York Times as stating that errors in the Newsweek story had been used to discredit other investigative efforts conducted by his organization and other groups "that were not based on anonymous sources, but [on] government documents, reports written by FBI agents."
Many questioned the veracity of such accounts, noting that the FBI, in 2004, had released a captured Al-Qaeda training manual which Bush
Presidency spokesmen claim shows that Al-Qaeda members are trained to make false accusations once captured.
-funded program known as SERE
, which stands for "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape."
On May 16, 2005, Juan Cole
published an email from a former SERE attendee who reported abuse of the Christian holy book in training.
The emailer had no direct knowledge of operations at Guantanamo, but noted that this tactic sounded similar to that alleged in the Newsweek story.
In July 2005, an article in The New Yorker
magazine suggested that the SERE program involved a number of techniques which paralleled those allegedly used at Guantánamo Bay, including the desecration of religious texts. The writer contacted Juan Cole's anonymous source who said that in 1999 he attended a Navy SERE program in California.
The SERE program's chief psychologist, Col. Morgan Banks, issued guidance in early 2003 for "behavioral science consultants" who helped to devise Guantánamo's interrogation strategy—although Banks has emphatically denied that he advocated the use of SERE counter-resistance techniques to break down detainees. However, General James T. Hill
, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, confirmed that a team from Guantanamo went "up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques" for "high-profile, high-value" detainees. According to an op-ed
in the November 14, 2005 New York Times by M. Gregg Bloche and Jonathan H. Marks, two lawyers with no first-hand knowledge of SERE, "General Hill had sent this list -- which included prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees' phobias -- to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
, who approved most of the tactics in December 2002. Some within the Pentagon warned that these tactics constituted torture, but a top adviser to Secretary Rumsfeld justified them by pointing to their use in SERE training, a senior Pentagon official told us last month."
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
's April 30 issue contained a report asserting that United States prison guards or interrogators had deliberately damaged
Qur'an desecration
The term "Qur'an desecration" is defined as insulting the Qur'an by defiling or defacing it.Most traditional schools of Islamic law require wudu before a Muslim may touch the Qur'an, which is regarded as the literal word of God in its untranslated Arabic form...
a copy of Islam's holiest book, the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
.
A week later, Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker, reporting the words of Pakistani politician Imran Khan
Imran Khan
Imran Khan Niazi is a Pakistani politician and former Pakistani cricketer, playing international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century. After retiring, he entered politics...
: "This is what the U.S. is doing—desecrating the Koran." This incident caused upset in parts of the Muslim world.
The Newsweek article, part of which was subsequently retracted, stated that allegations that United States personnel at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had deliberately damaged a copy of the book by flushing it in a toilet in order to torment the prison's Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
captives had been confirmed by government sources.
The Newsweek article stated that an official had seen a preliminary copy of an unreleased U.S. government report confirming the deliberate damage. Later on, the magazine retracted this when the (still) unnamed official changed his story. A Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
investigation uncovered at least five cases of Qur'an mishandling by U.S. personnel at the base, but insisted that none of these were acts of desecration. The Pentagon's report also accused a prisoner of damaging a copy of the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
by putting it in a toilet. In 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
, suing under the Freedom of Information Act, secured the release of a 2002 FBI report containing a detainee's accusation of ill-treatment, including throwing a Qur'an into a toilet.
This specific accusation had been made on several occasions by other Guantanamo detainees since 2002; Newsweeks initial account of a government report confirming it sparked protests throughout the Islamic world and riots in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, where pre-planned demonstrations turned deadly. A worldwide controversy followed.
The Newsweek affair turned the spotlight on earlier media reports of such incidents. Accusations of Qur'an desecration as a part of U.S. interrogations at prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
as well as Guantánamo Bay had been made by a number of sources going back to 2002.
History
There were over a dozen pre-Newsweek reports in the mainstream media alleging U.S. Qur'an abuse, including the following:- Several times in 2002 and in early 2003, the International Committee of the Red CrossInternational Committee of the Red CrossThe International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
reported complaints by detainees at Guantanamo Bay prison of desecration of the Qur'an by U.S. guards in Guantanamo. - In 2003, an Afghan former prisoner told the Washington Post that U.S. soldiers tormented him by throwing the Qur'an in the toilet.
- The BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
reported on December 30, 2004 that the former Guantánamo prisoner Abdallah Tabarak maintained that "American soldiers used to tear up copies of the Qur'an and throw them in the toilet." - In a book review dated January 16, 2005, the Hartford Courant reported that five British detainees, after their release, claimed that they "had seen other prisoners sexually humiliated, had been hooded, and were forced to watch copies of the Koran being flushed down toilets."
