Former U.S. Army Chaplain James Yee was told he was being given a two-week break from working at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base in Cuba where war on terror detainees are held.
When he arrived in Florida, his bags were searched and he became a prisoner like those he had preached to, held at a super-maximum security prison in Charleston, N.C., for 76 days on charges that included espionage.
Yee, who has had all charges against him dropped and was honorably discharged, gave the keynote address last night for Islamic Awareness Week in Logan Hall to a crowd of about 60.
The event was sponsored by the Muslim Students Association.
A third-generation Chinese-American, Yee told the story of his conversion to Islam, his rise through the ranks to become one of the Army's first Muslim chaplains, and his arrest and subsequent release.
Yee said he was hand-picked to work at Guantanamo and that he was initially praised by senior military officials for working to make the site more sensitive to Muslim religious sensibilities.
Yee wove accounts of prison mistreatment and abuse at Guantanamo Bay into his speech. He alleged that this mistreatment often involved trying to use religion against the detainees, all of whom are Muslim.
"Many disturbing things were going on at Guantanamo," he said.
He said that abuses included desecrations of the Quran and having female interrogators strip naked in an attempt to frustrate the male detainees.
"Female interrogators were taking advantage of conservative Islamic culture," Yee said. "These types of actions only had the opposite effect. You had utter chaos in the cells."
Yee said he believes that his objections to detainee treatment led to his detention in Florida.
Yee said his own religious rights were violated when he was in prison, adding that his guards would not tell him what direction Mecca was or what time he was supposed to pray, as called for by Muslim religious rules.
"I've lost respect for the current military and civilian leadership at the Pentagon," Yee said.
Many asked Yee about whether he was still being watched by the government. And when his phone rang, he joked, "It's the FBI, they want me to be quiet."
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