This is a guest post by PRADEEP JEGANATHAN from Colombo.

The sentencing of J.S. Tissainayagam is deeply distressing.

While I’m neither a attorney, nor conversant with the details of the evidence presented by the prosecution, nor the text of the judgment delivered — and so can not comment on those areas, it seems clear that this judgment and sentence was only possible given the Prevention of Terrorism Act, of 1979. Two features stand out, given the PTA– the narrow bounds allowed for freedom of expression, on certain themes, and the admissibility of a ‘confession’ as ‘evidence,’ which is not allowable under the penal code. Taken together they make for a curtailing of freedom which is telling. There is an appeal pending, I understand, and there may be a possibility of a pardon, if that process is exhausted to no avail.

The international media has highlighted his case, as they did that of Roxana Saberi who arrested, tried and later released in Iran, and of Lura Ling/Enua Lee whose tribulations were in North Korea; these parallels are worth considering.

But, predictably, almost, these media outlets, neglect to highlight, or even mention in passing the number of journalists that the US government has held with out charge in recent times, some times for years, with out even recourse to a trial. A rare American critic, Glenn Greenwald, puts it this way:

imprisoning journalists — without charges or trials of any kind — was and continues to be a staple of America’s “war on terror,” and that has provoked virtually no objections from America’s journalists who, notably, instead seized on Saberi’s plight in Iran to demonstrate their claimed commitment to defending persecuted journalists.

Tissainayagam’s case must been seen in parallel to these US detentions as well. Several cases stand out; those of Pulitzer Prize winning AP photographer Bilal Hussein in Iraq, Rueters photographer Ibrahim Jassam (An Iraqi court has ordered the release of Jassam, but the US military, refuses to do so), and Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj in Guantanamo among them.  By not doing so, we take at face value American’s claim that it is spreading freedom through the world, one country at time.  Or put another way, while Obama’s is right that the Tissainayagam matter is an “”emblematic example” of the “distressing reality” of journalists held for their professional work, but he could also look closer home, for other telling examples.

Our criticisms of the excesses of ‘wars on terror’ should be broad and deep, not blinkered by narrow nationalisms and neo-imperialism.

Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam has been held since September. The U.S. military rejected a court order to release him, saying he is a ‘high security threat.’ No evidence has been presented.

Reporting from Baghdad — The soldiers came at 1:30 a.m, rousing family members who were sleeping on the roof to escape the late-summer heat.

They broke down the front door. Accompanied by dogs, American and Iraqi troops burst into the Jassam family home in the town of Mahmoudiya south of Baghdad.

“Where is the journalist Ibrahim?” one of the Iraqi soldiers barked at the grandparents, children and grandchildren as they staggered blearily down the stairs.

Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for the Reuters news agency, stepped forward, one of this brothers recalled. “Take me if you want me, but please leave my brothers.” The soldiers rifled through the house, confiscating his computer hard drive and cameras. And then they led him away, handcuffed and blindfolded.

That was Sept. 2.

Jassam, 31, has been in U.S. custody ever since. His case is the latest of a dozen detentions the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has documented since 2001.

No formal accusations have been made against Jassam, and an Iraqi court ordered in November that he be released for lack of evidence. But the U.S. military continues to hold him, saying it has intelligence that he is “a high security threat,” said Maj. Neal Fisher, spokesman for detainee affairs.

The Obama administration harshly criticized Iran for its imprisonment of Roxana Saberi, the U.S.-Iranian journalist who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to eight years in prison before being freed two weeks ago. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Iran’s treatment of Saberi as “non-transparent, unpredictable and arbitrary.”

Washington also has called upon North Korea to expedite the trial of two U.S. journalists being held on spying charges.

Yet the U.S. has routinely used the arbitrary powers it assumed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks to hold journalists without charge in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

None of the detained journalists has been convicted of any charge, undermining the United States’ reputation when it comes to criticizing other countries on issues of press freedom, committee executive director Joel Simon said.

