WASHINGTON (CNN) May 13, 2005 -- The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says an investigation has so far turned up no evidence of U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrating the Muslim holy book, the Quran.
Reports of the alleged desecration have sparked public outrage in Muslim countries and violent demonstrations in Afghanistan.
Newsweek magazine, in its latest edition, quoted sources as saying that investigators probing abuses at the military prison had found that interrogators "had placed Qurans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet."
Gen. Richard Myers said Thursday that an investigation by the U.S. Southern Command, which has jurisdiction over the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has so far turned up no evidence that that incident took place.
"They have looked through the logs, interrogation logs, and they cannot confirm yet that there was ever the case of the toilet incident," Myers said.
Pakistan, a close ally of the United States in its war on terror, has condemned the reported incidents at Guantanamo and urged strong punishment for anyone found responsible.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said any such desecration would be "intolerable" and "abominable."
He told CNN in a television interview from Sydney on Friday that if the situation was as reported, he hoped the United States would make an example of those responsible.
He said Pakistan expected the United States to act "sooner rather than later."
Many of the 520 inmates in Guantanamo are Pakistanis and Afghans captured after the September 11 attacks on America.
Despite both governments' support of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, suspicion lingers in the conservative Muslim nations about the American military.
Myers said the only incident recorded in the prison logs was of a detainee tearing pages from a Quran and using them in an attempt to block a toilet as a protest, and even that incident, he said, was unconfirmed.
"It's a log entry that has to be confirmed," he said. "There are several log entries that show that the Quran may have been moved and detainees became irritated about it, but never an incident where it was thrown in the toilet."
The Newsweek report fueled a protest by students in several cities in Afghanistan, including Jalalabad, where four protesters were killed and more than 60 injured Wednesday.
Myers cited U.S. commanders as saying the protests in Jalalabad, at least, were more about local politics than anti-American sentiment stirred up by the Newsweek report.
"It's a judgment of our commander in Afghanistan, General (Carl) Eichenberry, that in fact the violence that we saw in Jalalabad was not necessarily the result of the allegations about disrespect for the Quran ... but more tied up in the political process and the reconciliation process that President (Hamid) Karzai and his cabinet is conducting in Afghanistan," Myers said.
"He thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine."
However an Associated Press photo from Jalalabad showed a demonstrator holding a sign saying, "We strongly condemn insulting Quran by American army."
In demonstrations in Kabul at least one banner carried by protesters said, "Those who insult the Quran should be brought to justice." And statements made on video by a protester in another city referred specifically to what was included in the Newsweek report.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, appearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Thursday, started off by addressing the issue.
"Disrespect for the Holy Quran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States. We honor the sacred books of all the world's great religions. Disrespect for the Holy Quran is abhorrent to us all. ...
"Our military authorities are investigating these allegations fully. If they are proven true, we will take appropriate action. ... Guaranteeing religious rights is of great personal importance to the president and to me."
Police fired on hundreds of anti-U.S. demonstrators Thursday in the town of Khogyani to prevent them from departing toward Jalalabad, about 20 miles to the north, local police chief Maj. Gul Wali said.
Wali said three of the protesters died and one was injured. He claimed many at the gathering were armed.
However, Interior Ministry spokesman Latufallah Mashal said only two people died in Khogyani, while a third protester died in a separate clash with police in Wardak province, south of Kabul.
In Kabul, more than 200 young men marched from a dormitory block near Kabul University chanting "Death to America!" and carrying banners including one stating: "Those who insult the Quran should be brought to justice."
Ahmad Shah, a political sciences undergraduate, said the students decided to protest after hearing of the deaths in Jalalabad on Wednesday.
"America is our enemy and we don't want them in Afghanistan," Shah said as the students ended their protest and returned to classes later Thursday. "When they insult our holy book they have insulted us."
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 Osama bin Laden.
Muslim Clerics: Hand Qur'an Culprits Over To Us or Face Holy War
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Reuters
BEIRUT - Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim cleric
called on Sunday for an international probe into a report that U.S.
interrogators desecrated the Koran at a military prison camp in Cuba.
