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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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Police Fire On Hussein Supporters Who Face One Year In Jail If Caught |
Current rating: 0 |
by Danielle Chynoweth
(No verified email address)
Address: IMC |
17 Dec 2003
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Tonight watching France's account of the situation in Iraq on SCOLA, I saw footage of Iraq we will never see on U.S. television. |
Tonight watching France's account of the situation in Iraq on SCOLA,** I saw footage of Iraq we will never see on U.S. television.
Anyone demonstrating in support of Saddam Hussein faces one year in prison, they reported.
I saw American soldiers firing live ammunition at a crowd of Hussein demonstrators after a demonstrator threw a rock.
There is footage of police - their nationality unclear - kicking and punching demonstrators. One policeman, after getting a man in custody, held by three of more other officers, punched him in the face, then led him along walking and out of nowhere, sidekicked him in the stomach.
They showed footage of American soliders doing night raids on private houses as apart of a hunt of insurgents. They stated that the Americans are "wrecking havoc."
Bush's approval rating jumped 6% after the capture of Saddam.
There is not a free press in Iraq - it is prohibited by U.S. rule.
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**Scola's news channel is played on our local cable channel 7* pretty much around the clock. Scola is a non-proft education organization transmitting international television programs for educational use via a satellite (which, by the way, hovers close to Urbana at 97 degrees West). Channel 7 is the U of I's Public-Education-Government Channel, although there is no government or public access component to their programming.
You can view Scola's schedule of programming at:
http://www.scola.org/schedules/DEC03-1.html
Some programming has English subtitles, such as French news, but much of it does not. If you speak a language other than English, check out this schedule to find programming you can understand.
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See also:
http://www.scola.org/schedules/DEC03-1.html
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Comments
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Some Liberation, Huh? |
by Ricky Baldwin
baldwinricky (nospam) yahoo.com (verified) |
Current rating: 0
18 Dec 2003
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Thanks for writing this up! This is important stuff to get out. I've heard several remarks lately on mainstream radio and elsewhere to the effect that Iraqis now have more freedoms than Americans -- a reckless and unconscionable comparison. But if people never hear any news to the contrary, they will eventually begin to assume it's true. |
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More News About "Liberated" Iraq |
by via ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
19 Dec 2003
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Well, it sure looks like the neo-cons have about as high a regard for the human rights of Iraqis as they do for the civil rights of American citizens. Here are two more disturbing reports from Electronic Iraq:
http://electroniciraq.net
Arresting Children
Jo Wilding, Electronic Iraq, 18 December 2003
"Two days ago there was a demonstration after school finished, against the coalition and for Saddam. Yesterday the American army came and surrounded the whole block. They just crashed into the school, 6, 7, 8 into every classroom with their guns. They took the name of every student and matched the names to the photos they got from the day before and then arrested the students. They actually dragged them by their shirts onto the floor and out of the class."
They wouldn't give their names. The children at Adnan Kheiralla Boys' School in the Amiriya district of Baghdad were still scared, still seething with rage. Another boy, Hakim Hamid Naji, was taken today. "They were kicking him," one of the pupils said. A car pulled up and a tall, thin boy ran into the school, talked briefly with staff and left again. The kids said the soldiers had come looking for this boy too.
The headmaster, too, was reluctant to speak. No, he said, looking down at the desk, there were no guns. But Ahmed, an English teacher, followed the soldiers on the raid. "The translators had masks or scarves because maybe they are from this area. They came and they chose several students and they took them. The demonstration started after school on Tuesday. I advised them not to do it because I am their teacher and the Americans don't care. The children had pictures of Saddam Hussein from their text books and that's all, so they demonstrated and just said we want Saddam Hussein.
"There were no leaders, this wasn't an arranged demonstration. It comes honestly, some of the students say, we love Saddam Hussein. Some of the students say no, we hate Saddam Hussein. I told them, it's OK, let them love him and let them hate him, we can all express our opinions. There are no weapons, there is no bombing."