“The U.S. has a record of holding journalists for long periods of time without due process and without explanation,” he said. “Its standing would be improved if it addressed this issue.”

Reuters has expressed disappointment over Jassam’s detention and has said there is no evidence against him.

Sami al-Hajj, a cameraman for the TV network Al Jazeera, was detained by Pakistani authorities as he tried to cross into Afghanistan in 2001 to cover the offensive against the Taliban. He was turned over to the U.S. military, which held him for six years at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was accused him of being a courier for militant Islamic organizations, but was never charged. He was released a year ago.

In Iraq, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was held for two years without trial before being released in April 2008 on the orders of an Iraqi judge under the terms of an amnesty law. The U.S. military maintained that Hussein had links to insurgents, but the AP said the allegations were based on nothing more than the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs of insurgents that he had taken on the streets of Ramadi, in western Iraq.

Jassam is the only Iraqi journalist still in U.S. custody, the last to be detained under wartime rules that predated a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement signed in December. Under the new accord, U.S. forces must obtain a warrant before they can arrest an Iraqi citizen.

Jassam was detained without a warrant “as the result of his activity with a known insurgent organization,” Fisher said.

No evidence against Jassam was presented at his court hearing in November, Fisher said, because the military intelligence against him had not yet been verified.

Under the wartime rules in place at the time, he said, “there was no requirement to link the military intelligence with rule of law type of evidentiary procedures.”

After the court ordered Jassam’s release, Fisher said, new evidence came to light that suggested he was a “high security threat.”

The CPJ’s Simon said it was possible for someone to use the cover of journalism to conduct other activities.

“No one is suggesting that journalists should have a get- out-of-jail-free card,” he said. “But if you accuse someone of something there needs to be a fair legal process. That’s what we said in the Roxana Saberi case, and that’s what we say in the Ibrahim Jassam case.”

Jassam will have to wait for the requirements of the security pact to play out before he gets another day in court or his freedom. The agreement states that the U.S. is to release low-threat detainees in a “safe and orderly” way and refer “high threat” cases to the Iraqi Ministry of Justice for review.

The decision to release him or transfer him to the Iraqi legal system will be made by the Iraqi government. The only timetable for that step is “by the end of the year,” Fisher said. By that time, Jassam will have been in custody for more than a year.

Jassam’s brother, Walid, visited him recently in Camp Bucca, the desolate, tented U.S. prison camp in the desert in southern Iraq, and found him close to the breaking point.

“He used to be handsome, but now he’s pale and he’s tired,” said Walid, who says his brother had no ties to insurgents. “Every now and then while we were talking, he would start crying. He was begging me: ‘Please do something to get me out of here. I don’t know what is the charge against me.’

“I told him we already tried everything.”

liz.sly@latimes.com

Times Staff Writer Saif Hameed contributed to this report.

No More Fear Since Bush Is Gone!

Did you know that there is more freedom of press in Finland & the Czech Republic than it is in the United States? Our first amendment rights have slowly been slipping away in this country under George Bush. There have been other presidents who have tried to manipulate the news, for sure. During the time George Bush has been in office, he has controlled how he would interact with the media. What he has done is largely ignore the media & treat them as if they were a nuisance.According to The Punch:

“The US (53rd, 13.00) has slipped nine places since last year, after occupying 17th position in the maiden ranking carried out in 2002. The assessor attributed the dwindling fortune of the press freedom in the US to the frosty relationship between the media and President George Bush after the latter acted under the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.”

This was further compounded by the refusal of US federal courts, unlike those in 33 states, to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.

For instance, Reporters Without Borders observed that a freelance journalist and blogger, Josh Wolf, was imprisoned when he refused to hand over his video archives. Sudanese cameraman, Sami al- Haj, who works for the pan-Arab broadcaster, Al-Jazeera, has been detained without trial at the US military base in Guantanamo, Cuba, since 2002, and Associated Press photographer, Bilal Hussein, has been held by US authorities in Iraq since April 2008.”(End of Excerpt) Read the whole article here:http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20081120231498

Not surprisingly, China was one of the 10 worst violators of freedom of press.They just made it legal for their reporters to cover natural disasters truthfully in 2005,after all.Talk about draconian laws, China’s got them. But, according to Reuters:

“The Chinese government has started to loosen its control on the negative information,” an academic source close to propaganda authorities told Reuters.