"Every day, the United States commits new follies that deepen the hatred of the
Islamic world toward it and still American officials say 'why do they hate us?"'
Lebanon's Mufti Mohammed Rashid Qabbani said in a statement.
"The United States must investigate the crime of desecrating the holy Koran through an international committee with the participation of Islamic countries to show it understands the danger of the crime carried out by its soldiers in Guantanamo detention centers, and bring down the severest punishments on them to prove its intentions toward Islam and Muslims."
Newsweek magazine said in its May 9 edition investigators probing abuses at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay found that interrogators "had placed Korans on toilets and, in at least one case, flushed a holy book down the toilet."
Muslims consider the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence. The report sparked demonstrations in Afghanistan, where 16 people have been killed in the worst anti-American protests since the United States invaded in 2001.
The United States has tried to calm global Muslim outrage over the incident, saying disrespect for the Koran was abhorrent and would not be tolerated and that military authorities were investigating the allegations.
Lebanon's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric said the incident was part of a U.S. policy to breed hatred of Islam.
"The desecration of the holy Koran in the terrifying Guantanamo detention center that America created under the title of fighting terrorism against the Muslims who have been arbitrarily rounded up there, is one of the American methods of torture," Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said.
"This is not an isolated act carried out by an American soldier but is part of an American program...of contempt for Islam, to disfigure its image in the minds of Americans."
The unforgivable crime of Islam!
the Holy Qur’an at a US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba a “great crime”.
“The Qur’an’s desecration is a great crime and should be dealt with at once,” Tantawi told the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.
But he held back from issuing an official condemnation “so as not to stoop to the level of the presumed authors”.
“It’s a bunch of kids, criminals that should be punished and I will not publish a statement to answer such people,” said the sheikh of the revered Al-Azhar institution in Cairo.
The mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, however, opted for a straight condemnation.
“It’s an unforgivable crime toward the monotheistic religions which call on the faithful to respect the sacred values of other religions,” said the country’s religious leader, quoted by the official news agency Mena.
“The Muslims will not remain silent in the face of an aggression on their sacred values.”
The Arab and Muslim world has expressed its horror at a report published in the US weekly Newsweek which said interrogators at Guantanamo kept copies of the Qur’an in toilet cubicles to rattle detainees and one was put down a toilet.
The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) insisted yesterday on the “harshest punishment” for the culprits “to ensure that this is not repeated and the dignity of Muslims is preserved”.
“Such acts can fuel hatred between religions,” warned the GCC in a statement issued from its Riyadh base.
In Tehran, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also called for punishment to be meted out.
“US officials should have reacted, expressed their outrage and punished those responsible much sooner,” he said. “Unfortunately, we sense a hostile tendency in the US towards Islam.”
Lebanon’s top Sunni cleric called for an international probe into the reported desecration.
“Every day, the US commits new follies that deepen the hatred of the Islamic world toward it and still American officials say ‘why do they hate us?’” Lebanon’s Mufti Mohamed Rashid Qabbani said in a statement.
“The US must investigate the crime of desecrating the Holy Qur’an through an international committee with the participation of Islamic countries to show it understands the danger of the crime carried out by its soldiers in Guantanamo detention centres, and bring down the severest punishments on them to prove its intentions towards Islam and Muslims.” – Agencies
CALCUTTA -- Muslim protesters burned, spit, and urinated on a US flag yesterday in eastern India, accusing Americans of desecrating Islam's holy book as anger persisted despite the retraction of a magazine report that a Koran was flushed down a toilet at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
US officials have said they found nothing to substantiate the Newsweek report that interrogators at the camp flushed a copy of the holy book down the toilet to unnerve an inmate.
But because of frequent reports of mistreatment at the camp from released detainees, some Muslims remained convinced that the desecration happened and that US officials pressured the magazine to retract the story.
In London, a former prisoner at Guantanamo said at a demonstration outside the US Embassy that guards at the camp had mistreated his Koran.
