Faith Under Fire
Interview with 2009 Baldwin Award winner Capt. James Yee
James J. Yee is a former U.S. Army Captain who served as the Muslim Chaplain for the U.S. prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. While ministering to prisoners, Captain Yee was arrested and imprisoned in a naval brig for 76 days, falsely accused of spying, espionage, and aiding prisoners. He was held in solitary confinement and subjected to the same sensory deprivation techniques that were being used against the prisoners in Cuba to whom he had been ministering. After months of government investigations, all criminal charges were dropped.
Capt. Yee gave this interview on the night he received the Roger Baldwin award from the ACLU of Massachusetts -- our highest honor.
When did you join the Army and what was your career path?
I joined the Army when I entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, and that was in 1986. But when I graduated in 1990, I was a commissioned officer. I was air defense artillery, Patriot missiles. I served in Desert Storm, and I left active duty actually in the summer of 1993 and pursued traditional religious studies after converting to Islam.
When did you convert?
1991. And I came back on active duty in January of 2001 as a Muslim chaplain.
Had you always intended to come back ?
No, but I was very much aware of the need for proper representation of American Muslims in the U.S. military. I mean, we had Jewish chaplains and Christian chaplains, but when I left active duty in 1993, there weren't any Muslim chaplains. By the time I came back in 2001, there were a few in all three armed services.
What happened after 9/11?
I immediately became a point person for media interviews. Journalists wanted to cover the story of what it was like being an American Muslim serving in the military. I gained some notoriety and some recognition for handling that and that's probably what landed me the assignment in Guantanamo, arriving there in November of 2002. [The first prisoners arrived at Guantanamo on Jan. 11, 2002.]
Did you know what you were getting into?
Well, as a dedicated Army officer, I was up for the challenge. Certainly I understood it would be a unique assignment, and I certainly knew there was a need to educate the command and the guard force and others down in Guantanamo about Islam and the Muslim culture -- but no one could have known ahead of time what a Muslim chaplain down in Guantanamo was going to find.
What did you find?
Immediately I found the hostility towards all Muslims, not only the Muslim prisoners, but towards Muslim Americans down in Guantanamo, of which there are many because they handle predominantly the linguistic needs of the prison operation, being translators. You have military personnel and civilian contracted employees working down in Guantanamo as translators, and most of the translators are American Muslims. So American Muslims felt the hostility that prisoners also felt with regard to religion.
What did your work consist of?
My role was being a chaplain to all the Muslim prisoners and American Muslims in Guantanamo, and I was also an advisor to the detention command on religion and how that might affect the detention of the prisoners. But first and foremost as a chaplain, my role consisted of accommodating religion and protecting the constitutional right to religious freedom, free exercise of religion.
Did you feel that you were able to do that?
In that role there were things I was able to accomplish with regard to accommodating religious practices, like ensuring the Muslim call to prayer is made five times a day for the Muslim prisoners, and adjusting meal schedules during the month of Ramadan to accommodate the religious fasting from dawn 'til sunset. However on the other hand, I noted how religion in other aspects of the operation -- both in the detention and interrogation operation -- was being used as a weapon to persecute and humiliate the prisoners. That ranged from Muslims having their beards forcefully shaven, to being subjected to sexual humiliation by female interrogators, to the Koran being desecrated.
How did your arrest unfold?
Well, I was given R&R, which allowed me to go home after serving 10 months in Guantanamo to visit my family, but as soon as I got back on U.S. soil, they arrested me in secret, making spurious claims that I had taken classified documents from Guantanamo, and then I was carted away a week later to a super-maximum security prison in Charleston, South Carolina, alongside individuals who were declared U.S. citizen enemy combatants.
Did your family have any idea what was happening to you?
For my family, it was like I had disappeared in America, and they actually learned of where I was from the news when it broke 10 days after my arrest.
What happened to you while you were held?
I was held for a total of 76 days in isolation and subjected to very harsh treatment, and to this day I have never even been given the justification for how I was treated --the sensory deprivation, the isolation, maximum security, [being held] incommunicado, things like that.
Did they interrogate you?
I was interrogated the first day I was arrested by NCIS and FBI, but I refused to give them any information because I questioned whether or not they legitimately had what's known as "need to know" access to any of the information I had about Guantanamo.
What happened after your detention?
After 76 days, I was suddenly released. I was never actually officially charged with capital crimes, but I was charged with two lesser offenses which they called essentially violating an order by mishandling classified information and they attempted to court martial me, meaning bring me to trial in a military court. And after months of further government investigation into my life and personal affairs, my banking records and all of that, all the charges were dropped, and then I was reinstated, after which I resigned my commission from the U.S. Army and left in January of 2005 with an honorable discharge.
Why did you resign?
Initially I had attempted to put everything behind me and move on and continue to make the positive contributions I had always made as an officer. However, I was still put under an enormous amount of scrutiny by the command. So I saw that as an obstacle to my role as a chaplain and to provide religious support to members of the military. And there was a bigger story that needed to be told publicly about what goes on in Guantanamo.
What is the story to tell about what goes on in Guantanamo?
The abuse of prisoners, the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, the torturous tactics that are carried out, and the legal black hole that has tarnished the nation's reputation as a leader for human rights and an upholder of the rule of law.
What is the broader significance of what happened to you?
My story is a scary reminder that history often repeats itself, and in the 9/11 aftermath, out of fear and misplaced emotions, I was profiled, discriminated against, and labeled a terrorist spy.
What do you think should be done with Guantanamo and the people who are held there?
There's no doubt that Guantanamo should be closed, immediately, and President Obama should fulfill his promises to ban torture without exception, to adhere to the Geneva Conventions, and to reject the military commissions.
Capt. Yee shares more of his story in his 2005 book "For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire."
