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Muslim Chaplain Asks Pentagon to Apologize
In his book, Captain Yee highlights the anti-Muslim
atmosphere in Guantanamo
WASHINGTON, October 6, 2005 - Captain James Yee is asking the Pentagon to apologize for putting him through what he called a "gross miscarriage of justice", after he was accused of spying and was thrown in solitary confinement for 76 days, only to be cleared of all charges.
Yee, 37, who was sent to Guantanamo on November 5, 2002 to serve as chaplain to Muslim detainees and soldiers, left handcuffed in September 2003, only ten months after arriving, and was held in maximum security until October 24, where he wore hand and leg irons when he left his cell.
"My experience had taught me how little cultural understanding of Islam most military leaders had," Yee, who changed his name to Youssef after converting to Islam in 1990, wrote ironies in his 240-page memoir, For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism, which went on sale today.
"I am a soldier, a citizen, and a patriot. But in the eyes of a suspicious, misguided minority who have lost touch with America's national inclusiveness, above all else I am a Muslim.
"There are times when I fear that my ordeal simply stemmed from the fact that I am one of 'them' - a Muslim," he wrote.
His knowledge of Arabic, his praying and his denunciation of mistreatment of the Noble Qur'an by some soldiers fed the suspicions against him and other Muslim soldiers.
Yee himself said he was accused by a linguist of having a "subversive" conversation with a detainee by allegedly mocking a poster urging detainees to cooperate.
"The accusations were retold and exaggerated in backyards and on the beaches during the hot Cuban evenings, fueled by the boredom of restless young soldiers and discount vodka," he explains in the book.
Yee, a graduate of the prestigious US Military Academy at West Point, New York, quit the US military after he was cleared of espionage charges.
He was raised a Lutheran but later converted to Islam. He studied Islam in Damascus in late 1990s (as he prepared to become one of the Army’s first Muslim chaplains) where he met his Syrian wife Huda.
Yee further commented in his book on the hostility soldiers display in treating both Muslim personnel and detainees alike.
"The environment at Guantanamo was incredibly hostile for Muslims, and it was impossible to ignore the palpable division that existed between many soldiers and the Muslim personnel."
He also described the harsh tactics used by guards against offending detainees.
One detainee was forcefully removed from his cell after he pushed a guard who searched the prisoner's buttocks for weapons or contraband, Yee wrote in his book.
According to Yee, a so-called Initial Force, a team of eight soldiers wearing riot gear charged the detainee's cell, forced him to the ground, tied his hands and dragged him out of the cell and into solitary confinement.
The soldiers celebrated their action and "high-fived each other and slammed their chests together, like professional basketball players. I found it an odd victory for eight men who took down one prisoner," he wrote.
About 505 detainees are held at the notorious Guantanamo camp, which was set up in 2002 soon after the US-led offensive against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.
He heaps his greatest scorn on what he said was an un-American double standard that fostered distrust of Muslim-Americans.
Christian soldiers, he claimed, got lighter duty on Sundays so they could attend Christian worship, while Muslim servicemen found it more difficult to worship together at Friday prayers.
Muslim soldiers were seen as more suspect, he claimed. An Urdu linguist, a Muslim-American soldier, reported finding a listening device in his quarters, making Yee and other Muslims wonder whether they, too, got special scrutiny.
Yee realized that his visits to the prison camp prompted guards to shout, ''Chaplain in the block!'' -- which set him apart from the prison team. ''I sensed that the call was meant as a warning to anyone who was engaged in behavior they'd rather I didn't witness,'' he said.
Yee also writes of his effort to write Army procedures for respectful treatment of the Koran -- even as soldiers shook down cells and prisoners complained that non-Muslims treated their holy book with contempt.
''As Muslims, we would never tolerate similar abuse to the Bible or the Torah,'' he said, describing U.S. Muslim soldiers' evolving discomfort in the predominantly Christian force. ``We had to ask, if the prisoners were Christian, would the command discourage them from practicing their faith or use their religion against them?'' (Media Reports)
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