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media-watch-request@lists.stir.ac.ukon 20/5/04 11:17 AM, media-watch-request@lists.stir.ac.uk at media-watch-request@lists.stir.ac.uk20/5/04 11:17 AM wrote:<BR>
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Today's Topics:<BR>
<BR>
1. Reuters NBC Staff abused by US troops in Iraq - reuters -<BR>
18/05/2004 (Julie-ann Davies)<BR>
2. Powell aide scolded after trying to cut interview -<BR>
washington post - 16/05/2004 (Julie-ann Davies)<BR>
3. The prisoner-abuse scandal at home in the US - Salon -<BR>
10/05/2004 (Julie-ann Davies)<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>
<BR>
Message: 1<BR>
Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 23:36:19 +0100<BR>
From: "Julie-ann Davies" <jadavies2004@yahoo.co.uk><BR>
Subject: [Media-watch] Reuters NBC Staff abused by US troops in Iraq -<BR>
reuters - 18/05/2004<BR>
To: "Media-watch" <media-watch@lists.stir.ac.uk><BR>
Message-ID: <001401c43d28$9271bc50$17f3cdd9@OLLIE><BR>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR>
<BR>
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=6&u=/nm/20040518/ts_nm/iraq_reuters_dc_4<BR>
<BR>
Reuters, NBC Staff Abused by U.S. Troops in Iraq<BR>
Tue May 18, 2:30 PM ET<BR>
By Andrew Marshall<BR>
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces beat three Iraqis working for Reuters and<BR>
subjected them to sexual and religious taunts and humiliation during their<BR>
detention last January in a military camp near Falluja, the three said<BR>
Tuesday.<BR>
<BR>
The three first told Reuters of the ordeal after their release but only<BR>
decided to make it public when the U.S. military said there was no evidence<BR>
they had been abused, and following the exposure of similar mistreatment of<BR>
detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
An Iraqi journalist working for U.S. network NBC, who was arrested with the<BR>
Reuters staff, also said he had been beaten and mistreated, NBC said<BR>
Tuesday.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Two of the three Reuters staff said they had been forced to insert a finger<BR>
into their anus and then lick it, and were forced to put shoes in their<BR>
mouths, particularly humiliating in Arab culture.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
All three said they were forced to make demeaning gestures as soldiers<BR>
laughed, taunted them and took photographs. They said they did not want to<BR>
give details publicly earlier because of the degrading nature of the abuse.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
The soldiers told them they would be taken to the U.S. detention center at<BR>
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, deprived them of sleep, placed bags over their<BR>
heads, kicked and hit them and forced them to remain in stress positions for<BR>
long periods.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
The U.S. military, in a report issued before the Abu Ghraib abuse became<BR>
public, said there was no evidence the Reuters staff had been tortured or<BR>
abused.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq (news - web<BR>
sites), said in a letter received by Reuters Monday but dated March 5 that<BR>
he was confident the investigation had been "thorough and objective" and its<BR>
findings were sound.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
The Pentagon (news - web sites) has yet to respond to a request by Reuters<BR>
Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger to review the military's findings<BR>
about the incident in light of the scandal over the treatment of prisoners<BR>
at Abu Ghraib.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Asked for comment Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said only:<BR>
"There are a number of lines of inquiry under way with respect to prison<BR>
operations in Iraq. If during the course of any inquiry, the commander<BR>
believes it is appropriate to review a specific aspect of detention, he has<BR>
the authority to do so."<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
The abuse happened at Forward Operating Base Volturno, near Falluja, the<BR>
Reuters staff said. They were detained on January 2 while covering the<BR>
aftermath of the shooting down of a U.S. helicopter near Falluja and held<BR>
for three days, first at Volturno and then at Forward Operating Base St<BR>
Mere.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
The three -- Baghdad-based cameraman Salem Ureibi, Falluja-based freelance<BR>
television journalist Ahmad Mohammad Hussein al-Badrani and driver Sattar<BR>
Jabar al-Badrani -- were released without charge on Jan. 5.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
"INADEQUATE" INVESTIGATION<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
"When I saw the Abu Ghraib photographs, I wept," Ureibi said Tuesday. "I saw<BR>
they had suffered like we had."<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Ureibi, who understands English better than the other two detainees, said<BR>
