US relents over Guantanamo POW hunger strike

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U.S. relents over Guantanamo prison hunger strike

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI, March 1 (Reuters) - A brief hunger strike by nearly 200 al
Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, on Thursday prompted U.S. military officials to relent over a
ban on wearing turbans during prayers, the Washington Post reported
on Friday.

The refusal to eat by about 190 prisoners, along with a 45-minute
demonstration in which captives tossed personal items out of their
pens and chanted "God is great" in unison, were the first acts of
defiance by the Afghan war detainees, the Post said.

The paper said Marine Gen. Michael Lehnert, who heads the prison
camp, told the detainees over loudspeakers late on Thursday that he
was reversing policy and allowing them to wrap bedsheets around their
heads as turbans.

"The general told them they would be allowed to fashion the headdress
but that we will still inspect them," said Marine Maj. Stephen Cox, a
camp spokesman.

After Lehnert addressed the prisoners and told them he would hold
weekly briefings to keep them informed about the status of
proceedings against them, the number of detainees refusing food
dropped to 88, the Post said.

The protests began after guards forced a captive to remove a
makeshift turban, which they were forbidden to wear because they
could conceal weapons, according to a spokesman for the U.S.
military's Southern Command in Miami, which oversees the prison camp
operation.

The camp holds 300 prisoners captured in the U.S.-led war in
Afghanistan.  Their treatment has drawn criticism from some U.S.
allies and human rights groups.

"This morning, 107 detainees refused to eat breakfast," the
spokesman, Capt.  Tom Crosson, said on Thursday. The protest grew
during the day, with about 190 prisoners refusing to eat lunch,
another SouthCom spokesman said.

PRISONERS PROTEST

The prisoners were protesting an incident on Wednesday night, when
guards forced a prisoner to remove a turban.

"The guards down there asked him several times through translators to
remove the turban and from what I understand he didn't immediately
but eventually he did. This was in the middle of his prayer session,"
Crosson said.

He said the prisoners were upset.

"I don't know if it was because they asked him to remove it or
because they disrupted his prayer," said Crosson.

There had been no reports of threats against U.S. troops guarding the
prisoners nor of injuries, Crosson said.

Most of the prisoners at the camp, who come from two dozen nations,
are Muslim. A Muslim chaplain who leads the prisoners in prayer said
previously that turbans were not considered necessary for proper
prayer by Muslims, though many of the prisoners come from nations
where turbans are commonly worn.

Prisoners at the camp are given close-fitting caps to wear if they
choose, Crosson said.

The human rights group Amnesty International said the incident
underscored its concerns about U.S. treatment of the Guantanamo
prisoners but that it did not condone "acts of self-harm or violence
undertaken to protest conditions of detention."

"We reiterate that the solution to this problem lies in recognizing
that the Geneva Conventions apply to all prisoners," Amnesty
spokesman Alistair Hodgett said.

The conventions require that prisoners be allowed to exercise their
religious faith so long as they comply with the disciplinary routine
prescribed by military authorities.

The United States said earlier this month it would apply the Geneva
Convention to captured fighters belonging to the Taliban militia that
ruled Afghanistan with a hard-line interpretation of Islam, but not
to prisoners belonging to the al Qaeda network that the United States
blames for the Sept.  11 attacks on America.

U.S. officials have also said they are struggling to differentiate
between the two groups at the Guantanamo camp.

04:08 03-01-02
 
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