''This was one of the methods they used, throwing the Koran, my Koran, on the floor in my cell. This was in the first month at Camp Delta, but it is not something that stopped, rather continued and increased," said Martin Mubanga, who was released from the prison in January.
''It's a shame we have had to wait for a magazine to publish and then retract a story concerning the treatment of the Koran."
He spoke as about 200 protesters outside the embassy chanted ''kill, kill George Bush" and other anti-US slogans. A man with a megaphone led chants including ''USA, watch your back -- Osama is coming back" and ''bomb, bomb New York."
Thousands also took to the streets in the Palestinian territories and in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, but the demonstrations were nothing on the scale of rioting in Afghanistan last week in which 15 people died and protesters threw rocks at police.
Riot police watched but did not stop about 500 protesters who shouted slogans against the United States and forced a traffic shutdown in the heart of the eastern Indian city of Calcutta.
The protest began at a mosque after Friday afternoon prayers conducted by the imam, or chief priest, who then led demonstrators to the road.
''Death to America!" they cried as men spat on the flag.
They asked a boy in the crowd to urinate on it. The 20-minute protest ended with the burning of two American flags.
Iran's Culture
Minister:
Quran is Muslims' Manifesto
10/11/2005
Tehran, IQNA-
"Quran is the manifesto of Muslims and they should try to bring its teachings
into their daily lives". "Preserving Quran was crucial for the religion to live
on, and Muslims did what they could to preserve Quran throughout history," said
Iran's Culture Minister in the opening ceremony of the 13th international Quran
fair.
"What we have today as Quranic works reflects innumerable concerns Muslims have
had for preserving Quran and safeguarding it throughout history".
Commenting on the effect of Quran on all aspects of Muslims' lives, he added:"
Quran has been present in all moments of Muslims' lives since its revelation. A
muslim always has Quran with him, at the birth of his children, when his
children marry, when he's moving form a house to another and at last, when he is
to leave this world for the World After.
"Pattering Quran pages and calligraphy encourages the reader. Good reciting of
the Quran can also have a profound effect in the hearts of listeners. Exegeses
greatly help understanding the Quran. There have been great interpreters of the
Quran whose methodology has cultivated the art of interpretation of the Quran in
the Muslim world", said Saffar Harandi.
"We, as the guardians of the Quran, must go to the depths of the contents of the
Holy Book, to read between the lines and bring quranic awareness into our daily
lives, while caring about the external and apparent beauties. If we manage to do
so, even to a limited extent, we will soon achieve a great success".
Inquiry into cop 'Koran outrage'
Nov 15 2005
By Robert Dex, South London Press
AN INVESTIGATION has been launched after reports that a cop threw a copy of the Koran in the bin after being called to a Muslim household.
The alleged incident happened two weeks ago when police were at an address in Camberwell. A joint statement from Southwark police and the borough's Muslim forum confirmed a complaint had been made.
It states: "On October 31 an incident took place within the London borough of Southwark which has led to a serious complaint regarding the alleged actions of police officers. One part of this complaint involved actions that allegedly showed disrespect for the Koran and the Muslim faith."
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has been brought in to investigate the claims. A Met spokesman said Southwark police had met with members of the Muslim community to discuss the alleged incident.
'Damage'
He added: "Appropriate advice will continue to be sought from community representatives, including members of the Southwark Muslim Forum. "It is sincerely hoped that this complaint, while serious, will not be allowed to damage the effective engagement between the police and the wider community in Southwark." The IPCC will report next year.
Death
Threats Greet Dutch Lawmaker's Call to Ban the Koran
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
August 10, 2007
(CNSNews.com) - A Dutch lawmaker under fire for urging that the Koran be
banned in his country says he will press ahead with the proposal, and submit it
in the form of a parliamentary resolution next month.
Geert Wilders of the right-wing Freedom Party told Cybercast News Service
that since calling for a ban -- in a letter published Wednesday in the newspaper
De Volkskrant -- he had received death threats and criticism, "but fortunately
also many positive responses from voters."
