On May 9, 2005, Newsweek ran a story alleging that American interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba flushed copies of the Quran down a toilet in the detention center.
The Newsweek report led to protests and several days of rioting across the Muslim world, resulting in at least 15 deaths and many injured. The story was retracted a week later, according to CNN. Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said, "Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay." The Pentagon called the story “demonstrably false,” and blamed Newsweek for the violent clashes that followed the publication’s “irresponsible” reporting, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
