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Anti-US protests sweep Muslim world
Anti-American protests over reports of US interrogators tormenting prisoners by desecrating the Koran spread throughout the Muslim world Friday. Angry demonstrations broke out from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to Indonesia following four days of violent clashes in Afghanistan that have left over 16 people dead and scores wounded.
Protests were also reported in Egypt, Sudan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, the governments of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and several other Muslim countries filed formal protests with Washington.
The immediate spark for the protests was a brief report in the May 9 issue of Newsweek magazine citing internal FBI memos from the US detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba reporting that “interrogators, attempting to rattle suspects ... had placed Korans on toilets and, in at least one case, flushed a holy book down the toilet.”
Some 520 detainees, virtually all of them Muslims from Afghanistan, Pakistan and a number of other countries, have been held incommunicado at Guantánamo—many of them for nearly three years—without being charged, much less tried. Cases of physical abuse and torture have been amply documented.
The impact of the report of the desecration of the Koran has been as severe in Muslim countries as the shocking pictures of Iraqi detainees suffering torture and sexual humiliation at the hands of US soldiers that came out of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison a little over a year ago.
In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, desecration of the Koran is an offense punishable by death.
Outrage over the grotesque affront to Islam has joined with simmering resentment over US militarism and social inequality and oppression. This is particularly true in Afghanistan, where the US-led occupation force of 18,000 troops props up a deeply unpopular puppet government.
The demonstrations in Afghanistan are the largest since the US invaded and occupied the country in 2001.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/musl-m14.shtml
The immediate spark for the protests was a brief report in the May 9 issue of Newsweek magazine citing internal FBI memos from the US detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba reporting that “interrogators, attempting to rattle suspects ... had placed Korans on toilets and, in at least one case, flushed a holy book down the toilet.”
Some 520 detainees, virtually all of them Muslims from Afghanistan, Pakistan and a number of other countries, have been held incommunicado at Guantánamo—many of them for nearly three years—without being charged, much less tried. Cases of physical abuse and torture have been amply documented.
The impact of the report of the desecration of the Koran has been as severe in Muslim countries as the shocking pictures of Iraqi detainees suffering torture and sexual humiliation at the hands of US soldiers that came out of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison a little over a year ago.
In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, desecration of the Koran is an offense punishable by death.
Outrage over the grotesque affront to Islam has joined with simmering resentment over US militarism and social inequality and oppression. This is particularly true in Afghanistan, where the US-led occupation force of 18,000 troops props up a deeply unpopular puppet government.
The demonstrations in Afghanistan are the largest since the US invaded and occupied the country in 2001.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/musl-m14.shtml
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I am an American and I am for the Muslims. The Americans do nothing to stop our leaders from committing crimes against humanity, so its time to watch our neighbors. If Afghanies can stand up to our government then why can't we?
Wake up America your quietness/passiveness is fucking this country up.
Wake up America your quietness/passiveness is fucking this country up.
May. 15, 2005 22:30 | Updated May. 15, 2005 22:35
Newsweek says may have erred in Koran report
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Following days of deadly riots throughout the Islamic world sparked by a May 9 Newsweek article claiming that US interrogators desecrated copies of the Koran at the Guanatanamo Bay prison, the US weekly said Sunday that the report may have been erroneous.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1116123543849&p=1078397702269
Newsweek says may have erred in Koran report
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Following days of deadly riots throughout the Islamic world sparked by a May 9 Newsweek article claiming that US interrogators desecrated copies of the Koran at the Guanatanamo Bay prison, the US weekly said Sunday that the report may have been erroneous.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1116123543849&p=1078397702269
Yep, Newsweek caved pretty quick when it looked like they could get in trouble for telling the truth. It's strange that the earlier more horrific reports about prison treatment in Iraq and Gitmo didnt create this level of protest but it seems like the anger was building and the Newsweek report helped spark the protests (although the people Newsweek was referring to were on the Urdu language BBC talking about the incident just last week so despite how things got reported here the spark may have had nothing to do with the Newsweek report). I wonder if CBS would have caved with the Iraq torture reports they did if the uprisings afterwards as closely associated with the uprisings that followed.
"I wonder if CBS would have caved with the Iraq torture reports they did if the uprisings afterwards as closely associated with the uprisings that followed."
Thats the advantage of pictures. Once they were released, pressure couldnt be put on reporters to take back the reports since there wasnt an easy way to explain the pics. Although one does wonder about those pics in the Mirror that were retracted.
