Guantanamo inmates refuse to eat after guards remove man’s turban
By ANDRES LEIGHTON
Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — More than a third of the detainees at this remote U.S. military outpost refused to eat breakfast Thursday after two guards stripped an inmate of his turban during prayer.

A small number of inmates protested by refusing both lunch and dinner Wednesday. On Thursday, about 100 detainees — a third of the prisoners brought here from Afghanistan — declined breakfast, said Marine Maj. Stephen Cox, a spokesman for the detention mission at Guantanamo.

“The detainees informed the duty officer that the refusal to eat is in response to an incident that took place regarding a detainee two days ago on Tuesday,” Cox said Thursday.

The detainee had fashioned a turban out of a sheet and was wearing it on his head during prayer. Two military guards ordered the inmate to remove the turban, but the inmate ignored the order, Cox said. When a translator made the same order, the inmate still refused.

The two guards shackled the man and stripped him of his turban, Cox said.

“The two guards followed the proper procedures,” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the guards decided the turban had to come off; detainees often have been seen wearing their white towels on their heads. Some Muslim men cover their heads to model their appearance after the Prophet Muhammad and his contemporaries.

The military says the 300 prisoners being held here are fighters of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network and the deposed Afghan Taliban regime that harbored it.

Since the prisoners arrived at this U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba last month, officials have said the men pose a danger not only to the troops but also to themselves.

Some Islamic groups preach that dying in a holy war guarantees a place in heaven — the mantra of suicide bombers in Israel and that of the hijackers who flew passenger jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

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