"The American soldiers came with tanks and stopped the demonstration and the kids sat in front of the tanks. They took pictures of the students and they had some spy maybe, I'm not sure, maybe students in the school. I begged the soldiers to leave these students because they are naïve, they just believe this is a civilian demonstration, but the soldiers were very rude to the students and treated them like soldiers. They are kids, they are teenagers, so I begged the officer, but he didn't care.
"I told them, just calm down, but they said no, they are not kids. In Abu Ghraib we have 16 year olds shooting at us. I said yes, but these are in school. They have books, not weapons. And they took pictures of us, what is your name, stand here. I am not a criminal, I am a teacher. They took pictures of most of the teachers.
"I told them you have to educate people about freedom, not punish them, but they brought tanks and helicopters. Yesterday they surrounded the school and came in with weapons everywhere, soldiers everywhere and used tear gas on the students. They fired guns to scare them, above their heads. One student got a broken arm because of the beating. They had some sticks, electric sticks and they hit the students. Some of them were vomiting, some of them were crying and they were very afraid."
All the other teachers and students who talked to us backed Ahmed's version over the headmaster's: the soldiers were armed when they came into the classrooms. One of the arrested boys decided he trusted Ahmed enough to talk to the people that Ahmed told him were safe, as long as he wasn't recorded and we promised not to identify him in any way. He wouldn't give his name or age.
"The soldiers pointed at me and I was grabbed by about 8 of them and dragged out by my clothes and my collar. They threw me on the ground and searched me and cocked their guns on me. We were held in chicken cages, about two metres by a metre and a half with criss cross wire. They were swearing at us a lot. They didn't beat us but they accused us of having relations with Saddam Hussein, asking who organized the demonstration, telling us anyone who is against our American interests will be arrested.
"They offered us some food but more curses. They didn't inform our parents at all. The headmaster came with three of the fathers. Most of us were held between 7 and 10 hours but one student is not Iraqi and he was held for much longer and they questioned him for two hours and made him stand outside from 10pm till 2am in the freezing cold. The youngest was 14."
The school is named after a brother-in-law of Saddam's who was popular with both Sunni and Shia people. For this he was killed by Saddam and, when the statues of former regime figures were being destroyed after the invasion, both of his monuments, in Baghdad and Basra, were protected by local people. The pupils have painted over the sign at the school's entrance, renaming it Saddam's School. The depiction of Saddam on TV in American hands seems to have made him a heroic symbol even to many who disliked him.
One of the boys told me, "Only 40 kids out of all of us were on the first demonstration but after the raid, we will all go out on Saturday after school and demonstrate against the occupation. They have turned us all against the American soldiers. We don't care about their tanks, we don't care about their machine guns, we don't care about their prisons any more."
Outside the school, Rana asked me, "Did you see the bodies in Amiriya? There were bodies in the street, Americans and Iraqis. They stopped an ambulance, threw in 5 bodies and said go, just go. It is a war zone. They don't want to give the bodies to the families. Even my neighbour, he was killed by the Americans a few days ago and they didn't receive his body yet. When they went to the hospital the doctors said you have to go to the Americans, bring permission from them and we will give you your son's body."
Wasef, one of the Iraq Indymedia members, was shot in the foot while filming the demonstration in Amiriya yesterday. He's OK, still smiling, doesn't know who fired the bullet that hit him.
In the Abu Ghraib hospital while I was visiting someone, there was a noise, something more than a groan but weaker than a shout, broken by short in-breaths, aah, aah, aah: a man with a gunshot wound, a crowd of men trying to lift him from the trolley to the bed. Outside was exploding at frequent intervals. In the doorway they were loading a coffin onto a pick up. A woman with a full pregnant belly told us her two children were playing in the garden when a rocket landed in the flower bed. Another one landed in the street outside.
The petrol queues are now about 2-3km long, two cars wide in places. Billboards and leaflets declare the new penalty of 3 to 10 years in jail -- yes, it does say years -- for buying or selling black market petrol. They, like the posters advertising rewards for information, are plastered with paint, red or black.