“They are trying to control the news by publicizing the news,” said the source, who declined to be named.”(End of Excerpt) Read the rest here:http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AJ1VF20081120

My hope is that Obama will restore the freedom of press in this country. It is on a steady decline,most noticeably under the reign of George Bush. Instead of reporting what’s really going on around the world, we get news organizations that all show the same information almost in perfect synchronicity. I’m not kidding,either. I tend to channel surf & I switch from CNN to MSNBC to FOX. More often than not,they are all covering the same stories as if there isn’t much going on in the world. You can tell that the news is controlled in the United States. This video that I included from Democracy Now really breaks it down.

From Associated Press:

Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was reunited with family and colleagues Wednesday, ending more than two years in U.S. military custody after Iraqi judges dropped all legal proceedings against him.

Tearful relatives rushed to embrace Hussein, who had been given just a few hours’ notice of his release. He thanked co-workers and supporters around the world who had worked on his behalf.

“I have spent two years in prison even though I was innocent. I thank everybody,” said Hussein, 36, looking healthy and dressed in a brown traditional Iraqi robe.

American military police handed over Hussein to AP colleagues at a checkpoint near Baghdad International Airport two years and four days after he was detained by U.S. Marines in Ramadi, 70 miles west of the capital.   here

And:

A Texas appeals court said Thursday that the state had no right to take more than 400 children from a polygamist sect’s ranch, a ruling that could unravel one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history.   here

And:

The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former White House adviser Karl Rove as part of its inquiry into whether the Bush administration politically meddled at the Justice Department.

Accusations of politics governing decisions at the agency led to the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The subpoena issued Thursday orders Rove to testify before the House panel on July 10. He is expected to face questions about the White House’s role in firing nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers had negotiated with Rove’s attorneys for more than a year over whether the former top political adviser to President Bush would testify voluntarily.

here

And:

Canada is no longer in the Top 10 Peaceful Countries, at least according to the Global Peace Index which is created by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

The good news is that we’re not Israel (rank 136 out of 140) or the US (which actually rose 7 notches to 97 out of 140).

The bad news is that when you look up the methodology that’s used, it’s very likely that Canada’s rank will take a pounding in the next few years, given the level of military spending that the Harper government wants (anywhere from $30-$50 billion per year).  This is almost a 100% increase from the 2010-2012 levels of about $18 billion.  And a whopping 400% increase from the roughly $11 billion that was spent in 1995   here

And:

“When Canadian forces confront adolescents under the age of 18 on the battlefields of Afghanistan, they are handed over to Afghanistan’s army or intelligence agency – from there, the children go to adult detention facilities, which in turn have drawn allegations of detainee abuse and torture. Meanwhile, UNICEF – which is funded in part by the Canadian government – is running successful demobilization programs throughout Afghanistan to help educate and reintegrate juvenile combatants into Afghan society. [Strangely, we refuse to use this service in Afghanistan]. So the question is: what happens to those juvenile detainees once Canadian troops hand them over? To help us answer that question, we reached Amir Attaran, professor and Canada research Chair at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa.”   here + audio

Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj was finally released from Guantanamo. He arrived in his native Sudan on the evening of May 1, 2008.

