Newsweek Koran story has been reported before - nothing new.

[dutchdemocrat]

Sources and proof here. Do you really think they would NOT?



It has been reported in the past.:

A. From The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 20, 2005:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/10685611.htm


Lawyers allege abuse of 12 at Guantanamo
By Frank Davies
Inquirer Washington Bureau

Some detainees complained of religious humiliation, saying guards had defaced their copies of the Koran and, in one case, had thrown it in a toilet, said Kristine Huskey , who interviewed clients late last month. Others said that pills were hidden in their food and that people came to their cells claiming to be their attorneys, to gain information.

"All have been physically abused, and, however you define the term, the treatment of these men crossed the line," Wilner said. "There was torture, make no mistake about it." ...

B. From the Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City, NY and linked as a footnote in a Human Rights Watch report:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:cBAdCUQ2aOsJ:www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/Gitmo-compositestatementFINAL23july04.pdf+attorneys+Guantanamo+Koran+pages+ripped&hl=en&client=safari

72.They were never given prayer mats and initially they didn't get a Koran. When the Korans were provided, they were kicked and thrown about by the guards and on occasion thrown in the buckets used for the toilets. This kept happening. When it happened it was always said to be an accident but it was a recurrent theme.

C. From the Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City, NY and linked as a footnote in a Human Rights Watch report:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:cBAdCUQ2aOsJ:www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/Gitmo-compositestatementFINAL23july04.pdf+attorneys+Guantanamo+Koran+pages+ripped&hl=en&client=safari

74. Asif says that `it was impossible to pray because initially we did not know the direction to pray, but also given that we couldn't move and the harassment from the guards, it was simply not feasible. The behaviour of the guards towards our religious practices as well as the Koran was also, in my view, designed to cause us as much distress as possible. They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and generally disrespect it. It is clear to me that the conditions in our cells and our general treatment were designed by the officers in charge of the interrogation process to "soften us up"'.


D. From the Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City, NY and linked as a footnote in a Human Rights Watch report:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:cBAdCUQ2aOsJ:www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/Gitmo-compositestatementFINAL23july04.pdf+attorneys+Guantanamo+Koran+pages+ripped&hl=en&client=safari

Statement of Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed, "Detention in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay," released publicly on August 4, 2004, para. 72, 74, available online at:

http://www.ccr- ny.org/v2/reports/docs/
Gitmo=compositestatementFINAL23july04.pdf]link here ,
accessed on August 19, 2004. The disrespect of the Koran by guards at Camp X-Ray was one of the factors prompting a hunger strike. Ibid., para. 111-117.

E. The toilet incident was reported in the Washington Post in a 2003 interview with a former detainee from Afghanistan:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A29276-2003Mar25¬Found=true

"Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by dumping the Koran in a toilet. 'It was a very bad situation for us,' said Ehsannullah, who comes from the home region of the Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar. 'We cried so much and shouted, "Please do not do that to the Holy Koran."' (Marc Kaufman and April Witt, "Out of Legal Limbo, Some Tell of Mistreatment," Washington Post, March 26, 2003.)

F. Also citing the toilet incident is testimony by Asif Iqbal, a former Guantanamo detainee who was released to British custody in March 2004 and subsequently freed without charge:

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/Gitmo-compositestatementFINAL23july04.pdf]link here

"The behavior of the guards towards our religious practices as well as the Koran was also, in my view, designed to cause us as much distress as possible. They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet, and generally disrespect it." (Center for Constitutional Rights <.pdf>, Aug. 4, 2004.)

[ztn]

1. yeah, olbermann was alluding to this earlier.

It's pretty sad how the media just falls in line when the right-wing starts stamping its feet.

[FreedomAngel82]

3. So do you think this was a setup??

If this was already reported? Why would they do the setup though? Maybe they're trying to hide the real reason of that riot or something?

[cestpaspossible]

2. The only real news in the story is that Isikoff's source flipflopped

do you have an obligation to protect a source that sandbags you?

[chicagojoe]

4. I've got a feeling that

Newsweek probably got it right, and the Bush cabal is putting the hammer down to put the blame on someone other than the scumbags in the White House/Rumsfeld. You know, "the liberal media" and all that nonsense.

[JohnyCanuck]

5. What was different about the Newsweek story

was that Newsweek thought they had unofficial confirmation from a trustworthy but anonymous government source that the defilement of the Koran had been confirmed to have taken place as reported on in an official US government document. This turned out not to be true when the anonymous source started to backpedal on them and would not or could not confirm in what report exactly he/she had seen confirmation of the desecration stories.

All the other stories that have been printed on this topic apparently rely on the testimony and information supplied by the detainees only.

Newsweek's explanation:

Although other major news organizations had aired charges of Qur'an desecration based only on the testimony of detainees, we believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said government investigators turned up this evidence. So we published the item. After several days, newspapers in Pakistan and Afghanistan began running accounts of our story. At that point, as Evan Thomas, Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai report this week, the riots started and spread across the country, fanned by extremists and unhappiness over the economy.

Last Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told us that a review of the probe cited in our story showed that it was never meant to look into charges of Qur'an desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them "not credible." Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of the alleged Qur'an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts. Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we. But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7857154/site/newsweek/

[cestpaspossible]

6. The crux of the Newsweek story is that a government official lied

either at first, or when he changed his story. I'm betting the latter. The Bushies figured out who it was and got to him.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. Yup, would not be at all surprised if this were the case. n/t

n/t