US Guantanamo guard kicked Koran

**4me2** · 4th June 2005

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Five cases of Koran mishandling by US guards were found

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The US has given details of how guards mishandled copies of the Koran at its Guantanamo Bay prison, including a case of one copy being deliberately kicked.

It was part of an inquiry sparked by a magazine report, later retracted, that a Koran was flushed down a toilet.

The US listed five incidents of mishandling at the Cuban facility, including the splashing of urine and water on copies of the Koran.

The report said most of the cases were accidental or unintentional.

It also said that there were a number of cases where detainees had desecrated the Koran by ripping pages, urinating on it and trying to flush it down a toilet.

Water balloons

Brig Gen Jay Hood, commander at Guantanamo, said in his report: "We defined mishandling as touching, holding or the treatment of a Koran in a manner inconsistent with policy or procedure.

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I think one can only conclude that respect for detainee religious beliefs was embedded in the culture of [Guantanamo Bay's task force]

Brig Gen Jay Hood

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He confirmed that five of these alleged mishandling incidents by US guards did take place.

In one instance, a guard was said to have urinated near an air vent.

The wind allegedly blew his urine through the vent, soiling one detainee and his Koran.

According to the report, the guard was reprimanded and sanctioned, and the inmate was given a new uniform and Koran.

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Alleged abuse of the Koran sparked protests in Muslim countries

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Other Korans became wet after night-shift guards had thrown balloons filled with water into a cell block, the report found.

In a third case, an interrogator reportedly apologised to a detainee after stepping on his Koran.

In a fourth incident, a soldier deliberately kicked Islam's holy book.

Finally, a prisoner found a "two-word obscenity" in English written in his copy of the Koran.

Gen Hood concluded that the words might have been written by a guard or by the detainee himself.

He said: "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 [Guantanamo Bay's task force]."

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita said there had also been 15 cases of "mishandling and outright desecration by detainees".

The report said these included "using the Koran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Koran, attempting to flush a Koran down the toilet and urinating on the Koran".

'Lasting damage'

The earlier report in Newsweek magazine of the Koran being flushed down a toilet by guards had sparked protests across the Muslim world.

In Afghanistan, riots resulted in the deaths of at least 15 people.

Thousands rallied in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon and Malaysia, demanding apologies from the US and punishment for those involved.

The magazine withdrew its story after saying it could no longer corroborate the report. The inmate who made the original allegation about the Koran being flushed down the toilet had retracted it, said Gen Hood. The White House rounded on the magazine, saying its report had done "lasting damage" to the US image in the Muslim world.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4608949.stm

ABCMan · 4th June 2005

i heard this last night and was interested by how much trouble they went to to explain the "incidents"

1) the "kicked koran" was kicked, the person who kicked it was relieved of duties immediatly.

2) the "wet koran" was in a cell close to the door where the guards were having a waterfight, it got splashed completely unintentionaly

3) the "trodden on koran" was left on the floor by its owner and accidently trodden on

4) the "rude words" it could not be identified wether this was written by a prisoner or a guard so this "incident" was listed only for completeness

5) the "pissed on koran", my personal favourite till i heard the truth behind it, a guard taking a piss OUTSIDE accidently hit an inlet fan resulting in one prisioner getting sprayed with a few drops of urine, he was immediatly cleaned up, given new clothes and bedding and had his copy of the koran replaced and was given an apology.

of the 5 incidents only 2 were the results of actual complaints, the kick and the water, only one was found to be intentional

its realy strange how 4 accidents can do serious damage in the muslim world, what about the damage to the christian world by murdering thousands in ney york or bali, by bombing churches in the few moslem countries that actualy allow them? maybe we should be offended by that and go on the rampage burning down moslem owned businesses and attacking moslems on the street, oh wait, no, thats right, we are civilised and civilised people dont behave like they are stuck in the 15th century.

**4me2** · 4th June 2005

Detainees, not soldiers, flushed Quran

Soldiers kicked, splashed urine on holy book

<SCRIPT language=JavaScript type=text/javascript></SCRIPT>Saturday, June 4, 2005 Posted: 12:04 AM EDT (0404 GMT) 

(CNN) -- A U.S. military investigation into the mishandling of the Muslim holy book at the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists has determined that detainees -- not U.S. soldiers -- attempted to flush the Quran down the toilet there.
However, the report did find four confirmed incidents in which U.S. personnel at the base mishandled the Quran, including guards kicking a detainee's Quran; a guard's urine "splashed" a detainee and his holy book after coming through an air vent; and guards got in a water balloon fight that resulted in two detainees' Qurans getting wet.