Alternet reported:

After four and a half months of inexplicable inertia, the U.S. administration has finally seen fit to release another group of prisoners from Guantánamo, including the Sudanese al-Jazeera cameraman and journalist Sami al-Haj. Despite claims from within the administration that it was hoping to scale down the operation at Guantánamo, no prisoners have been released since December 2007, when two other Sudanese prisoners, 13 Afghans, ten Saudis and three British residents were released…

The most celebrated Guantánamo prisoner — at least in the Middle East — Sami, whose story was reported at AlterNet just a few weeks ago, was seized by Pakistani forces on December 15, 2001, apparently at the behest of the U.S. authorities, who suspected that he had conducted an interview with Osama bin Laden. As with much of their supposed intelligence, this turned out to be false, but as his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, the Director of the legal action charity Reprieve (which represents Sami and 34 other Guantánamo prisoners), explained last year, “name me a journalist who would turn down a bin Laden scoop.

The same author also wrote a powerful piece on the other prisoners released with Sami al-Haj:

On the cargo plane containing Sami al-Haj that landed in Khartoum in the early hours of May 2 were Amir Yacoub al-Amir and Walid Ali, who, like Sami, were bound like beasts for their journey despite finally being transported to freedom. Both had also been held for over six years without charge or trial, but unlike Sami, whose plight was widely publicized by al-Jazeera, by his lawyers at the legal action charity Reprieve, and by groups campaigning for the rights of journalists, including the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Sans Frontières, both of these men had barely registered on the media’s radar.

And here’s some other coverage of his release:

The U.S. War on Journalists by Amy Goodman

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 10 journalists have been held for extended periods by the U.S. military and then released without charge. Just weeks ago in Iraq, the U.S. military released Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein after holding him without charge for two years. The military had once accused Hussein of being a “terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP.”

Andy Worthington reported just weeks before al-Haj’s release

As the years wore on, however, the irrepressible spirit recalled by all those who had met Sami before his imprisonment, and which also impressed Stafford Smith, was ground down by a particular despair that is perhaps unknowable to those who are not imprisoned without charge, without trial, with no contact with family or friends, and with no way of knowing when, if ever, this regime of almost total isolation will come to an end.

On January 7, 2007, the fifth anniversary of his detention without trial by the US, Sami embarked on a hunger strike, which continues to this day. In common with the small number of other persistent hunger strikers, he is strapped into a restraint chair twice a day and force-fed against his will. Clive Stafford Smith explained the brutality of the procedure, the reason the authorities are doing it, and also why it is illegal to do so, in an article last October.

Listen/Read the 2007 Democracy Now! program on al-Haj and fellow imprisoned journalist, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein.

The release of BBC reporter Alan Johnston earlier this month after 114 days in captivity in Gaza made headlines around the world and was hailed internationally as a victory for press freedom.

During Johnston’s nearly four months in captivity, calls for his release came from world leaders and human rights organizations alike. Over 200,000 people signed an online petition calling for him to be freed.

But perhaps the most poignant of Johnston’s supporters came from deep within the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Sami al-Haj, an Al Jazeera cameraman who had been jailed without charge at Guantanamo for the past five-and-a-half years, sent a letter via his lawyer calling for Johnston’s release. He wrote, “While the United States has kidnapped me and held me for years on end, this is not a lesson that Muslims should copy.”

In comparison to journalist Alan Johnston, Sami al-Haj’s story of abduction has been largely ignored by the corporate media, kept out of the global spotlight.

After two years and four days in US military custody, AP photojournalist Bilal Hussein was released and reunited with his family on Wednesday April 14, 2008.

Hussein’s lawyer told AP this week that the military provided no surprising evidence at Hussein’s hearing that might have explained why he was held for so long, and it’s still unclear if he was singled out for his coverage of the Iraq war. Read More

AP STATEMENT

This is from AP Corporate Communications:

After two years in detention, Bilal Hussein needs time to spend with his family, to rest and to catch up with the rest of the world. We will have no further comment at this time, but will let you know when we do.

Paul Colford
AP Director of Media Relations

Related story:

Find out the charges: Bilal Hussein’s Photos Were A Threat ???

2 BU estens., accozzaglia, ammasso disordinato di cose eterogenee | fig., confusione, disordine

Per una volta c’e’ una buona notizia: Bilal Hussein, il fotoreporter iracheno della AP, premio Pulitzer 2005, da due anni nelle carceri americane in Iraq, e’ stato liberato.

