Re: OT- Power of the Liberal Press kills people


Newsweek Got It Right
By Calgacus
MediaChannel.org
5-18-5

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




"Chuck" <chuckadams05@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1116437438.937479.261370@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> It wasn't because it was the "Quran" that was it was flushed down the
> toilet, it was because it was something of value that the detainees
> cherished. It could have been pizza, diet-coke, drugs, a weekend pass,
> or anything thing of value to the detainees. Leave it to the liberal
> press to report it as an act of war against the Muslims/Quran only to
> promote their own agenda.
>
> Four Killed in Afghan Anti-U.S. Riots
>
> Wednesday, May 11, 2005
>
> JALALABAD, Afghanistan - Shouting "Death to America!" more than 1,000
> demonstrators rioted and threw stones at a U.S. military convoy
> Wednesday, as protests spread to four Afghan provinces over a report
> that interrogators desecrated Islam's holy book at the U.S. prison at
> Guantanamo Bay (search).
>
> Police fired on the protesters, many of them students, trying to stifle
> the biggest display of anti-American anger since the ouster of the
> ruling Taliban militia 3 1/2 years ago. There were no reports of
> American casualties, but the violence left four dead and 71 injured in
> Jalalabad (search), a city 80 miles east of the capital, Kabul.
>
> Mobs smashed car and shop windows and attacked government offices, the
> Pakistani consulate and the offices of two U.N. agencies in Jalalabad.
> Smoke billowed from the consulate and a U.N. building. More than 50
> foreign aid workers were reportedly evacuated.
>
> The protests may expand into neighboring Pakistan (search), where a
> coalition of hard-line Islamic parties said it would hold nationwide
> demonstrations Friday over the alleged desecration of the Quran.
>
> Many of the 520 inmates in Guantanamo are Pakistanis and Afghans
> captured after the Sept. 11 attacks. Despite both governments' support
> of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, suspicion lingers in the conservative
> Muslim nations about the American military.
>
> Growing urban unrest could pose another security challenge for the
> U.S.-backed Afghan government, which is already battling a
> reinvigorated Taliban insurgency. About 18,000 U.S. troops are in
> Afghanistan, fighting rebels and searching for Taliban and Al Qaeda
> leaders, including Usama bin Laden.
>
> President Hamid Karzai, who travels to Washington this month for talks
> with President Bush, played down the violence.
>
> "It is not the anti-American sentiment, it is a protest over news of
> the desecration of the holy Quran," Karzai told reporters after talks
> with NATO officials in Brussels, Belgium.
>
> "Afghanistan is now a democratic country, people can come out and
> protest and demonstrate and express themselves," Karzai said. "It also
> shows that Afghanistan's institutions, the police, the army, are not
> yet ready to handle protests and demonstrations."
>
> The source of anger was a brief report in the May 9 edition of Newsweek
> that interrogators at Guantanamo placed Qurans on toilets to rattle
> suspects, and in at least one case "flushed a holy book down the
> toilet."
>
> Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico said the U.S. military was
> investigating. "This allegation is contrary to our respect for cultural
> customs and fundamental belief in the freedom of religion," Plexico
> said.
>
> Last weekend, Pakistan's government said it was "deeply dismayed" about
> the report and registered its disapproval to Washington. Many Afghans
> read Pakistani papers and understand Pakistani broadcasts; access to
> satellite TV has mushroomed since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban
> in late 2001.
>
> The report of the alleged Quran desecration at Guantanamo has had
> little impact in the Arab world, however. The news stations Al-Jazeera
> and Al-Arabiyya reported the protests in Afghanistan and said the U.S.
> was investigating, but no mention was made in Islamic Web forums where
> militants often comment on news reports.
>
> Aid workers in Jalalabad suggested conservative clerics had been
> agitating for days in the mosques of the city, which lies in a
> Pashtun-dominated area that once welcomed the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
>
> "They take things like that (reported abuse of the Quran) and link it
> to the U.S. presence here," said Phil Halton of the Afghan NGO Security
> Organization. "It's a familiar theme."
>
> The unrest in Jalalabad began Tuesday, when protesters burned an effigy
> of Bush. It flared again Wednesday, when more than 1,000 university and
> high school students marched through the city and stoned a convoy of
> U.S. military vehicles.
>
> The American troops fired into the air to force the crowd back and
> quickly left the scene, provincial intelligence chief Sardar Shah said.
>
> U.S. military spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said American forces were
> ordered to their camps but had no information on whether any of them
> were caught up in the unrest.
>
> Associated Press Television News footage showed Afghan troops firing
> dangerously low over the heads of fleeing demonstrators.
>
> The Interior Ministry said four people were killed and that the 71
> injured included six police officers.
>
> Deputy provincial health chief Mohammed Ayub Shinwari said most of the
> injured were students. He said two of the dead had been shot and many
> of the injured also had suffered bullet wounds.
>
> "There is a lot of damage to the city, they have burned a lot of
> things," Shah said. "These are the enemies of peace and stability in
> Afghanistan who don't want people to be able to get on with their lives
> in peace."
>
> Students held similar protests in three other provinces - Laghman,
> Khost and Wardak - but there were no reports of violence.
>
> Wednesday was not the first time Pakistan's diplomatic missions have
> been targeted in Afghanistan. The two countries' bilateral relations
> have historically been strained by border disputes.
>
> An Afghan opposition leader claimed the demonstration reflected
> frustration at the role of the United States and Karzai's plans for
> military ties, which could include long-term U.S. bases.
>
> "From the beginning, people have disagreed with these things, but when
> the government makes one announcement after another, people lose
> patience and explode," said former presidential candidate Mohammed
> Mohaqeq.
>
> Afghan leaders have long complained of heavy-handed search operations
> and the deaths of civilians in U.S. operations. They have also called
> for the release of those still held at Guantanamo, the naval base on
> Cuba where the United States is detaining more than 500 prisoners from
> its war on terror.
>
> Some men who have been released from Guantanamo have accused their
> American jailers of defacing Qurans as part of the alleged
> psychological and physical abuse they endured during interrogation.
>
> "They did everything to us - they tortured our bodies, they tortured
> our minds, they tortured our ideas and our religion," former prisoner
> Mohamed Khan told The Associated Press a year ago when he was among two
> dozen Afghans sent home.
>
> State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday that U.S.
> personnel assigned to Guantanamo go through training to ensure they
> understand the procedures for protecting the rights and dignity of
> detainees.
>
> "There is an opportunity to worship. People can get copies of the
> Quran. They get prayer beads," he added.
>
> "The call to prayer is played over camp loudspeakers at the appropriate
> times every day. And the detainees have stenciled arrows pointing in
> the direction of Mecca so people are afforded the opportunity to pray
> as they wish."
>


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