soldiers told him they wanted to have sex with him, and he was afraid he<BR>
would be raped.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
NBC, whose stringer Ali Muhammed Hussein Ali al-Badrani was detained along<BR>
with the Reuters staff, said he reported that a hood was placed over his<BR>
head for hours, and that he was forced to perform physically debilitating<BR>
exercises, prevented from sleeping and struck and kicked several times.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
"Despite repeated requests, we have yet to receive the results of the army<BR>
investigation," NBC News Vice President Bill Wheatley said.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Schlesinger sent a letter to Sanchez on January 9 demanding an investigation<BR>
into the treatment of the three Iraqis.<BR>
<BR>
The U.S. army said it was investigating and requested further information.<BR>
Reuters provided transcripts of initial interviews with the three following<BR>
their release, and offered to make them available for interview by<BR>
investigators.<BR>
<BR>
A summary of the investigation by the 82nd Airborne Division, dated January<BR>
28 and provided to Reuters, said "no specific incidents of abuse were<BR>
found." It said soldiers responsible for the detainees were interviewed<BR>
under oath and "none admit or report knowledge of physical abuse or<BR>
torture."<BR>
<BR>
"The detainees were purposefully and carefully put under stress, to include<BR>
sleep deprivation, in order to facilitate interrogation; they were not<BR>
tortured," it said. The version received Monday used the phrase "sleep<BR>
management" instead.<BR>
<BR>
The U.S. military never interviewed the three for its investigation.<BR>
<BR>
On February 3 Schlesinger wrote to Lawrence Di Rita, special assistant to<BR>
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying the investigation was "woefully<BR>
inadequate" and should be reopened.<BR>
<BR>
"The military's conclusion of its investigation without even interviewing<BR>
the alleged victims, along with other inaccuracies and inconsistencies in<BR>
the report, speaks volumes about the seriousness with which the U.S.<BR>
government is taking this issue," he wrote.<BR>
<BR>
ABUSE SCANDAL<BR>
<BR>
The U.S. military faced international outrage this month after photographs<BR>
surfaced showing U.S. soldiers humiliating and abusing Iraqi detainees at<BR>
Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad.<BR>
<BR>
An investigation by Major General Antonio Taguba found that "numerous<BR>
incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on<BR>
several detainees" in Abu Ghraib.<BR>
<BR>
Seven U.S. soldiers have been charged over the Abu Ghraib abuse and the<BR>
first court martial is set for Wednesday.<BR>
<BR>
U.S. officials say the abuse was carried out by a small number of soldiers<BR>
and that all allegations of abuse are promptly and thoroughly investigated.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
------------------------------<BR>
<BR>
Message: 2<BR>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 03:07:04 +0100<BR>
From: "Julie-ann Davies" <jadavies2004@yahoo.co.uk><BR>
Subject: [Media-watch] Powell aide scolded after trying to cut<BR>
interview - washington post - 16/05/2004<BR>
To: "Media-watch" <media-watch@lists.stir.ac.uk><BR>
Message-ID: <000b01c43d46$08487d70$40f1cdd9@OLLIE><BR>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR>
<BR>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31020-2004May16.html<BR>
<BR>
Powell Scolds Aide After Interview Botch<BR>
<BR>
The Associated Press<BR>
Sunday, May 16, 2004; 3:16 PM<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Secretary of State Colin Powell chastised a press aide for trying to cut<BR>
short the taping of a television interview Sunday. Powell, speaking from a<BR>
Dead Sea resort in Jordan, was listening to a final question from moderator<BR>
Tim Russert, who was in the Washington studio of NBC's "Meet the Press."<BR>
<BR>
In the broadcast, aired several hours after the interview was conducted,<BR>
Powell abruptly disappears from view. Briefly seen are swaying palm trees<BR>
and the water, backdrops for the interview.<BR>
<BR>
Powell can be heard saying to the aide, "He's still asking a question." The<BR>
secretary then told Russert, "Tim, I'm sorry I lost you."<BR>
<BR>
NBC identified the aide as Emily Miller, a deputy press secretary.<BR>
<BR>
Russert responded: "I don't know who did that. I think that was one of your<BR>
staff, Mr. Secretary." The host added: "I don't think that's appropriate."<BR>
<BR>
With the cameras still on the water, Powell snapped, "Emily get out of the<BR>
way." He then instructed the crew to "bring the camera back," and told<BR>
Russert to go ahead with the last question.<BR>
<BR>
After Powell answered, Russert thanked the secretary for his "willingness to<BR>
overrule his press aide's attempt to abruptly cut off our discussion."<BR>
<BR>