Una notizia un po’ meno buona e’ che il 6% degli italiani (e il 4% degli studenti universitari) ritiene che l’epilessia sia frutto di possessione demoniaca. D’altra parte una bella fetta di italiani ha appena rivotato per Berlusconi, quindi di che mi meraviglio?

Del fatto che Putin sia andato a trovare il suddetto futuro premier nella sua villa in Sardegna (dopo aver passato due giorni in Libia a discutere di cooperazione nel campo dell’energia) ce ne potremmo anche fregare, non fosse che adesso, causa recente risultato elettorale, torna in campo l’ipotesi dell’acquisizione di Alitalia da parte di Aeroflot. La Francia no e la Russia si? Mah.

Infine, inseguendo un articolo sui cibi piu’ spreconi in termini di energia, ho scoperto questo simpatico motore di ricerca, sponsorizzato da Coldiretti, con cui e’ possibile trovare le aziende agricole che vendono direttamente i prodotti: vini, formaggi, olio, frutta e verdura, c’e’ un po’ di tutto. Utile.

www.freebilal.org.

“AP photographer freed by US after 2 years in custody” – The New York Times.

Great news that Bilal Hussein was set free this weeek!

To find out more take a look at the links below.

Link : www.ap.org/bilalhussein

Link : www.freebilal.org

Bilal Hussein, the Associated Press photographer held in Iraq for two years by the US army without having formal charges filed against him, has been released today, 16 April 2008.

In this AP photograph, Hussein, 36, holds flowers while wearing a traditional Iraqi robe.

Hussein, a member of the AP team that won a Pulitzer Prize for photography in 2005, was held on suspicion of links with Iraqi insurgents. His detention drew protests from rights groups and press freedom advocates.

“I cannot describe my happiness at seeing him again,” said his brother, Yassir Hussein, a 35-year-old university professor in Baghdad. “The family has been going through a hard time over the past two years, but now we thank God that we will have some rest.”

Photograph: Petr David Josek/ AP

Read the full story of the release: AP photographer freed

Links courtesy Bhanu Prakash Chandra

BAGHDAD — The U.S. occupiers said Monday they will release Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, more than two years after he was kidnapped by U.S. imperialist Marines on bogus suspicions of links to freedom fighters. The occupiers and torturers said they have determined after two years of torture that Hussein is no threat to them and plan on granting him freedom come Wednesday.

Reporters without borders (RSF) seems to be too busy these days (the Tibetan issue and the Olympics in Beijing –what’s the link please with the advocacy for the press freedom?!) to pay attention to the last developements in the detention of our AP colleague, the Pulitzer prize winner Bilal Hussein.

Last weeks, an Iraqi judicial panel met twice and dismissed all the criminal allegations against the Iraqi photographer. It ordered it release from the US-run military custody where he has been kept for more than two years.

Photo courtesy AP.

AP writes that “the panel ordered a “halt to all legal proceedings” and said Hussein (…) should be “released immediately” unless he is wanted in connection with something else”.

Bilal’s case enlights the problem of dozens of thousands of Iraqi detainees who should benefit from an amnesty law enacted last February, aiming at moving the country towards national reconciliation (a law US officials commented as a major achievement).

The US say that they intend to review the Iraqi judicial panel’s orders before deciding on releasing the prisonners from custody, and stupulate that their U.N. Security Council mandate allows them to detain anyone in Iraq deemed a security risk to coalition or Iraqi forces, even if an Iraqi judicial body has ordered that prisoner freed.

Like most of the detainees, Bilal was never brought to trial, nor Iraqi or US, nor civilian or military.

To follow the case :
The AP’s site on Bilal Hussein
www.freebilal.org

www.freebilal.org.

“Detained AP photographer granted amnesty by Iraqi panel after 2 years in US custody” – Associated Press.

“Iraq Orders U.S. Military to Free Jailed Photographer” – The New York Times.

“Iraq reporter ’should be freed’” – BBC News.