Thats the advantage of pictures. Once they were released, pressure couldnt be put on reporters to take back the reports since there wasnt an easy way to explain the pics. Although one does wonder about those pics in the Mirror that were retracted.
as it has been reported several times previously
see my post on another article here:
[more:
by RWF Monday, May. 16, 2005 at 10:11 AM
restes60 [at] earthlink.net
Koran desecration a common tactic of incarceration at Gitmo:
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=5959 ]
and, of course, contrary to what you read in the US media, it's a lot more than just the desecration of the Koran:
[why they are really rioting in Afghanistan
by RWF Monday, May. 16, 2005 at 10:15 AM
restes60 [at] earthlink.net
heavy-handed US tactics, house searches, interrogations, random seizures of people
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=638633 ]
--Richard
see my post on another article here:
[more:
by RWF Monday, May. 16, 2005 at 10:11 AM
restes60 [at] earthlink.net
Koran desecration a common tactic of incarceration at Gitmo:
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=5959 ]
and, of course, contrary to what you read in the US media, it's a lot more than just the desecration of the Koran:
[why they are really rioting in Afghanistan
by RWF Monday, May. 16, 2005 at 10:15 AM
restes60 [at] earthlink.net
heavy-handed US tactics, house searches, interrogations, random seizures of people
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=638633 ]
--Richard
Cageprisoners is today publishing a compendium of statements from former detainees of Guantanamo Bay regarding the United States Government's systematic, institutionalised and intentful desecration of the Qur'an and other religious abuses and manipulations to degrade and humiliate the detainees.
The report, which is a damningly detailed cross-corroborated litany of abuses of the Qur'an by US forces, demolishes the farcical denial by the United States that the desecration of the Qur'an by the US military and their associated agencies was neither an intentful nor systematic method devised by the US command chain to purposefully torment the detainees.
Included is exclusive new material from former UK based detainees Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbassi and Jamal al-Harith on the abuses they witnessed first hand and those reported to them second hand.
This is Feroz's first public statement on the abuses he suffered and witnessed under his detention and refers exclusively to the religious abuses meted out by the US authorities
The reports details how the US forces systematically in numerous different incidents, throughout the entire lengths of their detention up till their release, variously:
. stamped on the Qur'an,
. placed the Qur'an in buckets and faeces and urine,
. sat on the Qur'an,
. shredded the Qur'an in interrogations,
. dropped and threw it on the floor,
. belittled the Qur'an calling it a guide on 'how to kill Americans'and
. mistranslated the copies they gave to Prisoners
all in their bid to break the will of the detainees used it as a means tomaliciously abuse and mentally damage the prisoners.
Also reported is
. Proselytisation attempts to Christianity by the US Military forces including distribution of Bibles.
. Systematic and endemic derision and abuse of Islamic religious rituals and supplications such as
o Mocking and deriding the Adhaan (the call to Prayer),
o Forced shaving of the beard (which many Muslim's hold as obligatory),
o Withholding food during Ramadhan (the month of Fasting from Dawn to Dusk)
o Prohibition of Qur'ranic recitation
o Prohibition of congregational prayer.
Feroz states that a US interpreter of Lebanese Maronite origin repeatedly slapped and physically degraded the Qur'an whilst calling it 'Shit', how copies of the Qur'an were placed in 'Shit' buckets by US forces and details how the interrogators used the Qur'an as a tool to humiliate and abuse the detainees.
Moazzam Begg corroborates Feroz's account and exposes the duplicity of the US Spokesman Richard Boucher's statement that the detainees were given the Qur'an and the opportunity to worship. Detailing a raft of examples of religious abuses by US military personnel.
Jamal Al Harith confirms that 'the US has desecrated the Quran on a number of occasions.' Detailing 'the reason for the first hunger strike in Camp X-ray, which involved about 75% of the detainees was over a guard who kicked the Quran onto the floor from its perch hanging on the side of the cage. Numerous hunger strikes in Camp Delta were over another guard who threw it into the toilet. When searching our cages the guards would sometimes throw the Quran onto the floor. During interrogation, an interrogator jumped up and down on the Quran and taunted a prisoner. In Afghanistan, in the American concentration camps, a Quran was thrown in a waste bucket by a guard.... '
Tarek Dergoul describes the modus operandi of the interrogators which consisted of 'swearing at Allah, swearing at the Prophet and the Qur'an .and mocking [it]' and how Military Police wrote obscentities in copies of the Qur'an scrawling 'F*** off, F*** you' in them.
Mohammes Mazouz states: 'The Americans went [through procedures] to humiliate us and flout our most elementary principles. It concerns the treatment inflicted to the Quran. Anything that could reduce it to nothing was used. They urinated over it, they ripped it; they cut it with scissors in front of us. They defecated on it and painted our faces with it. Yes, all this should be said so that the Muslim world understands which degree of hate this sacred Book inspires in them.'
