| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: WoT |
| GTMO inmates get 500 holiday cards |
| 2006-12-24 |
| The 400 or so detainees at Joint Task Force detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have received approximately 500 holiday greeting cards, said Army Col. Lora Tucker, a spokeswoman for the prison. She said she did not know the faith content of the cards sent to the mainly Muslim detention population, because "Once it goes to the detainee, it's the detainee's mail." She said the guard force at Gitmo has no interest in the content of the mail after it is screened for operations and security purposes. (!) Because nearly all the cards came from the United States, they probably had either a "happy holiday" or a Christmas theme, Tucker said, although it was possible some of the cards might be for the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Adha. Tucker said the detainees have been given the opportunity to write special holiday greetings, but she did not know how many prisoners had sent holiday notes, or how many total had been sent from the prison. In all, the prisoners at the base have received approximately 16,000 pieces of mail in 2006. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the cards being sent to the detainees could be for the Eid ul-Adha holiday, which begins Dec. 30, but the tradition of card exchanges is nowhere nearly as established in the Muslim faith as it is in the Christian faith, especially in the United States. "If the message is religiously appropriate in terms of being an actual greeting card, if that's what they're intended to do, then that's one thing," Hooper said. But "if there's an orchestrated effort to somehow proselytize the detainees, I think that would be inappropriate in that they are in a captive situation." |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #5 Is it possible to buy pork-flavored Christmas greeting cards? |
| Posted by: SteveS 2006-12-24 11:43 |
| #4 I'm hoping the mix included lots of Hanuka cards. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-12-24 09:34 |
| #3 I presume the ACLU will be taking the government to court over this? |
| Posted by: Jackal 2006-12-24 08:47 |
| #2 Seasons Greetings muj, have a Happy Fitzmas Baa Baa Baa Baa always, yer Goat |
| Posted by: billy 2006-12-24 03:38 |
| #1 Well Mr. Hooper, other than the US Gov't who genearlly doesn't post "Christmas Greetings," I would venture it is quite unlikely that anyone other than a detainees immediate family would know of his whereabouts and address. An "orchestrated effort to somehow proselytize" would appear to have to have originated within his own clan. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-12-24 02:54 |