Three Kuwaiti captives -- Fawzi al Odah, 27, Fouad al Rabiah, 45, and Khalid al Mutairi, 29 -- separately complained to their lawyer that military police threw their Korans into the toilet, according to the notes of Kristine Huskey, a Washington attorney.
Guards also mocked captives at prayer and censored Islamic books, the captives allege. And in one incident, they say, a prison barber cut a cross-shaped patch of hair on an inmate's head. Most of the complaints come from the recently declassified notes of defense lawyers' interviews with prisoners, which Guantanamo officials initially stamped ''secret.'' Under a federal court procedure for due-process appeals by about 100 inmates, portions are now being declassified.
Philadelphia Inquirer January 20, 2005
Twelve Kuwaitis held for about three years at the detention center at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been physically and psychologically abused, their attorneys said yesterday after their first visit with the detainees. The men were "all very thin, almost emaciated," and most were being held in isolation, with 45 minutes of exercise a week, only the Koran to read, and no medical treatment, said Tom Wilner, who visited his clients last week.
Some detainees complained of religious humiliation, saying guards had defaced their copies of the Koran and, in one case, had thrown it in a toilet, said Kristine Huskey, who interviewed clients late last month. Others said that pills were hidden in their food and that people came to their cells claiming to be their attorneys, to gain information. "All have been physically abused, and, however you define the term, the treatment of these men crossed the line," Wilner said.
Hartford Courant (Connecticut) January 16, 2005
Book review of GUANTANAMO: AMERICA'S WAR ON HUMAN RIGHTS by David Rose
In March, the government released five British men from Guantanamo after holding them nearly three years. They had been captured in Afghanistan, where they had gone to offer humanitarian aid. Rose interviewed them the same month, two months before allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq first surfaced, and they described captivity that seems eerily similar. They said they were punched, slapped, denied sleep, had seen other prisoners sexually humiliated, had been hooded, and were forced to watch copies of the Koran being flushed down toilets. Eventually the pressure proved too much -- they gave false confessions that the British intelligence service later showed to be untrue. On their return to the United Kingdom, they were released by Scotland Yard without being charged.
Prisoners alleged the same thing happened at the jail in Kandahar in Afganistan:
BBC Monitoring International Reports December 30, 2004, Text of report by Khadija Ali Moussa entitled "Abdallah Tabarak, the former Guantanamo prisoner, gives Attajdid details of his ordeal from Kandahar to Guantanamo" and published by Moroccan Islamic movement Tawhid wal Islah daily newspaper Attajdid on 28 December.
Question: What were the detention conditions like out there?
Answer: The jail in Kandahar was like a stable surrounded by barbed wire and it had a wooden roof. It was located in a barren land where it was terribly cold. The American soldiers used to order us to lie down on our stomachs and they would start hitting our backs with rifle butts and trampling our bodies underfoot. They would place our heads in dirty bags, and when we went to sleep, lying down on our bellies, they would suddenly wake us up at about three o'clock at night. It was forbidden for us to talk, and anyone who said a single word was punished. The punishment was standing on one foot for long hours. All their treatment was violent, and every three days the tragedy recurs: burns with live electric wires all over the body and other forms of torture.
There are other forms of torture: they watched you each time you went to the toilet; the American soldiers used to tear up copies of the Koran and to throw them in the toilet; and when we were thirsty and asked for water, they would bring us one and a half litres each and they would order us to drink the whole lot up, and anyone who disobeyed was tortured. Then, after we drank all the water, we were forbidden to go and urinate. Sometimes the 60 prisoners of us used to stand up in a queue, each of us waiting for his turn to go to the toilet, and the Americans used to enjoy such a sight very much. More still: even moaning after torture sessions was prohibited.
Then, there's the Tipton Three and a lawsuit filed by released British detainees.
DAILY MAIL (London), October 28, 2004
The Tipton men have already submitted a 115-page dossier alleging they were beaten, stripped, shackled and deprived of sleep during their detention. They say guards threw prisoners' Korans into toilets and tried to force them to give up their faith.
There were claims that detainees were forcibly injected with unidentified drugs and intimidated with military dogs. The men claim they eventually gave false confessions that they appeared in a video with Osama Bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, one of the September 11 hijackers, despite the fact that they could prove they were in Britain when it was made. After they were freed, the men were questioned by British police but quickly released without charge.
Detroit Free Press October 28, 2004
Four British citizens released from Guantanamo Bay filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the United States, seeking $10 million each in damages for abuse they say they suffered at the U.S. military outpost in Cuba, attorneys said Wednesday.
Shafiq Rasul, 26; Asif Iqbal, 22; Rhuhel Ahmed, 22, and Jamal Al-Harith, 37, were released to British authorities in March. They were detained in Afghanistan on Nov. 28, 2001, by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance.
The lawsuit alleges that the four were chained to the floor while strobe lights and loud music were played in a room chilled by air-conditioners set at maximum levels. The men say they were subjected to the conditions for up to 14 hours at a time. They say they were also beaten while their heads were covered with hoods. The men, who were never charged while in U.S. detention, also allege that some of the guards threw the prisoners' Korans into toilets. The Pentagon denied the allegations.
The Observer, March 14, 2004, (also about Rasul, one of those who filed a lawsuit)
As Muslims, they were shocked when in repeated 'shakedown' searches of the sleeping tents, copies of the Koran would be trampled on by soldiers and, on one occasion, thrown into a toilet bucket. Throughout their stay at Kandahar the guards carried out head-counts every hour at night to keep the prisoners awake.
Does anyone really think Newsweek's retraction is real? Or that Guantanamo is anything other than an American gulag in the Caribbean?
