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Egypt condemns guards for Quran incidents
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-06 08:30
Egypt's Foreign Minister on Sunday condemned U.S. military guards and
interrogators who desecrated the Quran at the military detention camp at
Guantanamo Bay and said those responsible should be held accountable.
Egyptian officials informed their American counterparts of their position,
Ahmed Aboul Gheit told Parliament, but he didn't say at what level. Egypt has
been a key U.S. ally in the war on terror.
Members of Bangladesh Soldiers of Islam, the
children wing of Youth Jamiyat, hold the Quran during an anti-U.S. protest
in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, June 3, 2005. The group was demonstrating
against the alleged desecration of the Quran by U.S. soldiers in
Guantanamo Bay. [AP] | A Pentagon report Friday
confirmed incidents of desecration of Islam's holy book at the detention center
for terrorist suspects, calling them relatively minor problems.
"We denounce in the strongest possible terms what the Pentagon confirmed
about the desecration of the Quran," Aboul Gheit said during his first meeting
with lawmakers since taking office last July. "We condemn whoever did this and
we expect that they be held to account."
Also Sunday, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del, said in Washington the United States
should move toward shutting down the military prison camp in Cuba, calling it
"the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around
the world."
Deadly clashes erupted in Afghanistan following a claim, reported and then
retracted by Newsweek magazine, that U.S. interrogators had flushed a Quran down
a toilet. After that report, thousands of angry protesters across the Middle
East demanded an official apology from the United States, with some calling on
their countries to sever relations with Washington.
Muslim protesters raise slogans at an
anti-U.S. demonstration near the American Embassy in New Delhi, India,
Thursday, June 2, 2005. More than 200 Muslim supporters belonging to the
minority wing of Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party staged a protest
march on Thursday, demanding an apology from the Bush administration for
the alleged Quran abuse by American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay prison
in Cuba.[AP] | The Pentagon responded angrily to the Newsweek report, but confirmed late
Friday that a U.S. soldier had deliberately kicked a prisoner's holy book.
The report also said prison guards threw water balloons in a cell block,
causing an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; a guard's urine splashed on
a detainee and his Quran; an interrogator stepped on a Quran; and a two-word
obscenity was written in English on a Quran's inside cover.
The findings are among the results of a probe last month by Guantanamo
commander Brig. Gen. Jay Hood. Pentagon officials said the problems were
relatively minor and that U.S. commanders had gone to great lengths to enable
detainees to practice their religion.
About 540 detainees are in the prison camp, some held without charge for more
than three years. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2001
and 2002 and were sent to Guantanamo Bay in hope of extracting useful
intelligence about the al-Qaida terrorist network.
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