State Department spokeswoman Julie Reside said Powell had scheduled five<BR>
interviews, one after another, and that NBC went over the agreed upon time<BR>
limit. She said every effort was made to get NBC to finish up, but that<BR>
other networks had booked satellite time for interviews with Powell.<BR>
<BR>
The executive producer of "Meet the Press," Betsy Fischer, said Powell was<BR>
45 minutes late for the interview and that "everyone's satellite schedules<BR>
already had to be rescheduled" anyway.<BR>
<BR>
She said the exchange was not edited out because most taped interviews are<BR>
not altered before airing.<BR>
<BR>
Fischer said Miller called right after the taping to "express her displeasur<BR>
e" that the interview ran long. Fischer also said Powell called Russert a<BR>
few hours later to apologize.<BR>
<BR>
The State Department would not confirm either call or that Miller was the<BR>
aide addressed by Powell.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
© 2004 The Associated Press<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
------------------------------<BR>
<BR>
Message: 3<BR>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 20:12:30 +0100<BR>
From: "Julie-ann Davies" <jadavies2004@yahoo.co.uk><BR>
Subject: [Media-watch] The prisoner-abuse scandal at home in the US -<BR>
Salon - 10/05/2004<BR>
To: "Media-watch" <media-watch@lists.stir.ac.uk><BR>
Message-ID: <002001c43dd5$8e82ed50$edf1cdd9@OLLIE><BR>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR>
<BR>
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/19/maddy/index.html<BR>
<BR>
The prisoner-abuse scandal at home<BR>
The stories sound familiar: Muslim prisoners beaten and sexually humiliated<BR>
by American guards. But it happened in Brooklyn, not Baghdad.<BR>
<BR>
By Michelle Goldberg<BR>
<BR>
May 19, 2004 | BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- The American guards took Mohamed Maddy's<BR>
glasses before they slammed him into the wall. A portly middle-aged father<BR>
of two, Maddy was crying, trying to move his shoulder in front of him so it<BR>
would take the blow, but they kept smashing him into the concrete, leaving<BR>
him with dark purple bruises. Then they told him to strip, and when he<BR>
balked at removing his underwear -- "I am Muslim, I can't do it," he said -- <BR>
they screamed, "Fucking Muslim! Take them off!"<BR>
<BR>
They made him bend over and said, "Take your hand and open your ass." He<BR>
sobbed harder as they performed a cavity search. Afterward, they told him to<BR>
get dressed and put him in handcuffs and leg irons connected by a chain to<BR>
his waist. They ordered him to run and then stepped on his leg chain so he'd<BR>
fall down, only to be yanked back up and forced to run again, over and over.<BR>
Without his glasses, Maddy couldn't see where he was going, but he thinks he<BR>
was running in circles.<BR>
<BR>
Finally he was thrown in a cell. For the first month, the light was left on<BR>
24 hours a day. If he tried to shield his eyes and snatch a moment of sleep,<BR>
the guards would kick the doors. On the rare occasions when he was taken<BR>
out, he was strip-searched, often twice in the same day, even if he hadn't<BR>
been out of the guards' sight. Sometimes they did the searches in public.<BR>
Sometimes they laughed and jeered. An official report later concluded that<BR>
many of these searches had nothing to do with safety -- they were about<BR>
punishment and humiliation.<BR>
<BR>
Stories like Maddy's have lately been pouring out of Iraq and Afghanistan,<BR>
but he's never been to those countries. Maddy's ordeal took place at the<BR>
Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where 84 of the 762 Muslim<BR>
immigrants who were detained after Sept. 11 were held. The torture there<BR>
wasn't nearly as severe as it was at Abu Ghraib, and, according to recent<BR>
reports, at Guantánamo in Cuba. But there are striking similarities,<BR>
suggesting that what happened in Iraq may be an escalation of a pattern of<BR>
human rights violations that began almost as soon as the World Trade Center<BR>
crumbled.<BR>
<BR>
In April 2003, as the war in Iraq dominated the headlines, the Justice<BR>
Department's Office of the Inspector General issued a 239-page report titled<BR>
"The September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on<BR>
Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11<BR>
Attacks." Then, in December, the Inspector General's Office issued a<BR>
supplemental 49-page report detailing abuses at the Metropolitan Detention<BR>
Center, where Maddy was held. In its May 24 issue, Newsweek revealed that<BR>
attorneys for two detainees are pressing to release 300 hours of videotape<BR>
that captured the abuses -- tapes that were cited in the reports on the<BR>
detention center, but that have never been made public.<BR>
<BR>
As the reports document, prisoners being held at MDC in connection with<BR>
Sept. 11 were regularly stripped and sexually humiliated. Prolonged sleep<BR>