- The Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
reported on January 20, 2005 that there were complaints concerning guards who had "defaced their copies of the Koran and, in one case, had thrown it in a toilet." - The Miami HeraldThe Miami HeraldThe Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
reported on March 6, 2005 that three Guantánamo captives — Fawzi al Odah, 27, Fouad al Rabiah, 45, and Khalid al Mutairi, 29 — "separately complained to their lawyer that military police threw their Qur'an into the toilet." - The Miami Herald also reported on March 9, 2005 that Guantánamo Base staff insulted AllahAllahAllah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...
and "threw Qur'ans into toilets."
The Newsweek report
On April 30, 2005 NewsweekNewsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
magazine published an article claiming that an unnamed United States official had seen a government report supporting a "previously unreported" charge. Among the previously unreported cases that sources reportedly told Newsweek: interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and dog leash. The prospect that U.S. personnel may have deliberately defaced the Qur'an provoked massive anti-U.S. demonstrations throughout the Islamic world, with at least 17 deaths during riots in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
.
The Newsweek article, by reporter Michael Isikoff
Michael Isikoff
Michael Isikoff is an investigative journalist for NBC News, formerly with the United States magazine Newsweek. He joined Newsweek as an investigative correspondent in June, 1994, and has written extensively on the U.S...
, was one of over a dozen such reports of similar incidents that had surfaced in prior months in the U.S. and UK media, but the first involving a U.S. government source acknowledging an inquiry into the event. The Isikoff article was later retracted by Newsweek, which nonetheless defended both its reporter and the story, stating "neither we nor the Pentagon had any idea it would lead to deadly riots." The case turned the spotlight on other reports of desecration of the Qur'an at Guantánamo.
The article went largely unnoticed for five days. On May 6, a popular member of the Pakistani parliament, Imran Khan
Imran Khan
Imran Khan Niazi is a Pakistani politician and former Pakistani cricketer, playing international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century. After retiring, he entered politics...
, held a press conference. Khan, who is a sharp critic of both Islamist terrorism and of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
, criticized his country's government, saying, "This war on terrorism is self-defeating if, on the one hand, you [Musharraf] are demanding that we help them and on the other hand, they are desecrating the book on which our entire faith is based." Khan's press conference was rebroadcast throughout the Muslim world.
The Newsweek report cited an anonymous source, said to be a senior government official, who claimed to have seen a confidential investigative report documenting the alleged incident — in which interrogators, "in an attempt to rattle suspects, reportedly flushed a Qur'an down a toilet." However, on May 16, Newsweek retracted the statement that the abuse had been uncovered by an "internal military investigation." after the source of the story was later unable to confirm where he had seen the information. In its May 23 issue, Newsweek stated that:
- Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of the alleged Qur'an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts. Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we. But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
quoted Isikoff as saying:
- Neither Newsweek nor the Pentagon foresaw that a reference to the desecration of the Qur'an was going to create the kind of response that it did. The Pentagon saw the item before it ran, and then they didn't move us off it for 11 days afterward. They were as caught off guard by the furor as we were. We obviously blame ourselves for not understanding the potential ramifications.
International reaction
On May 10 and continuing the following week, many violent anti-American protests took place, and in some areas these turned into deadly riots. In AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, demonstrations that began in the eastern provinces and spread to Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...
were reported to have caused at least seventeen deaths. The United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, as a precautionary measure, withdrew all its foreign staff from Jalalabad
Jalalabad
Jalalabad , formerly called Adinapour, as documented by the 7th century Hsüan-tsang, is a city in eastern Afghanistan. Located at the junction of the Kabul River and Kunar River near the Laghman valley, Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar province. It is linked by approximately of highway with...
, where two of its guest houses were attacked, government buildings and shops were targeted, and the offices of two international aid groups were destroyed. Demonstrations also took place in Palestine
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
, Pakistan and Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, leading to the death of at least 15 people.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan
Scott McClellan
Scott McClellan is a former White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush, and author of a controversial No. 1 New York Times bestseller about the Bush Administration titled What Happened. He replaced Ari Fleischer as press secretary in July 2003 and served until May 10, 2006...
said, "The report had real consequences, people have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged." However, in a press release issued by the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
on May 12, General Richard B. Myers claimed that the Newsweek story was not a chief cause of the riots: "He has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else."
On May 27, thousands of demonstrators gathered in what The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
referred to as "waves of protest" in Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and the Middle East, "mostly centered on Friday prayer gatherings." The Times reported that U.S. flags were burned at some demonstrations, and that, although most of the protests were peaceful, overt calls for an "Islamic revolution" were loudly supported by the crowds in Pakistan, further complicating a difficult political situation for General Musharraf.