Great news, but when will Bilal Hussein be set free? On 12th April 2006, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was detained by U.S. forces in Iraq and has been held in prison ever since. Bilal, who is behind bars for having the courage to photograph Iraqi insurgents was part of the AP Team who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for its coverage of the Iraq war.

To find out more and to see what you can do, take a look at the links below.

Link : www.ap.org/bilalhussein

Link : www.freebilal.org

• Poll commissioned by Lifetime Networks shows that since January, 26% of women have a more negative opinion of Hillary while only 15% have an better view.
• New study by Wharton professor shows that Obama’s popular vote lead would actually be much larger if caucus states had been primaries.
• Cheney gets interviewed by GOP sycophant Sean Hannity, and volunteers that he found Rev. Wright’s comments “absolutely appalling.” I guess that means Obama and Cheney have more in common than some genetic roots, given that Obama already said the same thing.
• DNC plans to make the following arguments against McCain:
  • He’s not independent
  • He’s not a reformer
  • He’ll offer more of the same
  • He doesn’t get it on the economy
  • He’s changed key positions on taxes, immigration and guns
• Hillary has banner day picking up 3 Unelected Delegates (i.e., superdelegates) (2 of which had previously indicated their preference), while Obama picks up one, too.

• Time does a cover story on Obama’s deceased mother, Ann Dunham.
• Obama radio ad responding to Hillary’s recent radio attack ad (MP3). Obama is running an ad about the energy crisis combined with an anti-lobbying message that apparently is getting traction. It notes that he’s the only candidate that doesn’t accept money from corporate PACs or federal lobbyists. Hillary tried a nit picky response that Obama’s ad that noted he takes money from employees of energy companies (as she does) as if folks on the oil rigs or call centers shape corporate direction. This ad reaffirms his policy.
• Today’s Gallup daily tracking poll shows continued strength for Obama, 50-42%. Both Rasmussen and Gallup have shown a slight uptick today for Hillary from her all-time lows of this week. I think her dip was a result of a horrible weekend, with the Ohio hospital story, the partial tax release (reminder to MSM, still no 2007 returns), and the Mark Penn flap over his acting as a double agent for Colombia on the trade deal she opposed. It’s not that she’s had any good news since as much as the MSM’s focus shifted to the Petraeus/Crocker show over the last few days.
• New Gallup poll uncovers something interesting about the Obama v. McCain match-up. It’s been noted that the more folks get to know Obama, the more they like him. Well, apparently it’s also the case that the more you “know” generally (i.e., level of education), the more you like him. Or conversely, the more uneducated you are, the more you like McCain!
• David Brock, reformed right winger of the 90s and more recent founder of Media Matters, will lead an independent organization that will target McCain in this election cycle called Progressive Media USA. They plan to raise and spend $40M.
• Rasmussen daily tracking poll reports Obama still enjoys a substantial lead, as he has all week, 48-41%. It is the first time he has slipped below 50%, but the sixth straight day of a statistically significant lead. The favorability ratings of Obama and McCain are identical, 52-45%, while Hillary continues to lag at 45-53%. The Obama v. McCain match-up remains tied, statistically speaking, like yesterday.
• Obama’s more moderate position on whether to boycott the Olympics’s opening ceremonies over China’s policies in Tibet appears to be squarely within the mainstream of American opinion. A new Rasmussen poll says only 31% want the U.S. to boycott the opening ceremonies. Obama’s statement is in yesterday’s Daily Tidbits, and essentially expressed sympathy with the idea, but recommended a “wait and see” approach as we get closer to the games.
• In interview on GMA, Colin Powell praises Obama, discounts Rev. Wright and notes Wright’s positive contributions to community. He remains uncommitted. Powell also reaffirms he’s done with public life.
• High stakes tech/media drama now involving Microsoft, Google, Time Warner/AOL, Yahoo! and News Corp.
• ABC News reports that Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Tenet, and Rumsfeld had highly detailed discussions in the White House about torture:
• WaPo profiles Chelsea Clinton on the stump.
• Detained A.P. photographer finally set free by Iraqi court after two years in US/Iraqi custody.
• Differing foreign policy factions within GOP struggle to win over McCain. Concerns grow about dominant influence of neocons in McCain’s camp. Neocon influence suggests McCain’s foreign policy will “stay the course” with a “Bush Third Term” approach to foreign policy.
• NY Times wonders aloud if Obama and McCain are about to go different ways on public financing.

