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Journalists to U.S.:
Charge Them or Set Them Free
By Joshua B. Good
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Journalists on Sunday (May 7, 2007) called on the U.S. military
to charge two photographers or set them free.
The military is holding Bilal Hussein in a prison in Iraq.
Hussein is an Iraqi citizen who works for the Associated Press as a
photographer. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for a photograph he took
for the AP in Iraq. Hussein was arrested in 2006, but has not been
charged with a crime.
Initially, authorities alleged he was present before insurgent
bombs were set off, as if he were a propagandist for the Iraqis
fighting the U.S. military in Iraq. But the AP examined 900 of
Hussein's photographs and found no evidence he was there before the
bombs exploded, said Kathleen Carroll, executive editor for the AP.
On Thursday (May 10, 2007) the AP ran a story quoting Hussein's
lawyer as saying the military had also alleged Hussein was involved in
a plot to kidnap two journalists, but recently acknowledged they had
no evidence to back up those claims.
"The sort of rolling set of allegations that arise and then
disappear without the benefit of trialÂ…or any kind of an official
court proceeding is what is distressing to all of us here," Carroll
said May 7, 2007, during a panel in New York City to discuss World
Press Freedom Day, according to the AP story.
Sami al-Hajj is a photojournalist for the Al Jazeera satellite
news network. Al-Hajj is being held at the U.S. Navy's Guantanamo Bay
facility in Cuba. He was arrested at the Afghan/Pakistan border in
December of 2001, according to the AP story. He has been in the
Guantanamo prison for six years without being charged.
"If there is any evidence, then let's see it," al-Hajj's
attorney, Zachary Katznelson, told the AP.
Navy Commander J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, told the AP
there is classified and unclassified evidence to support al-Hajj's
incarceration. Gordon did not respond to an email request today
(Thursday, May 10, 2007) for any public documents or to comment about
al-Hajj. Gordon's coworkers said Gordon was out of the office and busy
with President George W. Bush's visit to the Pentagon.
At first, military interrogators accused al-Hajj of videotaping
bin Laden for an Al Jazeera story, but then they realized it was
another Al Jazeera cameraman with a similar name, New York Times
syndicated columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote in an Oct. 25, 2006
column.
The U.S. military also accused Al-Hajj of ferrying a large sum
of money to a terrorist organization, Kristof wrote. However, Al-Hajj
reportedly told his attorneys that the U.S. interrogators then
switched tactics and told him he would be free to go if he agreed to
spy on Al Jazeera, Kristof wrote. Al-Hajj reportedly asked what would
happen if he went free, then failed to spy for the U.S. government,
according to one of Al-Hajj's attorneys, Zachary Katznelson of London
(Kristof).
The interrogator then reportedly gave al-Hajj a coldly
calculated response.
"You would not do that," al-Hajj quoted his interrogator as
saying, "because it would endanger your child," Kristof wrote.
Al-Hajj has a 7-year-old son who has not seen his father in more
than five years.
This story is from http://www.bannedmagazine.com/
you can find it at:
http://www.bannedmagazine.com/FreeAlHajjHussein.05102007.0001.htm
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