Al-Qaeda directs prisoners always to allege that they were tortured. And denied the right to practice Islam? That picture is seriously at odds with the widely reported touching-the-Qur'an-only-with-kid-gloves dhimmitude of American military personnel.
"Court throws out Islam-based Gitmo claims,"
by James Oliphant in the Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
A federal appeals court today tossed a lawsuit brought against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials by four released British prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, who alleged that they were tortured and denied the right to practice Islam.
The British detainees–Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith–spent more than two years in Guantánamo and were repatriated to the U.K. in 2004.
They brought claims under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law passed in the 1990s to prevent government interference with religious practices, arguing that officials at Guantanamo actively prevented worship of Islam by, among other things, tossing a copy of the Quran into a toilet.
They also say they were tortured, beaten and humiliated. They had sought $10 million in damages. A federal trial judge dismissed most of the claims saying U.S. officials couldn't be sued for actions taken in wartime, but the religious act claim and some other claims survived. (A story here in the Tribune took a closer look at the case.)
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