FREE BILAL T-SHIRT – www.freebilal.org

I have posted about Bilal Hussein before here and here. If you have a bit of time today in between all the Christmas madness spend a bit of time to read this update from Scott Horton.

“An Update on the Trial of Bilal Hussein” – Scott Horton, Harpers Magazine.

Link : www.ap.org/bilalhussein

Link : www.freebilal.org

Perhaps the international pro-press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists should include the Philippines in its list of countries with jailed journalists (in an Associated Press article featured in www.truthout.org (of more specifically http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120607I.shtml) for arresting journalists who covered the recent Manila Peninsula incident.

This will include the Philippines in a lineup of countries notorious for violating human rights like Cuba, Eritrea, Iran and Azerbaijan.

However, there is one democratic country that has jailed two journalists for years now without any charges — the United States.

According to the AP article reprinted in truthout.org:

Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held by U.S. forces in Iraq for nearly 20 months, and Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj, who has been jailed for five years at the military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hussein, who was part of a team of AP photographers who shared a Pulitzer Prize in 2005, was seized by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2006. The military has declined to provide details of the accusations against him but has said he had links to insurgent groups in Iraq. The Pentagon recently said it intends to submit evidence against Hussein to the Iraqi judiciary system on Dec. 9.

AP executives said they have seen no evidence that Hussein was anything other than a working journalist.

Al-Haj, who is from Sudan, was detained by military forces in Pakistan in 2002 as he tried to enter Afghanistan to cover the war there. He was turned over to the U.S. military, which classified him as an enemy combatant and accused him of transporting money in the 1990s for a charity that provided funding to Chechen rebels.

Pentagon spokesmen have said in recent interviews with the AP that al-Haj’s detention had nothing to do with his status as a journalist or the content of his reporting.

Iraqi Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been in prison for over 19 months. The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case against Hussein but have not disclosed evidence or even the actual charges against the man.

According to Harper’s Magazine, “the order to arrest Hussein came from very high up, and the reason for the arrest was unmistakable: he was the man who took those damned photographs!”

Iraq- AP was notified on Sunday Nov. 18, 2007 that Hussein’s case would be brought into the Iraqi justice system as early as November 29, 2007.

“This is a poor example _ and not the first of its kind _ of the way our government honors the democratic principles and values it says it wants to share with the Iraqi people,” AP President and CEO Tom Curley wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.

When Hussein and his lawyer enter the court they will enter it “blindly” with no idea what evidence or charges are being thrown to the photographer. Military officials have refused to disclose the content of the complaint against the man to anyone, including AP who has repeatedly requested it.

A native of Fallujah the 36 year old photograph was part of the AP’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo team in 2005. He has been detained in Ramadi since April 12, 2006.

“In the 19 months since he was picked up, Bilal has not been charged with any crime, although the military has sent out a flurry of ever-changing claims. Every claim we’ve checked out has proved to be false, overblown or microscopic in significance,” said Curley.

The military has alleged that Hussein has ties to terrorist groups. That is something that the AP has delved into coming up empty handed. What they did note though was that he was a working photo journalist covering a war that perhaps the United States government doesn’t want their citizens to know all the sordid details. He didn’t take nice fluffy pictures, he was covering a bloody brutal war. Could he have been simply to good at his job?

“We believe Bilal’s crime was taking photographs the U.S. government did not want its citizens to see. That he was part of a team of AP photographers who had just won a Pulitzer Prize for work in Iraq may have made Bilal even more of a marked man,” Curley wrote.

