Former army chaplain recounts torture

A new Drew University lecture series on Guantanamo Bay had its inaugural session yesterday when a retired Muslim Army Chaplain, Captain James Yee, author of "For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire," spoke about the detention camp and his experiences there.

Yee graduated from West Point and is a veteran of the first Gulf War. He stayed in Damascus to study Arabic and Islamic studies and later converted to Islam.

"I found that a lot of the same values I learned in West Point were also found in the Muslim faith," Yee said.

In the wake of 9/11, he held briefings on Islam-educating soldiers on the practices of the religion. In November 2002, Yee was given the order to go to Guantanamo Bay to be a Muslim adviser to the commander there and also a Muslim chaplain to the 660 detainees and the various American Muslim personnel.

"I believe I was sent there because then the Pentagon could state that they had a Muslim chaplain there. 'Look how sensitive we are to the detainees' needs,'" Yee said.

He was granted unescorted access to the prisoners and was one of the few people that were able to speak freely with them. He advocated for religious freedoms of the detainees, especially after listening to some of their stories.

"One prisoner complained that even the guard dogs lived with air conditioning, which is true," Yee said. He began hearing that the guards were mishandling the Quran and disrespecting it in various ways. For example, during routine cell checks, guards would often tear and rip pages while searching for weapons in the Quran and then chuck the book across the room. Islam views the Quran as the direct word of God and so reveres the text with great respect.

After many riots and hunger strikes, Yee authored a policy which would allow only the detainees to search the Quran in front of the guards and also have them shackled at the wrist, feet and waist when relocating the prisoner to prevent harm to the guard.

The problem seemed to be solved until the interrogators started desecrating the Quran on purpose as an interrogation technique by throwing the text across the room, kicking it, and, in some cases, urinating on the book or tossing it into the toilet. Yee dubbed use of religion as "Gitmo's secret weapon" against the detainees. In conservative Islam, female and male physical contact is considered very inappropriate, so female interrogators would use their sexuality to gain information.

"It's surprising to me that they would degrade themselves to degrade others," Kate Maugeri ('11) said. Female interrogators would stand naked in front of the detainees, or at times make inappropriate physical contact with them, and try to gather information. "You want a lap dance," Yee said, "be a Muslim male and come down to Guantanamo."

There were even more severe riots, hunger strikes and even suicide attempts in reaction to these types of events, but Yee continued to support the prisoners' religious freedoms.After 10 months, Yee returned to the United States. When he landed, his bags were searched by order of the FBI. Yee was arrested on counts of sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage and failure to obey a general order, but never was officially charged.

When arrested, he was shackled at the wrist, feet and waist, which was the same way prisoners were at Guantanamo under his policy. He also was subjected to sensory deprivation, like detainees at Guantanamo are when transported to the detention center. "I find it ironic that we pride ourselves on a united military and yet we would take one of our own and mistreat him like that," Maugeri said.

He was in solitary confinement for 76 days. His charges were eventually reduced to mishandling of classified documents. However, when the documents could not be found, all charges were dropped and Yee's position was reinstated, but immediately resigned his commission.

Yee believes that the reason he was arrested was because he fought for the rights of the detainees in Guantanamo.

"The government keeps saying that the terrorist hate our freedoms. But then they pass bills to take them away. That's helping the terrorists," Yee said.

The government has stated that it no longer uses torture techniques on the detainees in Guantanamo.

Additionally, recent prison riots have to do with prisoners wanting more access to lawyers and due process of law.