Skipping Ramadan at Guantamamo

The Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg has a fascinating story about Guantanamo detainees violating the Ramadan fast rules:

With the vast majority of the prisoners at Guantánamo now marking their 10th Ramadan in a row behind the razor wire, the military is providing food around the clock for both the faithful honoring the dawn-to-dusk fast and those Muslim captives who choose to ignore it. A prison camp spokeswoman said the U.S. military command instituted the night-and-day food distribution last year to make it easier for the captives who chose to shun the fasting ritual. Guards then tracked the results to discover that, in the course of the month, more than half the camp ignored Islam’s obligation to fast — a figure those who work with the captives find hard to fathom. “The average fasting percentage of the detainee population for Ramadan in 2010 was 55 percent,” said Navy Cmdr. Tamsen Reese in response to a question from The Miami Herald. “The percentage dropped after the beginning, but rose at the end of Ramadan,” when Muslims celebrate the feast called Eid al Fitr. The result suggests that some of the 171 captives have lost faith after a decade in captivity — a surprising turnabout from earlier years, when military commanders reported near-perfect compliance and prisoners abstained from food and drink during daylight hours.

Elsewhere in the story, Rosenberg quotes people who are skeptical of the loss-of-faith explanation. The pattern sure is interesting, though, whatever the cause.