I have to apologise to Hamsa and Khalid -- I misunderstood. Hamsa said, "Now you are in handcuffs, the bastards," not "you bastard" about Saddam -- a small but significant linguistic cock-up on my part, and Khalid said they will make him crawl over nails not that they should. I'm sorry.
Secondary School under Siege by US Forces
Dahr Jamail, Electronic Iraq, 18 December 2003
17 December, 11:30am, Amiriya, Baghdad -- On the evening of December 16th, in the Amiriya suburb of West Baghdad, the residents held a pro-Saddam Hussein demonstration. Many of the kids were throwing stones at a US Humvee Patrol as it passed by. Aside from this, it was a non-violent demonstration-no shots were fired, nobody was injured.
Today, US forces from the First Armored Division returned with two large tanks, helicopters, several Bradley fighting vehicles and at least 10 hummers to seal off the Al Shahid Adnan Kherala secondary school for boys.
The school was sealed off completely, as well as the doors locked when soldiers and Iraqi Police entered with photos of students taken during the demonstration the night before.
I asked the first soldier I came upon today at the school,
"I'm an American journalist. Can you please fill me in on what is going on here?"
He started to talk to me, and then was yelled at by another soldier in a tank behind us. We looked back to see a soldier waving his hand across his neck, telling him to be silent.
"I can't talk to you," he said.
We walked closer to the school. Two hummers with loudspeakers mounted atop them were parked out front. An Iraqi translator was telling the crowd standing in front of the school,
"You must not attend the demonstration tomorrow that is to be held here. Please disperse and go away."
A US soldier from Wisconsin, who asked to remain nameless, provided me with the following information on what was happening:
He told me the aforementioned about the demonstration last night, and that IP (Iraqi Police) were in the school trying to catch the kids who were throwing rocks last night.
I asked him if anyone was injured last night at the demonstration, or if any weapons were fired.
"No. Some kids were just throwing rocks."
I ask him how they knew which kids to talk with from last night.
"We had some IP here last night who took photos. They are going through the school to get the kids in the pictures."
Several Humvees with machine guns surrounded a large canvas covered troop transport truck into which 26 students were loaded, then driven away with tanks both in front and behind.
The arrests were apparently a preemption for the demonstration to take place tomorrow in the same area.
As we continue to the front entrance of the school we see students held inside, all the doors sealed with security guards outside of them. Students are seen crowded behind the bars of the doors, waiting to be released.
Shortly thereafter the doors are unlocked, releasing the frightened students who are flocking out the doors. The youngest look to be about 10 years old, none of the students older than 18.
At the front gate they are running out, many in tears. Others are enraged, kicking and shaking the front gate.
We are surrounded by frenzied students, yelling,
"This is the democracy? This is the freedom? You see what the Americans are doing to us here?"
Another student is crying, and tells us,
"They took several of my friends! Why are they taking them to prison? For throwing rocks?"
They surround us and are threatening to beat us because we are western. Our translator steps in, and they call him a traitor for being with us. As he explains to them we are here to report the truth, that we are on their side, myself and the Hungarian videographer I am with quickly walk away.
A few blocks away a smaller group of students who have run from the school talk with us, and tell us many of their friends were taken away for throwing rocks.
One student is crying, and yells to me,
"Why are they doing this to us? We are only kids! A few threw rocks, and now we don't know where they have taken them!"
Tanks and hummers that were guarding the perimeter of the school now drive down the street next to us, exiting the scene. Several young boys with tears running down their faces pick up stones and throw them at the tanks as they drive by.
US soldiers on top of the tanks begin firing M-16's above our heads as we duck inside a taxi. A soldier on another tank, behind the first, passes and is firing randomly above our heads as well. Kids and pedestrians in the shops are running for cover. None of us can believe what we are seeing.
A boy holding a stone is standing just on the side of the street glaring at the tanks. Another soldier riding by atop yet another passing Bradley pulls his pistol out and aims it at the boy's head, keeping him in his sights until the tank rolls out of sight.
One of the students, crying, yells to me,
"Who are the terrorists here now? You have seen this yourself! We are school kids!"
