Negative incidents involving copies of Islam's holy book, the Koran, have occurred at the US military base Guantanamo on the island of Cuba, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported Friday.
"There were cases of treating copies of the Koran with disrespect, prisoners held at the US military base Guantanamo have told us," a ICRC spokesman said in a broadcast by Swiss radio DRS.
With his comment, the spokesman confirmed earlier, similar reports by the Swiss news agency, SDA.
The "incidents" occurred in the years 2002 and 2003, and the ICRC had discussed the issues with US authorities, who had then implemented "corrective measures," the spokesman said.
According to international laws, ICRC officials are permitted to regularly visit prison camps anywhere in the world.
However, the organization usually does not inform the public about the insights gained during such visits but in most cases only the country under which jurisdiction the particular facility is operated.
The spokesman did not explain how the disrespect against the Koran had manifested itself.
On Monday, the US news magazine Newsweek retracted an article about an alleged desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo after it came under pressure from the US government
The article had previously triggered violent protests in several Islamic countries.
About 550 prisoners are still detained at Guantanamo without indictment or trial, some of them since more than three years.
The detainees are suspected of terrorist activities by the US government.
Most of them were arrested during the Afghanistan war led by the US.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS