Did They Flush a Qur’an or Not?

It’s been a raging controversy for days. On May 9, Newsweek magazine published a report that said that American guards had flushed a Qur’an down the toilet and also abused it, in order to distress Muslim prisoners held in Guantanomo Bay. This report used an anonymous military offical for the information. Subsequently, riots broke out in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world, leading to the deaths of several people.

After tremendous pressure from the US government, Newsweek retracted the allegation because they could no longer confirm it with their source. The Bush administration was all over it, criticizing Newsweek, suggesting that the media needed to be held “accountable” for what they said and implying that Newsweek had contributed to deaths. They pointed out that there were guidelines in place since 2003 for ensuring that the Qur’an was treated like “a delicate piece of art” and was not to be desecrated in anyway.

I find it interesting that the US government is appalled that anyone would believe a report about abusing the Qur’an, as though US soldiers have always behaved entirely properly. We’ve seen the pictures from Abu Ghraib. Is it really a leap to assert that people who are willing to stack people up in naked pyramids, attach electrodes to their hands while they stand on boxes, and even beat prisoners to death, probably wouldn’t think twice about flushing a Qur’an?

But there needs to be facts behind stories. As it turns out, for years reports have been coming out of Guantanomo (recently characterized by Amnesty International as a “gulag”) and other American prisons that the Qur’an is being abused and desecrated, including as an interrogation tactic. Last night, the Pentagon confirmed that it had substantiated five cases where the US military at Guantanomo “mishandled” the Qur’an. They claim it wasn’t flushed, just “mishandled”, and they also claim that reports from prisoners about the Qur’an being abused and being flushed are being made up by the prisoners, who are “not a benign group of people”.

As the US backtracks, it’s becoming increasingly clear that whether or not the specific incident Newsweek mentioned happened or not, the allegation they made was at least broadly true. As the truth emerges, something more troubling than a false news story (as Democracy Now! pointed out today, where is the controversy over the lies that really cost lives – WMD in Iraq, for example?) emerges too – the US government’s attempt to muzzle the media when what the media say does not suit their purpose.