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Demonstration against defiling the Qur'an (Reuters) |
Before
“Newsweek” published their article describing the desecration of
the Qur'an by American soldiers at the Guantanamo Bay prison, I had
read a number of statements from other former prisoners that this
type of behavior by American soldiers had been taking place for
quite some time. While reading such articles, I would ask myself :
Why? Why was the Qur'an being desecrated? What was the context for
such a despicable act by American soldiers guarding and
interrogating Muslim prisoners? In every article I read, the context
of the desecration was religious abuse as a tactic of torture. The
reality of the situation is that the desecration of the Qur'an is a
symptom of a disease. The disease is torture.
Though
obviously there has been much sporadic documented evidence of
religious abuse carried out by American military personnel available
in the media, it took an article in a worldwide publication such as
“Newsweek” for this information to reach most Muslims. I am
grateful that now most people are aware of this deplorable practice,
and consequently, that rightful outrage was expressed by many
Muslims in the Ummah.
"They
would kick the Qur'an, throw it into the toilet, and generally
disrespect it.”
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Examples
of religious abuse include the incidents mentioned in the article
published in the New York Times on May 1, 2005
under the title: "Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo
Bay.” In the article, Nasser Nijer Naser al Mutairi, a former Guantanamo
Bay prisoner, describes a hunger strike by the prisoners protesting
Qur'an desecration. Apparently, the Qur'an had been thrown down and
stepped on. The protest ended when a senior officer apologized to
the whole camp (Lewis & Schmitt, 2005).
Ehsannullah,
a former Guantanamo Bay
prisoner, told the Washington Post in March 2003 that American
soldiers taunted him during interrogation in Kandahar, Afghanistn by dumping the Qur'an in a toilet (Kaufman & Witt,
2003). These are only some of the incidents of Qur'an desecration as
witnessed by former Muslim prisoners. For more citations, please
read “Newsweek
Got Gitmo Right.” Also, “Cage
Prisoners” is an Islamic human rights web site designed to
draw attention to the plight of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The Web site has just released a report called "The Qur'an
Desecration Report,” which includes accounts from other former
prisoners at Guantanamo who experienced religious abuse as a torture tactic.
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Students in Kashmir protest the desecration of the Qur'an (Reuters) |
Asif
Iqbal, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, was freed in March 2004, and he sums up the religious
abuse inflicted upon Muslim prisoners very well. He told the
Center for Constitutional Rights in August 2004: “The behavior
of the guards towards our religious practices as well as the Qur'an
was also, in my view, designed to cause us as much distress as
possible. They would kick the Qur'an, throw it into the toilet, and
generally disrespect it.”
At
Abu Ghraib prison, an Iraqi prisoner was ordered to curse Islam, and
when he refused, the American soldier then proceeded to beat the
Iraqi man’s broken leg. Former Guantanamo Bay
prisoners have reported guards mocking Islam and not allowing them
to pray. In another incident, a BBC
News story mentioned a female interrogator at Guantanamo Bay who smeared red ink on the face of a Muslim prisoner, giving him the
impression that the red ink was menstrual blood. The prisoner was
then sent to his cell without water to wash himself. The female
interrogator mocked the prisoner, knowing he would not be able to
pray that night (Davis, 2005).
Obviously,
the abuse is intended to be upsetting and cause great distress
during interrogation. The goal of the torturer is to extract a
confession whether true or not.
We
as Muslims must remember that desecrating the Qur'an is a torture
tactic. The Council on American
Islamic Relations, an American civil rights organization, has
launched a campaign to end
torture. According to CAIR, religious abuse of all types, including the desecration of the
Qur'an, is a torture tactic that is currently being used against
Muslims. CAIR
cites articles that detail various types of torture, which include
medical, psychological, physical, sexual, and religious abuse.
According
to Article I of the “Convention
Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment:”
“The
term ‘torture’ means any act by which severe pain or suffering,
whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person
for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person
information or a confession…”
The
desecration of the Qur'an was the straw that broke the
camel’s back.
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Clearly,
religious abuse, which may cause mental suffering falls under the
category of torture.
Some
non-Muslims are asking: “Why are Muslims so upset about the
desecration of the Qur'an while there were no protests when their
own fellow Muslims were being tortured and killed?” There are
severl responses. First, the Qur'an is a sacred book because it is
the Word of God; therefore, it is natural to be outraged by its
desecration. Second, of course Muslims are also distressed and
outraged by the torture and killing of their fellow sisters and
brothers. Third, I believe that the desecration of the Qur'an was
the catalyst for protests by Muslims all over the world because
after the deaths of thousands of civilians in Palestine,
Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Iraq, the exposure of the Abu Ghraib
pictures and the revelations of torture in Afghanistan and
Guantanamo Bay by American soldiers, in my opinion, the desecration
of the Qur'an was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The
desecration of the Qur'an is horrible, and so is torturing human
beings. The desecration of the Qur'an is also a means to an end; the
abuse and torture of people. We as Muslims must remember that making
du`aa’ [supplication] is very important, and we should ask Allah,
the Most High, to free all those unjustly imprisoned and heal all
victims of torture.
Sources:
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Davis,
Matthew. "Soldier lifts lid on Guantanamo 'abuse'." BBC
News, May 9, 2005.
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Kaufman,
Marc & April Witt. “Out of Legal Limbo, Some Tell of
Mistreatment.”
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Washington
Post, March 26, 2003.
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Lewis,
Neil A. & Eric Schmitt. “Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo
Bay .” New York
-
Times,
May 1, 2005.
*
Bint
Adam is a Muslim American writer.
