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29-06-2005, 12:02
Former Russian Gitmo detainee tells of Quran abuse A Russian citizen who was released from Guantanamo prison last year said on Tuesday that U.S. guards at the camp regularly threw copies of the Quran into toilets. The Russian's statements come a day after freed Pakistani detainees confirmed that American guards at the prison camp in Cuba also desecrated the Quran. Earlier this month, the U.S. military described cases of "mishandling" of the Quran by U.S. personnel at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay including splashing it with urine and kicking it. "In Cuba, they used to take them (the Quran) and throw them, take them and throw them, into lavatories or elsewhere. It happened regularly and this was to provoke protests," Airat Vakhitov, told reporters. Vakhitov said he previously had been held by U.S. forces at Kandahar in Afghanistan, where many detainees were held before being sent to Guantanamo, and that he also saw Quran desecration there. "In Kandahar, they tore up copies of the Quran and even put it in a bucket of faeces," he said. He added that detainees were abused through sleep deprivation and that the guards' attitude towards the prisoners triggered disorder in the prison. He cited one incident where some 300 people went on hunger strike in 2003. "We would be made to be in a special investigative room where we would be handcuffed to the floor and then would be prevented from falling asleep by the playing of loud music, shining bright lights and so on. There was one program in which we would be moved from one cell to another every 15 minutes continually over a period of three or four months," he said. Vakhitov said the American guards used some unspecified gas and once allowed dogs to attack prisoners. The freed Russian filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government on charges that he was subjected to torture, it was reported Tuesday. Russian news reports have identified Vakhitov as the onetime imam of a mosque in Tatarstan, a majority-Muslim republic in southern Russia. On Monday, several Pakistanis released from Guantanamo claimed they saw American interrogators throw, tear and stand on copies of Islam's holy book; one of those former detainees said naked women sat on prisoners' chests during questioning. The Pentagon denied the Pakistanis' accusations saying the training manuals of groups such as al-Qaeda instruct prisoners to make such false charges. Link: Democratie? (http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=8906) http://www.oquintopoder.com.br/soberania/image/jpg/ed_32_09.jpg