Cageprisoner's spokesman Dr Adnan Siddiqui states 'It should be clear to any thinking person that all these detainees could not have colluded, especially since some were in solitary confinement for their duration in Guantanamo Bay; and the US is guilty of a systematic and horrific assault on Islam and the religious beliefs and practices of a fifth of Humanity in their so-called 'war on terror. The prolonged period of the abuse from the beginning to the end of their detention clearly shows that it is institutionalised and authorised by the chain of command headed by Donald Rumsfeld and George W.Bush.'
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=7283
The report, which is a damningly detailed cross-corroborated litany of abuses of the Qur'an by US forces, demolishes the farcical denial by the United States that the desecration of the Qur'an by the US military and their associated agencies was neither an intentful nor systematic method devised by the US command chain to purposefully torment the detainees.
Included is exclusive new material from former UK based detainees Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbassi and Jamal al-Harith on the abuses they witnessed first hand and those reported to them second hand.
This is Feroz's first public statement on the abuses he suffered and witnessed under his detention and refers exclusively to the religious abuses meted out by the US authorities
The reports details how the US forces systematically in numerous different incidents, throughout the entire lengths of their detention up till their release, variously:
. stamped on the Qur'an,
. placed the Qur'an in buckets and faeces and urine,
. sat on the Qur'an,
. shredded the Qur'an in interrogations,
. dropped and threw it on the floor,
. belittled the Qur'an calling it a guide on 'how to kill Americans'and
. mistranslated the copies they gave to Prisoners
all in their bid to break the will of the detainees used it as a means tomaliciously abuse and mentally damage the prisoners.
Also reported is
. Proselytisation attempts to Christianity by the US Military forces including distribution of Bibles.
. Systematic and endemic derision and abuse of Islamic religious rituals and supplications such as
o Mocking and deriding the Adhaan (the call to Prayer),
o Forced shaving of the beard (which many Muslim's hold as obligatory),
o Withholding food during Ramadhan (the month of Fasting from Dawn to Dusk)
o Prohibition of Qur'ranic recitation
o Prohibition of congregational prayer.
Feroz states that a US interpreter of Lebanese Maronite origin repeatedly slapped and physically degraded the Qur'an whilst calling it 'Shit', how copies of the Qur'an were placed in 'Shit' buckets by US forces and details how the interrogators used the Qur'an as a tool to humiliate and abuse the detainees.
Moazzam Begg corroborates Feroz's account and exposes the duplicity of the US Spokesman Richard Boucher's statement that the detainees were given the Qur'an and the opportunity to worship. Detailing a raft of examples of religious abuses by US military personnel.
Jamal Al Harith confirms that 'the US has desecrated the Quran on a number of occasions.' Detailing 'the reason for the first hunger strike in Camp X-ray, which involved about 75% of the detainees was over a guard who kicked the Quran onto the floor from its perch hanging on the side of the cage. Numerous hunger strikes in Camp Delta were over another guard who threw it into the toilet. When searching our cages the guards would sometimes throw the Quran onto the floor. During interrogation, an interrogator jumped up and down on the Quran and taunted a prisoner. In Afghanistan, in the American concentration camps, a Quran was thrown in a waste bucket by a guard.... '
Tarek Dergoul describes the modus operandi of the interrogators which consisted of 'swearing at Allah, swearing at the Prophet and the Qur'an .and mocking [it]' and how Military Police wrote obscentities in copies of the Qur'an scrawling 'F*** off, F*** you' in them.
Mohammes Mazouz states: 'The Americans went [through procedures] to humiliate us and flout our most elementary principles. It concerns the treatment inflicted to the Quran. Anything that could reduce it to nothing was used. They urinated over it, they ripped it; they cut it with scissors in front of us. They defecated on it and painted our faces with it. Yes, all this should be said so that the Muslim world understands which degree of hate this sacred Book inspires in them.'
Cageprisoner's spokesman Dr Adnan Siddiqui states 'It should be clear to any thinking person that all these detainees could not have colluded, especially since some were in solitary confinement for their duration in Guantanamo Bay; and the US is guilty of a systematic and horrific assault on Islam and the religious beliefs and practices of a fifth of Humanity in their so-called 'war on terror. The prolonged period of the abuse from the beginning to the end of their detention clearly shows that it is institutionalised and authorised by the chain of command headed by Donald Rumsfeld and George W.Bush.'
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=7283
it's excellent
[more
by more Tuesday, May. 17, 2005 at 8:32 AM
Cageprisoners is today publishing a compendium of statements from former detainees of Guantanamo Bay regarding the United States Government's systematic, institutionalised and intentful desecration of the Qur'an and other religious abuses and manipulations to degrade and humiliate the detainees.]
[more
by more Tuesday, May. 17, 2005 at 8:32 AM
Cageprisoners is today publishing a compendium of statements from former detainees of Guantanamo Bay regarding the United States Government's systematic, institutionalised and intentful desecration of the Qur'an and other religious abuses and manipulations to degrade and humiliate the detainees.]
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