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News :: Civil & Human Rights : International Relations : Iraq : Media |
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US agents grill Cape radio man |
Current rating: 0 |
by Zenzile Khoisan
(No verified email address) |
19 Apr 2004
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Forwarded via email
Zane is the founder of Bush Radio, one of the most influential community radio stations in the world. He even had a role in winning low power radio in the United States. ( more about that at http://www.prometheusradio.org/bush_radio.shtml)
The station he helped to found is here:
www.bushradio.co.za/
This is indicative of the level of petty mafia-style thuggery that the United States has descended into under the George Bush administration.
I will try to get more details about this from Zane, and keep everyone posted.
Pete Tridish |
Cape Town radio man Zane Ibrahim was taken off an international flight
minutes after it landed at Baltimore airport by United States Homeland
Security personnel and interrogated for almost 12 hours.
Ibrahim, an award-winning journalist and managing director of Bush Radio,
had flown to the US from Cape Town via Amsterdam to deliver a keynote
address on 10 years of South African democracy at a conference at Goucher
College, near Baltimore.
Ibrahim said on Friday by telephone from the US that his aircraft was
still on the runway when guards boarded the flight, removed him,
strip-searched him and interrogated him in the airport building for nearly
12 hours on Thursday.
Reached at his hotel, just after his encounter with the almost a dozen
security officials, an angry Ibrahim said he was shocked and disturbed.
He said the first thing he knew was an announcement on the aircraft. "They
said, 'Will everyone just remain seated, security agents are coming
aboard.' Then four uniformed and four plainclothes officers boarded the
plane. Four passed and positioned themselves behind my seat and four came
up towards me and asked if I was Zane Ibrahim."
Ibrahim said he was "bumrushed" off the plane, in full view of hundreds of
other passengers, bundled into a van, driven to a remote location and
strip-searched by several officers. "They went through all my bags, put me
through this humiliating search and then put a thick dossier on the table.
Then the questions started."
Ibrahim went on to say that he was interrogated for almost 12 hours about
his work as a journalist.
"I don't know what was wrong with these people, but they seemed really
angry about an anti-war campaign we had running on Bush Radio, called Bush
Against War."
Ibrahim said that when he did not appear at the airport, colleagues who
were there to meet him made inquiries and eventually he was released,
without an apology.
"They simply told me that I could go about my business, but I should
remember that they were keeping a very close eye on me."
He was scheduled to deliver his address on Friday, and returns to South
Africa at the weekend.
* This article was originally published on page 1 of The Cape Argus on
April 16, 2004 |
See also:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&click_id=2813&art_id=vn20040416103506334C717484&set_id=6
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Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
