Chinese Muslims flay US Iraq jail abuse; more photos found

By: Khadija Chinese

BEIJING, China: Muslims in Northwest China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region have severely denounced as “a deadly insult on the whole Muslim world” the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American soldiers.

Abdurekefu Damaolaaji vice director of the Islamic Association of China said: “All my feeling is shock and anger… The Islamic teaching requires to give lenient treatment to prisoners of the war and forbids corporal punishment, especially injuries to the five sense organs which is highly admired in Islamism.”

According to Abdurekefu Damaolaaji, who is also the deputy president of the Institute of Islamic Theology, the prisoner abuses scandal has so annoyed the students of the institute that they think it a strong humiliation to all the Muslims around the world.

Executive vice director of the autonomous regional Red Cross Rahfu Abbas said: “I was shocked at the scene of American troops abusing some Iraqi prisoners on TV… It's such a trample on humanitarianism.”

Rahfu Abbas, a Muslim of the Tatar ethnic minority, has been living in Xinjiang for generations.

“I couldn't even believe my eyes when I saw the photos on the vice of the American soldiers at the Iraqi prison. We and the Iraqis are all Muslims. We all have the same belief. The actions of the US troops is such a humiliation to us Muslims that we all think it's intolerable,” said Rozi Memet, a young Uygur who is selling dried fruits at the Xinjiang international bazaar.

As the largest region where China's ethnic minorities inhabit and covering some one-sixth of the total territory of China, the Xinjiang Autonomous Region boasts over ten million Muslims, who are living harmoniously with other ethnic groups believing in various religions in the region.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said Wednesday another disc with 24 photographs depicting “apparent abusive acts by US forces” has surfaced in the investigation of mistreatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Gharib prison near Baghdad. 11 of the photographs have not been identified in previous investigations, according to a Pentagon letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

According to a US official Thursday, the Justice Department is investigating the death of an Abu Gharib prison detainee whose body, packed in ice, is documented in photos that also show two American soldiers, Army Sgt. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Spc. Sabrina Harman, posing nearby with thumbs up. They were shown first Wednesday by ABC-TV and on Thursday by the Arabic TV station Al-Arabiya.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a US government official identified the dead detainee as Manadel al-Jamadi. The detainee, whose badly bruised corpse was in a body bag packed with ice, died in the prison's showers while being interrogated by the CIA or other civilian agents, ABC reported. At least three such CIA cases have been referred by the agency to the Justice Department for prosecution, the official said.

END

Chinese society puts calligraphies at Tehran Quran exhibition

BEIJING, China: Month-long 11th international holy Quran exhibition marking Ramadan continued in Tehran, and China's Islamic society announced to participate therein.

FULL STORY..