A Red Cross spokesperson Simon Schorno confirmed that U.S. personnel at Camp X-ray
Camp X-Ray
Camp X-Ray was a temporary detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp of Joint Task Force Guantanamo on the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.The first twenty detainees arrived at Guantanamo on January 11, 2002....
had displayed "disrespect" to the Qur'an, and that U.S. officials knew of this activity. Delegates from the International Committee of the Red Cross informed U.S. authorities, who took action to stop the alleged abuse, said Schorno. He declined to specify the nature of the incidents.
- "We're basically referring in general terms to disrespect of the Qur'an, and that's where we leave it", Schorno told The Associated Press. "We believe that since, U.S. authorities have taken the corrective measures that we required in our interventions."
Shehzad Tanweer
Shehzad Tanweer
Shehzad Tanweer was one of four men who detonated explosives in three trains on the London Underground and one bus in central London during the 7 July 2005 London bombing...
, who participated in the 7 July 2005 London bombing, may have had his ideology reinforced by allegations of Qur'an abuse. His cousin Mohammad Saleem noted that "Incidents like desecration of the Koran have always been in his mind."
Other news reports
- The New York Times reported on May 1, 2005 that "[Mr. al-Mutairi] said ... a protest of guards' handling of copies of the Qur'an, which had been tossed into a pile and stepped on, a senior officer delivered an apology over the camp's loudspeaker system, pledging that such abuses would stop."
- Former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg gave an interview in June 2005 in which he claimed to have witnessed "incidents that provoked fury, including the placing of Qur’ans in an area used as a latrine."
US military findings
On June 3, 2005, a U.S. military investigation by the base commander, Brigadier General Jay Hood, reported four (possibly five) incidents of "mishandling" of the Qur'an by U.S. personnel at Guantánamo Bay. Hood said his investigation "revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Qur'an dating back almost two and a half years."CBC News
CBC News
CBC News is the department within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on CBC television, radio and online services...
reported:
- "The U.S. Pentagon confirmed Friday a list of abuses involving the Qur'an, Islam's holy book, by American personnel at Guantánamo Bay, but said the incidents were relatively minor."
According to the Hood report:
- a soldier intentionally kicked a Qur'an;
- an interrogator intentionally stepped on a Qur'an;
- a guard's urine came through an air vent, unintentionally splashing a detainee and his Qur'an;
- water balloons thrown by prison guards at one another unintentionally caused a number of Qur'ans to get wet; and
- a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Qur'an (whether US personnel were responsible for this act, however, could not be confirmed).
The report laid out the circumstances of these incidents and disciplinary actions taken. It also stressed that such mishandling was rare, and that guards were usually respectful of the Qur'an, following strict regulations the military laid down for handling the Qur'an.
(The Qur'an handling policy was codified in a policy letter in January 2003 in response to reports by the Red Cross of Qur'an abuse.)
The Hood report also listed 15 reported incidents of detainees mishandling their own copies of the Qur'an, including complaints made by other detainees.
One of these cases involved a prisoner "attempting to flush a Qur'an down the toilet and urinating on the Qur'an."
The statement did not provide any explanation about why the detainees might have abused their own holy books.
FBI documents and other reports
The Newsweek article and the ensuing controversy turned the spotlight on other reports of Qu'ran desecration and spurred additional investigations by others. After a verdict by a federal court on May 25, 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) obtained documents from the FBI interrogations of Guantánamo Bay detainees dating back to August 2002. The documents stated that some detainees had claimed to have witnessed Qur'an desecration (including "flush[ing] a Qur'an in the toilet"), among other acts, on many occasions by their guards — in a document dated August 1, 2002. The pertinent excerpt reads as follows:"[P]rior to his capture, [name redacted] had no information against the United States. Personally, he has nothing against the United States. The guards in 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 ruling of the court forcing the release of this and other documents came under the Freedom of Information Act
Freedom of Information Act (United States)
The Freedom of Information Act is a federal freedom of information law that allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure...
The ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said, in a news release, that "The United States government continues to turn a blind eye
Turn a blind eye
The idiom turning a blind eye is used to describe the process of ignoring unpopular orders or inconvenient facts or activities.The phrase to turn a blind eye is attributed to an incident in the life of Admiral Horatio Nelson....
to mounting evidence of widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody."
The FBI declared that it could not investigate the matter, as it was up to the Defense Department to do so. For its part, the Pentagon, through its spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, appeared to have transitioned from flat denials to vagueness and unsettled syntax: "There have been instances, and we'll have more to say about it as we learn more, but where a Qur'an may have fallen to the floor in the course of searching a cell." Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, told reporters that "past accusations have had credibility issues."