U.S. officials have accused him of providing false ID to a sniper seeking to evade U.S. forces, of having bomb making equipment and that he took photos that were in sync with insurgent blasts. Not one of these accusations have been found to have merit when researched by the AP.

“The best evidence of how Hussein conducted himself as a journalist working for AP is the extensive photographic record,” Gardephe wrote. “There is no evidence — in nearly a thousand photographs taken over the 20-month period — that his activities ever strayed from those of a legitimate journalist.”

The military has refused to answer questions posed to them by Hussein’s attorney Paul Gardephe. Gardephe has also revealed that Hussein was interrogated without his lawyer present for the first time in over 16 months recently. He presumes that this was to gain some evidence to be used against the man.

“How is Gardephe to defend Bilal? This affair makes a mockery of the democratic principles of justice and the rule of law that the United States says it is trying to help Iraq establish,” Curley wrote.

Before Hussein was imprisoned he covered Fallujah or in Ramadi. The photos he took were often ones that higher ups would have preferred to remain unseen. He was able to move in and out of dangerous areas because he lived that terrain for all of his life. He had the ability to gain a press coverage that perhaps some of the West will never be able to.

Hussein had been working at a mobile phone shop when AP picked him up as a photographer. He was first hired as a translator and driver. Within months of that assignment he was taking professional quality pictures, including one of insurgents engaged with coalition forces that was part of AP’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photography entry last year.

Going into journalism in Iraq is not a wise career move. Journalists are killed or imprisoned at the drop of a hat. His family has had to flee their bullet riddled home. He once had to ditch his valuable camera gear to run for his life.

His photos were not always printed. They showed things that are too graphic for most people to view. They showed war. They showed how children reacted to war. The AP has investigated this journalist quite thoroughly. He is one of their own. Their reports on him show a dedicated man who wanted the truth to be shown.

“Hussein’s interrogators have repeatedly alluded to the photographs he took as the basis for his incarceration,” the report said. “Interrogators have focused, in particular, on several photographs taken shortly before his arrest showing Iraqi children playing with the torn-off leg of an injured U.S. or Iraqi soldier.”

The report quoted one interrogator as saying to Hussein: “Do you know what would happen if these photos were shown in the U.S.? There would be huge demonstrations

In prison he’s a marked man. He worked for a Western news service. He’s been labeled as an enemy by the U.S. military. He’s in an impossible position that had he never lifted a camera he wouldn’t have been.

Did he know terrorists? Chances are pretty high that he did. He grew up with them, went to school and mosque with some of them probably. That doesn’t mean that he is a terrorist. It doesn’t mean that he followed the same path. It does mean he would have been able though to get photos a little more easily. Gain their trust so that the world could see what is going on. Be a better journalist.

It always means that if someone doesn’t want real stories told then it’s better to get him out of the way.

“At present, Hussein is being held in a judicial limbo with the U.S. military changing their accusations against him each time they are disproved,” Fritz said.

“IPI calls on the U.S. military to release him or try him or show good cause before an independent court as to why they cannot do so.”

Until this happens, Hussein, in the eyes of the international community, will “remain an innocent AP photographer enduring what appears to be a long and unjust imprisonment,” Fritz said.

Freedom of the press? It’s becoming more freedom (if you hush about what shouldn’t be out there) of the press.

Video link to U.S. plans case against AP photographer.

I have posted about the case of the Bilal Hussein before here. Things have moved on a bit over the last week:

“We believe that Bilal Hussein has been singled out because of his work as a journalist. While we are glad that there is finally some development that may lead to the end of his imprisonment without charges, we are concerned still about the lack of specificity against him. We have long said that Bilal Hussein was nothing more than a reputable A.P. journalist doing his job, and our position about that has not changed.”
– Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the A.P.

You can read more about this by clicking on the links below:

“AP president slams US military” – guardian.co.uk/media.

“U.S. Accuses Iraqi Photographer of Aiding Rebels” – The New York Times.

Link : www.ap.org/bilalhussein

Link : www.freebilal.org