In a fifth confirmed incident, it could not be determined whether a guard or a detainee wrote a two-word obscenity in a detainee's Quran.

The findings of the report, issued by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of the detention center in Cuba, were released late Friday. They found no evidence to support allegations that U.S. soldiers attempted to flush the Muslim holy book down the toilet.

The investigation was prompted after a Newsweek article citing unnamed sources made such a claim -- prompting violent protests in Afghanistan and other parts of the Muslim world that left more than a dozen people dead. (Full story)

Newsweek has since retracted the story.

The Hood report cited three separate incidents in which detainees tried to flush the Quran down the toilet.

In one incident, on February 23, 2004, the report said a guard saw a "detainee place two Qurans in his toilet and state he no longer cared about the Quran or his religion.

Five minutes later, after the detainee retrieved the Qurans, he ripped several pages out of one Quran and threw the pages on the floor. Then, he placed both Qurans on the sink."

Another time, on January 19, 2005, a detainee "tore up his Quran and tried to flush it down the toilet. Four guards witnessed the incident," the report said.

The report also cited 12 other incidents by detainees, including one who used his Quran as a pillow, another who urinated on his holy book and several who ripped pages from the Quran.

Capt. Jeff Weir, an Army spokesman at the facility, told CNN in a phone interview that the detainees were typically trying to stage some form of protest when they mishandled the Quran.

Hood said investigators reviewed more than 30,000 documents in an exhaustive probe.

"The inquiry found no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Quran down a toilet. This matter is considered closed," the report said.

It said the U.S. military has issued more than 1,600 copies of the Quran since January 2002, conducted more than 28,000 interrogations and carried out thousands of "cell moves."

"Mishandling a Quran at Guantanamo Bay is a rare occurrence," Hood said. "Mishandling of a Quran here is never condoned."

The investigators defined mishandling as "touching, holding or the treatment of a Quran in a manner inconsistent with policy or procedure."

Hood said the investigative team looked into 19 incidents involving allegations of mishandling of the holy book, only five of which could be confirmed.

Ten of the incidents did not involve mishandling of the Quran, the report concluded. Four incidents could not be verified.

According to the report, the five confirmed incidents were:

<LI>In February 2002, a detainee complained that guards kicked the Quran belonging to a detainee in a nearby cell.

<LI>On July 25, 2003, a contract interrogator apologized to a detainee for stepping on his Quran in an earlier interview. The interrogator was later fired "for a pattern of unacceptable behavior, an inability to follow direct guidance and poor leadership."

<LI>On August 15, 2003, night shift guards threw water balloons in a cell block, wetting the Qurans of two detainees.

<LI>On August 21, 2003, a detainee complained that a "two-word obscenity had been written in English on the inside cover of his English version Quran." The report noted that the detainee knew English and Arabic, and it could not be determined exactly who wrote the phrase. "It is possible that a guard committed this act; it is equally possible that the detainee wrote in his own Quran."

<LI>On March 25, 2005, a detainee said "urine came through an air vent" and "splashed on him and his Quran while he laid near the air vent." A guard admitted he was at fault, saying he urinated near an air vent and the "wind blew his urine through the vent into the block." The detainee was given a new uniform and Quran. The guard was reprimanded and placed on gate guard duty away from detainees.

Weir, the Army spokesman at the facility, said about 540 suspected terrorists are housed at the maximum security prison. Noting that only five incidents of mishandling of the Quran could be confirmed, he said, "I will stand by the record here: It's outstanding."

He said even if a U.S. soldier was "contemplating misbehaving," it would be extremely difficult.

"Nothing goes unchecked in Guantanamo Bay," he said. "Everything is documented."

There are about 540 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there more than three years without being charged with a crime. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and were sent to Guantanamo Bay in hope of extracting useful intelligence about the al Qaeda terrorist network.

Both U.S. President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have denounced an Amnesty International report that called the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our time."

The president told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday that the report by the human-rights group was "absurd."

On Wednesday, Rumsfeld called the characterization "reprehensible" and said the U.S. military had taken care to ensure that detainees were free to practice their religion.

However, he also acknowledged that some detainees had been mistreated, even "grievously" at times. (Full story)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/03/gua...ran/index.html