Human Rights Watch: US Islam abuse genuine

[cal04]

The row over a retracted Newsweek story that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran is overshadowing genuine incidents of religious humiliation, according to Human Rights Watch. "Around the world, the United States has been humiliating Muslim detainees by offending their religious beliefs," said Reed Brody, special counsel for the New York-based watchdog on Wednesday.

Newsweek on Monday retracted an article quoting an unidentified US official as saying that a probe into allegations of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo found that interrogators had thrown a Quran into a toilet to rattle Muslim prisoners.
The weekly magazine said the sole anonymous source had "backed away" from the account. Brody said condemnation of the Newsweek article, which sparked anti-US protests in Afghanistan and other countries that left at least 14 dead, had been so vocal as to drown out documented complaints of similar mistreatment.

Wrong investigation?
He said Human Rights Watch (HRW) had heard allegations that US interrogators disrespected the Quran from several former detainees, including three Briton and a Russian. And Erik Saar, a former Army translator at Guantanamo, has said that guards routinely tossed the Quran on the ground, Brody said. Saar also described a female interrogator wiping a detainee with what the prisoner was made to believe was menstrual blood.

HRW argued that the Newsweek story would not have resonated had it not been for "extensive" US abuse of Muslim detainees and the government's failure to fully investigate all of those implicated. "If the United States is to repair the public relations damage caused by its mistreatment of detainees, it needs to investigate those who ordered or condoned this abuse, not attack those who have tried to report on it," said Brody.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/907FDC5E-3AB4-4351-8FFA-B222F629E168.htm

[Trillo]

1. The message is right? Nah--

the issue is the messenger, not the message... :sarcasm:

[Kurovski]

2. Recommended.

In a press session with defense officials today,(including Rumsferatu) one official stated that the riots where 15 died were more about "internal problems" in the country than the Newsweek story.

He then went on to dump on Newsweek anyway.

It's time for the administration to take responsibility for what has caused all the unrest and anger in the Muslim world.

Abuse and torture, overstepping with military bases are the reason. Not Newsweek. Not the media. Loose lips don't sink ships, the abhorrent policy of torture and humiliation does.

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. The USA's reputation is f*cked - and well deserved . .

.
.
.

even us poor peeps with Internet access can read news from India, China, Russia, Iraq, etc. . - we don't have to rely on what the US media "giants" puke out in their daily propaganda sheets

Short of a major change in Government, apologies and reparations to the rest of the World,

The US will continue a severe downward slide in the world's eyes for the remainder of this century

their trade will falter

and by the 22nd Century . .

there will be another "Rise and fall of" in the History books . . .

:nopity:

[struggle4progress]

4. kick

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. But how much US press time will this story get?

Hoefully, a lot! But, given the control this adminstration has on the US media whores...:shrug: