JAMES YEE: Starting with a little bit about myself, it was mentioned that I'm a West Point graduate, but I want to say that I’m also part of a family that's actually deeply rooted in the military. Not only did I graduate from West Point, but also I have a younger brother who graduated from West Point. I have another younger brother who’s actually an Army doctor, currently serving on active duty at Fort Lewis, Washington. And being a third-generation Chinese American, my father was also drafted during World War II, and he served after being drafted during that time. So I actually come from a family that has its roots in the military, and that's something we're all proud of, in terms of serving the Armed Forces and being part of the military.
But with that, I was assigned in 2002 in November to be the Muslim chaplain down in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the controversial prison camp that we're all talking about today. And really, at first, I didn't know what my role was going be when I was assigned to that mission, this Joint Task Force mission. I thought perhaps I was being sent down to Gitmo, as we call it, so that our government, the Pentagon could say, “Oh, yes, we do have a Muslim chaplain assigned to this sensitive operation, in where all of the prisoners down there are of the Muslim faith. We do have a Muslim chaplain there. And, of course, that means we're being sensitive to the religious needs of these prisons.” I thought perhaps that was the reason why I was being sent down there.
But nevertheless I went down there with confidence in myself as a Muslim chaplain, someone who immediately after 9/11 was approached by senior leaders within the military to talk about Islam, to build bridges and to educate soldiers and service members about the Islamic culture. I went to Guantanamo with that same confidence in myself that I would do the same job, which I was recognized for in the immediate post-9/11 era.
But when I got down there, I actually found out what my role was going to be, and it was, one, to be an advisor to the camp commander who was down there, to advise the commander of the detention operation on this unique religious paradigm, where we do find that every single one of the prisoners caged in these open-air cell cages are Muslim. I was to advise on how their religious routine, how the religious practices of the prisoners affected the operation.
But I also would learn that I would be a chaplain to the prisoners. A chaplain to the prisoners. And I was in a unique position, where I had that opportunity or that position to be able to interact with the prisoners on a very personal level. And as a result, I was given authorized unescorted access into the prison cell blocks. And I would meet with the prisoners on a daily basis. Hour after hour every day, I would be in the cell blocks speaking with the prisoners and listening to them. Most importantly, I was listening to them. In the military, we say that a good chaplain is a good listener, and that's what I would do. I would listen to the prisoners.
And what did they have to say? Well, they would tell me much about what was going on in Guantanamo. What life is like for them as prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And, of course, they had many complaints and many concerns, many complaints and many concerns, which often led to protests on the part of the prisoners, riots or disturbances. The prisoners even responded even more drastically with things like hunger strikes and even suicide attempts in protest of how they were being treated, or should I say, how they were being mistreated and abused.
In listening to the prisoners, I often learned what was going on inside the interrogation rooms down in Guantanamo. Now, realize that down in Gitmo, there are two operations. There’s a detention operation and there’s an intelligence gathering operation. The detention operation is run mostly by military police, guards, who handle the everyday needs of the prisoners. They bring the prisoners food, a change of clothes. They take them to showers, recreation, those kind of things. In the intelligence operations, you have mostly Intel officers, interrogators, military intelligence and others who we in the military only refer to as OGA, meaning other government agencies. Who are these other government agencies? Could be the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency, perhaps the CIA, whoever. But within the military, we only knew them as OGA. So that's the intelligence gathering operation; their mission, to try and glean information from the prisoners, if they have any.
As the Muslim chaplain, of course, I was assigned to the detention operation, really being unethical for a chaplain of any denomination to assist interrogators in their role in trying to glean information from prisoners. So, I was assigned to the detention operation. And in the course of interacting with the prisoners, I would learn much of what was going on. And what would they tell me? They would tell me about the abuses, and one of the things that I’ve recently done was I wrote about my experience. I chronicled it in a book called For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire. And one of the chapters that I entitle is a chapter I entitled “Gitmo's Secret Weapon.”
Gitmo's secret weapon. Now, what was Gitmo's secret weapon? Well, from the viewpoint of a chaplain in the United States military whose role is essentially to advocate for the free exercise of worship for all individuals, to advocate for religious freedom, Gitmo's secret weapon was the use of religion against the prisoners, whether to try and break them or frustrate them in the course of trying to glean information from them or in the course of detaining them.
Now, how was religion being used against the prisoners? Well, prisoners would come and they would tell me that when they were taken to interrogation, they were, of course, shackled at the wrists and at the waist and at the ankles, as prisoners down in Guantanamo are shackled, and they would tell me that they would be forced to sit in the center of what was painted on the floor, a satanic circle. The interrogators would attempt to force them to bow down and prostrate, you know, like in the form of the Islamic prayer where Muslims bow down and prostrate, while the interrogator is screaming at that prisoner that “Satan is your god now, not Allah!” This is how religion was being used against prisoners.
But how else was religion being used? Prisoners would tell me that female interrogators, for example, would take advantage of conservative Islamic culture or etiquette, in where you find in an Islamic society very limited physical contact between members of the opposite sex, with the exception of marital relations or family relations like between a mother and her son or between a niece and her uncle, those kind of things. Prisoners would say that the female interrogators, in particular, would take advantage of this aspect of Muslim culture. How? By being very ready to take off their clothes or disrobe in front of the Muslim prisoners in the course of their interrogation. And when these Muslim prisoners simply didn't want to see a naked woman, they would close their eyes. So the guards would then be instructed to go behind the prisoner and force their eyes open.
Further, these female interrogators, of course, took steps to inappropriately touch Muslim prisoners, and it has even been confirmed in official military investigations like that of the Schmidt Report conducted by U.S. Southern Command, which has confirmed that female interrogators did grab the genitals of Muslim male prisoners in the course of their interrogation. I think I've been the only person to actually write about how prisoners told me that these female interrogators went even further and actually forced these male prisoners by the hand and forced them to touch the female interrogator herself in private areas, whether on the breast or in the genital areas.
Now, when I heard of these types of things, and when many of the other American Muslims who were serving down in Guantanamo, maybe as translators, many of them who attended my religious service for the American Muslim personnel, often confirmed much of what was going on, because some of them actually worked inside the interrogation rooms. And when we heard these types of things going on, we not only thought this was degrading to the prisoner, of course, to himself, but we thought this was also degrading to the female interrogator herself. And further, we thought it was degrading to all women in general, because essentially what these female interrogators were doing were simply posing or presenting themselves simply as a sex object in front of a Muslim prisoner.
But there were other things that were going on with regard to the use of religion against the prisoners, like, for example, the Koran desecration. Now, that's something we heard about last year from Newsweek, first reported by Newsweek, that the Koran was being desecrated down in Guantanamo. Now, this was news that outraged the entire Muslim world, that led to riots around the world, and even people died in these riots, in protest that the Koran was being desecrated down in Gitmo. I, myself, was outraged when I heard this news, because I knew firsthand from being down in Guantanamo and experiencing firsthand the anti-Muslim hostility down in Guantanamo, directed not only to the Muslim prisoners, but also towards the American Muslims who were serving down there. I, myself, was outraged.
And I can say firsthand, from being down in Guantanamo, that, yes, the Koran was being desecrated down in Guantanamo when I was there. I remember when I initially got down there, the guards themselves were actually allowed to search the Korans as a matter of security procedure. And I remember seeing them, how they took the Holy Koran. They would open them up, turn them upside down and shake them violently to see if anything dangerous would fall out. Of course, nothing ever did. And Muslims, ourselves, know that just hiding something in the Koran would itself be an insult to the holy book, as well as to Islam. But, nevertheless, perhaps there's a need, a necessity for security procedures, especially in a prison operation. But the guards would take the Holy Koran and shake it upside down. Nothing dangerous would fall out, but sometimes the pages themselves would tear right from the bindings, and the bindings themselves would rip and crack.
Now, this happened in front of the prisoners in these open-air caged cells. They can see everything that's happening. And the prisoners would be furious. They would be angered. And this is what led to the riots and the protests as to how the guards were treating the Holy Koran. But then they started protesting with more drastic measures, like hunger strikes and suicide attempts.
But what would drive the prisoners to the extent of wanting to kill themselves in protest of how the Holy Koran was being treated? Well, this occurred when interrogators within the interrogation booths were taking the Holy Koran and throwing it on the ground and then stepping on it. This also has been confirmed by the very same Schmidt Report. Prisoners would come back, and they would tell me that the interrogators would also kick the Koran across the floor inside the interrogation room. And when the prisoners came back, and these reports and incidents were made known to the general population of prisoners, this is when you had the chaos break out and the mass suicide attempts.
Commentary 
We continue looking at the issue of torture and Guantanamo Bay. On May 5th, The University of California at Davis', Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas hosted a forum, which I moderated, about the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Former Army Chaplain James Yee was one of the featured speakers at the event. 
