As concerning the desecration of the Qur`an as witnessed by myself and what I heard from others:
At Concentration Camp X-ray between January 11th 2002 and March 28th 2002, early on in this period, no Qur`ans were issued to us. The brothers, masha`a Allah, being strongly religious, naturally wanted Qur`ans to pass the long days of languishing in the cages away. At this time we spent all our time in the cages except for recreation (I only ever had two sessions (15 minutes each) given to me during this whole period), shower, or interrogation (all in shackles or still in a cage). So they requested some Qur`ans. The establishment responded by giving those who had pocket Qur`ans with them when they were abducted their Qur`ans back. So the situation arose where some had Qur`ans and some not. Hence one brother in the same section as I - I was then bravo bravo nine. This brother was likely bravo bravo six or thereabouts. Not ten metres away from me - wanted to pass his Qur`an to a brother just five meters away from him except that he had no means without resorting to asking the MPs to do it. He did just that. They could not understand him because he did not speak English or could not make himself understood if he did. So they brought over a translator. A Maronite Christian Lebanese Arab interpreter whom I believe was named: Dirke. This character took the pocket sized Qur`an from the abductee held it in his left hand. And with the back of his right hand slapped the Qur`an repeatedly saying repeatedly, in English for his comrades to hear (who, male and female, found it chucklingly amusing), "Why do you want to pass this SHIT around, why do you want to pass this SHIT
around?" I swear by Allah! I witnessed this clearly, not ten metres away from me, with my own eyes and ears. I swear by Allah.
FIRST HUNGER STRIKE CAUSED BY GUARD STAMPING ON THE QUR’AN
The first hunger strike in Camp X-ray, Guantánamo, started specifically and because an MP (Military Police, guard, soldier) was alleged to have stamped on the Qur`an inanother section, not my own. The soldier that was being accused of it, a PFC (Private First Class) Creel, approached me with worry lining his face, lamenting that he was being accused of it because his name is the only name the abductees remembered. I doubt that he was the one who did it. But his obvious worry goes some way to giving credibility to the alleged incident. It was because of the first hunger strike that the rule at Guantánamo was issued which stated that no soldier is allowed to touch the Qur`an, whether fully Arabic, Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation,
or another language translation. Only the Muslim "chaplain" touches any Qur`an. This obviously was a farce, as the rule was repeatedly and systematically infringed by the establishment itself.
NEXT STRIKE CAUSED BY QUR’ANS BEING PLACED IN ‘SHIT’ BUCKETS
One of the reasons for the second hunger strike which occurred around June/July2002 (by my reckoning, we were not allowed to know the time or the date) was the desecration of the Qur`an. One of the Arabs explained to me that brothers had been used in Kandahar detention facility (the same I was held in) to empty the "shit buckets" (I don’t mean to use profanity but that is what the soldiers called them), one if not more actually saw a copy of the "Uthmani" Qur`an dunked in the faeces and urine in a "shit bucket", which could only have been done by a soldier. The brother that told me this also expressed his grief that they could not do anything to retrieve it.
US POLICY ON RESPECTING RELIGIONS FARCICAL AND EXPEDIENT
A change happened around the beginning of 2003 when I was "celebrating" completing a whole year at Guantánamo (first arrived January 11th 2002) and "looking forward" to my year anniversary at first arriving at Concentration Camp Delta (March 28th 2002, I believe, or there about, it was a Sunday.). The interrogators at this time were given extensive powers to manipulate our conditions as they liked. The "level" system also came in at this very time also. The abductees the interrogators liked were given the full range of "comfort items" (essentials to everybody else -including the Americans) and were dubbed a level 1 "detainee". The rest had more and more stuff taken away from them until level 4 only had a blanket and an I.S.O. mat (exercise/foam camping mat) to the best of my memory. Level 4s had their Qur`ans taken away from them.
DELIBERATE MANIPULATION AND ABUSE OF THE QUR’AN BY
INTEROGATORS
Because the Qur`an was being used as a tool by the interrogators, as the Arabs put it: "To be given like a blanket when they are happy with you and to be taken away like a bottle when they are not." The majority (I believe) of the Arab brothers opted for a compromise situation and tried to give their Qur`ans back to the "establishment". They wanted to keep the Qur`an out of this interrogator versus abductee battle of wills. Obviously the establishment did not take the Qur`ans
back. Simply because then they could not claim with "credibility" to the world that they were "treating us humanely" and "respecting our religious rights". Obviously with them, and the rest of the world, the perception of truth counts, the truth doesn’t. But they could not claim to respect our religion if we had not Qur`ans. So they refused to take the Qur`ans back. The brothers (mainly level 4 Arabs, the "hardcores" as the soldiers labelled them) responded by refusing to "flick through the Qur`an", which had been accepted as a condition that the Qur`an not be touched by the soldiers after the first hunger strike at Guantánamo. They claimed they had to check the Qur`ans in case an abductee was hiding a "weapon" in the Qur`an itself. So the "flicking through" achieved that without the Qur`an being
desecrated. It was then that the establishment responded that any abductee who did not flick through their Qur`an (which was to be done every time the abductee left his cage) would not get any Rec. ("Recreational" time i.e. walk around on a concrete slab in a wire fence cage and then have a five minute shower). The abductees who were part of this "disobedience" (or more rightly, obedience to Allah)
thought the Qur`an more important than walking in circles for 15minutes (as I remember it) and a shower.
FEMALE MP RENAMES HERSELF ‘ALLAH’ AND REPEATEDLY KNOCKS OVER
QUR’AN
I heard from either one or a number of MPs that there was a female MP who at the end of her deployment (just before July 2004) knocked the Qur`an over onto the ground twice, within days of each other (if not the day after the first deliberate act) which started the blocks rioting. She also had a name -the soldiers had name tags which they masking-taped over as they were told: "so that they (the abductees) don’t track you (the soldiers) down and kill you and your families when they are released" when in fact the true reason was the abductees were noting the trouble makers down and complaining to the interrogators. The response was wholly American. Instead of stopping the trouble makers, they protected them by issuing orders that they cover their name tags for anonymity and free licence in their crimes against us.- that could be selectively taped over to spell "Allah" which she did. And she walked around the blocks with her name tag spelling "Allah" on her breast. Her reasons for doing this were apparently that, as she allegedly said, "We (the abductees) get treated better than they (the soldiers) do." This information is from a good source, a Sergeant Bowyer, who was respectable to us.
PAKISTAN FOREIGN MINISTER’S CALL HYPOCRITICAL AND FARCICAL
The claims of Pakistan that: "Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri called for severe punishment for any soldiers found to have desecrated the Qur`an - a crime that in Pakistan is punishable by death," are farcical to say the least, when it was the Pakistani law enforcement agencies that put most of the brothers in Guantánamo there in first place. It was also Pakistan that gave the U.S. and their allies the go to use their air- space to bomb Afghanistan. They, by putting Muslims in Guantánamo and in disbeliever hands, directly instituted the desecration of Allah’s name, His Uncreated Word, and His religion.
US9UK-000024DP: Abductee; Feroz Ali Abbasi.
14 th May 2005
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