James Jaffer, an attorney working for the ACLU, was quoted by the New York Times as stating that errors in the Newsweek story had been used to discredit other investigative efforts conducted by his organization and other groups "that were not based on anonymous sources, but [on] government documents, reports written by FBI agents."
Many questioned the veracity of such accounts, noting that the FBI, in 2004, had released a captured Al-Qaeda training manual which Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
Presidency spokesmen claim shows that Al-Qaeda members are trained to make false accusations once captured.
The SERE connection
Several reports have alleged a connection between events at Guantanamo Bay and a PentagonThe Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
-funded program known as SERE
SERE
SERE is a military acronym for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, a program that provides military personnel, Department of Defense civilians and private military contractors with training in evading capture, survival skills and the military code of conduct...
, which stands for "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape."
On May 16, 2005, Juan Cole
Juan Cole
John Ricardo I. "Juan" Cole is an American scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on...
published an email from a former SERE attendee who reported abuse of the Christian holy book in training.
The emailer had no direct knowledge of operations at Guantanamo, but noted that this tactic sounded similar to that alleged in the Newsweek story.
In July 2005, an article in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine suggested that the SERE program involved a number of techniques which paralleled those allegedly used at Guantánamo Bay, including the desecration of religious texts. The writer contacted Juan Cole's anonymous source who said that in 1999 he attended a Navy SERE program in California.
- So the BibleBibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
trashing happened when this guy had us all in the courtyard sitting for one of his speeches. They were tempting us with a big pot of soup that was boiling - we were all starving from a few days of chow deprivation. He brought out the Bible and started going off on it verbally - how it was worthless, we were forsaken by God, etc. Then he threw it on the ground and kicked it around. It was definitely the climax of his speech. Then he kicked over the soup pot and threw us back in the cells.
The SERE program's chief psychologist, Col. Morgan Banks, issued guidance in early 2003 for "behavioral science consultants" who helped to devise Guantánamo's interrogation strategy—although Banks has emphatically denied that he advocated the use of SERE counter-resistance techniques to break down detainees. However, General James T. Hill
James T. Hill
General James Thomas Hill is a retired U.S. Army General and former commander of United States Southern Command from 2002 to 2004. Hill also served as the Commanding General, I Corps and Fort Lewis.-Military career:...
, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, confirmed that a team from Guantanamo went "up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques" for "high-profile, high-value" detainees. According to an op-ed
Editorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...
in the November 14, 2005 New York Times by M. Gregg Bloche and Jonathan H. Marks, two lawyers with no first-hand knowledge of SERE, "General Hill had sent this list -- which included prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees' phobias -- to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
, who approved most of the tactics in December 2002. Some within the Pentagon warned that these tactics constituted torture, but a top adviser to Secretary Rumsfeld justified them by pointing to their use in SERE training, a senior Pentagon official told us last month."
See also
- 2010 Qur'an-burning controversy2010 Qur'an-burning controversyThe Dove World Quran-burning controversy arose in July 2010, when Terry Jones, the pastor of the Christian Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, U.S., declared he would burn 200 Qurans on the 2010 anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Media coverage resulted in international...
- Guantanamo Bay detention camp
- Creighton LovelaceCreighton LovelaceCreighton Lee Lovelace is Pastor of Danieltown Baptist Church in Forest City, North Carolina. Lovelace and his church received brief international attention in May 2005 over a controversial sign on church grounds that stated, "The Koran needs to be flushed!"This appeared in The Daily Courier, the...
- Christianah Oluwatoyin OluwasesinChristianah Oluwatoyin OluwasesinChristianah Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin , , was a Christian Nigerian teacher who was lynched by Muslim pupils for allegedly desecrating the Qur'an at a secondary school in Gandu, Gombe State, Nigeria, on March 21,...
External links
- Gitmo: SouthCom Showdown – original May 9, 2005 Newsweek story
- Newsweek retracts Qur'an story
- Government Documents -- searchable ACLU archive of documents released under court order via the Freedom of Information Act, featuring recently declassified documents about reported Guantanamo Qur'an desecration
- The Editor's Desk – Newsweek's May 23, 2005 apology
- Human Rights Watch report
- Did Newsweek Really Err?
- Molly Ivins: Don't Blame Newsweek
- Transcript of press conference featuring Guantanamo Commander Brigadier General Jay Hood
- Gitmo Grovel: Enough Already commentary by Charles KrauthammerCharles KrauthammerCharles Krauthammer, MD is an American Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist, political commentator, and physician. His weekly column appears in The Washington Post and is syndicated to more than 275 newspapers and media outlets. He is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and The New...
- Pentagon Details Abuse Of Koran
- The Experiment New Yorker article about SERE techniques at Guantanamo Bay