In his letter, published under the headline "Enough is enough: Ban the Koran,"
Wilders called the Koran a "fascist" text that has "no place in our
constitutional state." He said some verses instruct Muslims "to oppress,
persecute or kill Christians, Jews, dissidents and non-believers, to beat and
rape women and to establish an Islamic state by force."
The Koran, like Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, should be banned in the Netherlands,
he said.
The letter drew a swift response from the Dutch government. Elle Vogelaar, the
minister for integration and housing, called it "an insult to the majority of
Muslims in the Netherlands and abroad who reject calls to hate and violence."
"It has to be perfectly clear that banning the Holy Koran in the Netherlands is
not up for discussion for this government and will not be up for discussion in
future," she said.
Two lawyers have filed complaints against Wilders, accusing him of violating
Dutch law with his statements.
The Iranian embassy in The Hague issued a statement urging Dutch politicians to
take a stand against forces threatening to divide society, and Egypt's foreign
ministry said in a statement that Wilders' comments "reflect total ignorance of
the substance of Islam and its precepts, applied by an overwhelming majority of
Muslims around the world."
Wilders, whose new party holds nine of the 150 seats in the country's Second
Chamber, the lower house of parliament, acknowledged that it would be an uphill
battle to win majority support.
Even so, he told Cybercast News Service, "it is my duty as a
parliamentarian to put forward ideas as I see them, both inside and outside
parliament. In fact, we will have a parliamentary debate with the government in
the beginning of September and I will put forward my proposal in parliament than
as well [in the form of a resolution]."
The Netherlands is believed to have the second-largest per-capita Muslim
population in western Europe, after France. About six percent of the population
- one million out 16 million total - is Muslim, mostly of Turkish and Moroccan
origin.
The country, long renown for its liberalism, has grappled increasingly in recent
years with radical Islam, and inter-communal tensions worsened when a
Dutch-Moroccan extremist in 2004 shot and stabbed to death Theo Van Gogh, a
controversial filmmaker critical of Islamism.
Other critics of Islam threatened with death include Somalia-born Dutch lawmaker
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who ultimately moved to the United States, and Wilders himself.
Last weekend an Iranian-born Dutch politician who recently set up a support
group for people who have renounced Islam was violently attacked by three
Muslims, although he was not hurt. Ehsan Jami, whose advisor said it was the
third such incident, is now under police protection. Apostasy is punishable by
death in some Muslim societies.
Wilders said it was the attack on Jami that prompted him to write his letter.
"It's terrible to see how naive and silent and politically correct the other
political parties are about the biggest problem I believe the Netherlands,
Europe and the West faces today, [Islamization]," he said.
Wilders expressed optimism, however, that the message was getting through. He
noted that his party won nine seats in parliament last November, but that
opinion polls today give it enough support to hold between 12 and 17 seats.
"The battle certainly is not lost. I am sure many, many Dutch voters share my
views," Wilders said. "I will continue to fight.
Wilders' Freedom Party is known for favoring restriction on immigration,
particularly from non-Western countries. He has tried on several occasions to
have the wearing of the burqa outlawed, but without success.
Last month, integration minister Vogelaar caused a stir when she said the
Netherlands should in the future be home to a "Judeo-Christian-Islamic
tradition."
A Dutch-Moroccan group praised her for her "courage," but other politicians
objected, and Wilders said the minister should resign.
In an opinion
survey last week, 56 percent of Dutch adult respondents rejected Vogelaar's
remark.
The chairman of the country's largest Muslim group, the Contact Body for Muslims
and Government, did not respond to invitations to comment for this story.
This is not the first time critics of Islam have called for the Koran to be
banned.
In 1985, a Hindu in India petitioned the Calcutta High Court to have the book
banned in that country, arguing that it incited violence, promoted enmity
between different religious communities, and denigrated the beliefs of
non-Muslim religions in India.
A footnote to the petition provided lists of Koranic suras that the applicant
said insulted other religions, promoted hatred and incited violence. The court
threw out the petition on a technicality, according to published accounts.