Guantanamo Bay Prisoner Sues U.S. to Get a Bible

At the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, everyone can get a Koran, but no one gets a Bible.

Saifullah Paracha, a 58-year-old former Pakistani businessman with alleged ties to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has been in U.S. custody since 2003. Like the other inmates at Guantanamo Bay, he has a copy of the Koran. But he also wants an English translation of the King James version of the Bible.

Paracha believes that because the Bible is one of the scriptures accepted in Islam, he is entitled to a copy to read in his small wire-mesh cell. But after his lawyer shipped him a Bible, along with two volumes of Shakespeare, prison officials confiscated the package.

Paracha's American lawyer filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, demanding that Paracha be given the Bible and copies of "Hamlet" and "Julius Caesar." The government responded that certain books were kept from prisoners because they could "incite" them.



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-bible22nov22,0,4976454.story?coll=la-home-world

battlements.

I don't get it. Our problem (they say) is that these are religious fundamentalists whose narrow view of the world causes them to act out anti-western prejudices. And to counter that, we don't let them read anything but their own religious text.

Wouldn't this be seen as an opportunity to introduce them to western culture? Greek philosophy, Shakespeare and Goethe, Descarte and the philosophers of the Enlightenment?

Is this part of the "What Happens in Gitmo STAYS in Gitmo" ad campaign, or something?

--p!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1527201/posts

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Now THIS makes me mad. They give these terrorists a copy of their terrorist manual, but they won't give them a bible? They should offer them bibles to read while the korans are on "back order".

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We should give them all Bibles and flush the Korans down the drain.

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Well, we know that the Bible is such a violent book in contrast with TROP Koran. /sarc Me: 'Cuz there's NO violence in the Bible! :sarcasm:

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But it's okay to give them the vile Koran? *sigh* Our tax dollars at work.

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And a Honey Baked Spiral Ham tied to their hip :-)