All of us in the car are shocked and deeply shaken as we drive back into central Baghdad. Ahmed, our interpreter, is weeping quietly, holding his head in his hands.
Thus far, the public relations officer for the First Armored Division has failed to return our phone calls, or emails.
Dahr Jamail is a freelance journalist and political activist from Anchorage, Alaska. He has come to Iraq to bear witness and write about how the US occupation is effecting the people of Iraq, since the media in the US has in large part, he believes, failed to do so.
©2003 by the author or original source
http://electroniciraq.net |
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Dominant Media Shills For Pentagon Propaganda |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Dec 2003
Modified: 03:32:12 PM |
Contrast the information above with this quote that I've pulled from an AP article on how computers are being used by the occupying forces that I found posted at the NY Times:
"The idea, Devan said on Saturday, is to focus the division's raids on insurgents without sweeping up too many innocent people and risk turning more Iraqis against the U.S. military.
"'Early on we may have been a blunt instrument. Now it's all about precision,' Devan said in an interview with The Associated Press at division headquarters at Baghdad International Airport. 'We try to be very precise in what we do. You don't want to turn someone who may have been supportive of the coalition.'"
Roughing up a bunch of kids at a school hardly fits my idea of precision. But that is the line of BS the Times feeds its readers. Too bad the Times doesn't have reporters and/or editors with the courage to print the truth of what is really happening in Iraq.
Instead, they spend most of their effort acting as stenographers to power, embedded and complicit in the structure of evil that lied its way into Iraq and is sustained by lies sanctioned by the dominant media. Americans and the values they hold dear are being deeply shamed by the actions of those who order such crimes against humanity. It is a further tragedy that the "free" press doesn't have the guts to print the truth. |
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Tanks Roll Into Tikrit |
by Robin Pomeroy
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
22 Dec 2003
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Creating compliance through violence
TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters - Tue 16 December, 2003) - Tanks have rolled out on to the streets of Tikrit, as a message that the U.S. army will not tolerate shows of support for Saddam Hussein in the captured president's home town.
U.S. troops forcibly broke up at least four attempted pro-Saddam demonstrations and three soldiers were wounded when a bomb went off as their Humvee patrolled the streets.
In response, around 30 American tanks and Bradley armoured vehicles rolled up Tikrit's busy main street as two helicopter gunships buzzed overhead.
Armed troops jumped down from tanks and some used strong language to clear shoppers from crowded pavements in a town smarting from lost privilege after the fall of Saddam.
Tikrit is home to many of Saddam's kinsmen who enjoyed wealth and status under his three decade rule. U.S. troops found the former president hiding in a pit just a few km (miles) from town. A U.S. commander conceded that the occupying forces would never be popular.
"These people love Saddam, that isn't true of other cities," said Lieutenant Colonel Steven Russell. "These people have always hated us in this area. It is not surprising that they hate us."
Some locals backed into shop doorways, many just stood and watched the parade by an occupying army whose temporary base is a sprawling complex of palaces Saddam built for himself and his family on the side of the Tigris river on the edge of town.
An hour later, a handful of military vehicles returned, one carrying the U.S.-backed regional governor Hussein al-Jaburi, while a recording of his voice boomed a warning to would-be Saddam loyalists.
"Any demonstration against the government or coalition forces will be fired upon," Jaburi's voice said, according to an army interpreter. "This is a fair warning."
Demonstrators risk a year in jail and, if they work for the state as civil servants or teachers, they will loose their jobs, the message said. All demonstrations are illegal in the U.S.-occupied province.
"They are not allowed to go around kissing pictures of Saddam in this city," Russell said. "It will not happen."
Afterwards, Jaburi and Russell interviewed a middle-aged man in traditional Arab clothing who they suspect of inciting demonstrations.
"Look me in the eye. Let me make something very clear," the American officer told the man over tea at the governor's office.
"If our ears and eyes see and hear you are connected with demonstrations, and anti-coalition activities you will be going to jail for a very long time."
Russell described the roll-out of tanks not as a show of force, but as a security operation and said a tough approach was needed. "We cannot hand out lollipops, it does not work," he said. |
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