(no subject)

[radiotony]

While I don't know this to be true, I wasn't at Gitmo, there have been a 
number of allegations
about similar incidents to the about the Quran issue and Gitmo. A number of 
the reports have
been filed by former prisoners at Gitmo.

One incident, reported in the NYT, May 1, 2005, alleges that American 
soldiers threw
Qurans down in a pile and stepped on them in March 2002. This prompted a 
hunger strike.
Here is a fair use quote:  "A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an 
interview with the Times,
confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public 
expression of regret over the
treatment of the Korans."

Former Gitmo prisoners reported similar allegations to the The Guardian out 
of the UK
reported similar allegations on Dec. 3, 2003, and the Daily Mirror, on March 
12, 2004.
The toilet incident was reported in the Washington Post in a 2003 interview 
with a former
detainee from Afghanistan.

There are other stories as well on the Web with link sourcing of previous 
claims in other articles.
These allegations are nothing new and Newsweek is hardly to blame for the 
rage of the Islamic
world for one paragraph.

To keep this on the media and radio front, what really surprises me is the 
life this who thing has
taken on the air. It has been on the air for days now. It's had more legs 
than the revelation from the
British memos that PROVE the Bush administration lied about Iraq. That 
wasn't anywhere on the
radio and yet this thing has not died. This administration, which has 
basically lied about everything
since they have been in there, hasn't repaired any of the damage their 
actions have done to the world.
Newsweek's source may have backed off the claim but that doesn't mean that 
they were inaccurate
or lying in their report. They went with the story they had at the time. I 
don't think Newsweek should
do anything.

Best,
Anthony Schinella
News Director/A&E Host at WKXL 1450
Celebrating Concord, N.H. & the Capital Region
with thoughtful community radio
http://www.wkxl1450.com
http://politizine.blogspot.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Donna Halper
To: Keating Willcox ; boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: (no subject)

Yes but stories of brutish and bigoted tactics by interrogators HAVE been
verified in the past. Given what was done at Abu Ghraib and what has been
done in extreme secrecy at Guantanamo Bay by interrogators who in one case
used sexually suggestive tactics (like putting fake menstrual blood on a
detainee and then not permitting him to wash before prayer), and given that
released prisoners HAVE asserted that their holy book was mocked and
desecrated as a tactic to break their will, there is a larger question
here. It's easy to pile on and blame Newsweek, but riddle me this: if
prisoners ("detainees") can be held for 3 years with no charges and nobody
is permitted to see how they are being treated, doesn't this lend itself to
abuse?  I don't care if these are the worst people in the history of
humanity-- the fact that we are not allowed to know what is being done to
them so many years after 9/11 is not healthy for a country that is supposed
to be a democracy.  If they are guilty of something, charge them and send
them to trial.  If they are not guilty, send them back to their
countries.  But the media are the watchdogs of a democratic society.  Not
allowing them to do their job, and then condemning them if they get
something wrong, is hypocritical.  All political leaders try to keep the
press at bay at one time or another.  But in this case, it's a bad
situation and Newsweek's error,  compounded by excessive secrecy from this
administration, is just fueling radicals in other countries who will use
any excuse to riot.