Four former detainees at Guantanamo — Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal al-Harith — are litigating in Rasul vs. Rumsfeld to hold government officials accountable for torture they endured while being held there. (All were found innocent of terrorist activity and released in 2004.) Represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the four British citizens first cited violations of the U.S. Constitution and international law, but these were thrown out by the district court because the alleged misconduct (beatings, painful shackling, interrogation at gunpoint, use of dogs, extreme temperatures and sleep deprivation) was seen as occurring during the "course of war." But allegations of deliberate attacks on religion were not so easily ignored and are currently being considered by an appeals court in Washington, D.C.

The former Gitmo detainees allege they were forced to shave their beards, were systematically interrupted while praying, denied the Qu’ran and prayer mats, made to pray with exposed genitals and forced to watch as the Qu’ran was thrown into a toilet bucket. Obviously, the only reason for such abuse would be to crush inmates psychologically by insulting their religion. Therefore it could, if proven, violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which seeks to protect religious expression.

The RFRA was originally passed by a broad interfaith coalition including the Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Council of Churches, American Jewish Committee, National Association of Evangelicals, Seventh-Day Adventists and the Joint Baptist Committee for Religious Liberty. (The latter is supported by Baptists with whom former President Jimmy Carter has been working.) They came together again recently to submit friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of the four plaintiffs.

The Joint Baptist Committee General Counsel K. Hollyn Hollman was in the District Court of Appeals on Sept. 14 when arguments were made using the RFRA. "As advocates of religious freedom, we’re very concerned when an attack on religion is alleged to be part of any kind of torture or coercive interrogation," she told InFocus.

The appeals court dwelt especially on definitions of the words "person" and "religion" as used in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Justice Department argued that Guantanamo detainees might not be "persons" as defined by RFRA. At one point, Judge A. Raymond Randolph, who tends to support hard-liners in the Bush administration, asked co-counsel Eric Lewis: "What’s your definition of religion?"

Lewis knew exactly where Randolph was going with this. "I would suggest that Islam fits within any definition of religion," he said.

The Center for Constitutional Rights coordinates the work of more than 500 pro bono lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees. In a statement to the press, Eric Lewis explained his organization’s goals and legal strategy in this way: "The detainees at Guantanamo have been subject to deliberate humiliation because of the Defense Department’s misguided and illegal effort to exploit their faith to break them down psychologically. We hope to persuade the Court of Appeals that the district court was correct in finding such conduct illegal under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a statute meant to ensure that the government respects the religious faiths of all people."

Lawrence Swaim is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Freedom Foundation. He taught for eight years at Pacific Union College, and his academic specialties are American Studies and American literature. His column addresses current affairs from an American Christian and Interfaith perspective.