deprivation was common. Guards regularly slammed inmates against walls.<BR>
Several detainees claimed they were also punched and kicked. In Passaic<BR>
County Jail, prisoners were menaced with dogs. At several prisons, people<BR>
were put in solitary confinement for weeks or even months. They were denied<BR>
access to visitors. Many were never charged with any crime.<BR>
<BR>
The reports paint a picture of mass roundups conducted without probable<BR>
cause, followed by "prolonged confinement for many detainees, sometimes<BR>
under extremely harsh conditions." It lists some of the rather specious<BR>
justifications given for classifying people as Sept. 11 detainees. One man<BR>
was "arrested, detained on immigration charges, and treated as a September<BR>
11 detainee because a person called the FBI to report that the [redacted]<BR>
grocery store in which the alien worked, is operated by numerous Middle<BR>
Eastern men, 24 hrs -- 7 days a week. Each shift daily has 2 or 3 men ...<BR>
Store was closed day after crash, reopened days and evenings. Then later on<BR>
opened during midnight hours. Too many people to run a small store."<BR>
<BR>
Something similar seems to have happened in Iraq, where the Red Cross<BR>
estimated that between 70 and 90 percent of the inmates at Abu Ghraib were<BR>
innocent. On May 5, a U.N. working group on arbitrary detention issued a<BR>
statement saying, "According to the information received by the Working<BR>
Group, the majority of persons in detention in Iraq have been arrested<BR>
during public demonstrations, at checkpoints and in house raids. They are<BR>
being considered 'security detainees' or 'suspected of anti-Coalition<BR>
activities'. The Working Group's Chairperson-Rapporteur is seriously<BR>
disturbed by the fact that these persons have not been granted access to a<BR>
court to be able to challenge the lawfulness of their detention, as required<BR>
by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."<BR>
<BR>
Policies of arbitrary detention often lead to coercive interrogation and<BR>
abuse, says David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University and author<BR>
of "Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on<BR>
Terrorism." In both America and Iraq, he says, "the approach was to sweep<BR>
broadly, to pick people up on little or no evidence other than their<BR>
religious or ethnic identity. That process puts a premium on interrogation<BR>
because the whole idea is that we don't know who the bad guys are, so your<BR>
job as an interrogator is to find out who they are through interrogation.<BR>
When they say we don't know anything about it, it's going to put pressure on<BR>
interrogators to use coercive methods. Anytime you abandon the presumption<BR>
of innocence and adopt a broad, sweeping detention policy<BR>
, it's going to lead to questionable interrogation tactics."<BR>
<BR>
It's not clear whether the guards in Brooklyn and those in Baghdad adopted<BR>
similar tactics independently, or whether they were acting under similar<BR>
orders. As Seymour Hersh has reported in the New Yorker, the Defense<BR>
Department authorized policies in Guantánamo and Iraq that were designed to<BR>
enable interrogations. According to Hersh, they included sexual humiliation,<BR>
sleep deprivation, "exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing<BR>
prisoners in 'stress positions' for agonizing lengths of time."<BR>
<BR>
Milder versions of these methods were employed at MDC, but there's no<BR>
evidence that guards there were acting under orders from federal officials.<BR>
Still, says Cole, "[R]eports of [abuse] are so consistent among domestic<BR>
detainees that it seems it must have been a policy choice. Assuming the best<BR>
of the policy makers, would assume they're doing it for interrogation<BR>
purposes."<BR>
<BR>
Regardless of who ordered the abuse, prison officials were operating under<BR>
loosened legal constraints that encouraged mistreatment. "There was a<BR>
perception of guilt imposed in both cases," says Nancy Chang, senior<BR>
litigation attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Those detained<BR>
in America, like those in Guantánamo and Iraq, "were abused as enemy<BR>
combatants or potential enemy combatants. They were treated quite<BR>
differently from regular prisoners. They were placed under the most extreme<BR>
conditions of confinement without any prior determination that they posed a<BR>
danger."<BR>
<BR>
In both the United States and Iraq, the tactics were similar, even if the<BR>
severity was not.<BR>
<BR>
Images of the abuse at Abu Ghraib have forced Mohamed Maddy to relive the<BR>
eight months he spent in American prisons, and especially the months he<BR>
spent at the special housing unit at the Metropolitan Detention Center. "I<BR>
can see that it is almost the same," he writes in an e-mail from Cairo,<BR>
where he's lived with his two sons since being deported in May 2002. "[W]e<BR>
were all pushed viciously against the wall, hands tied behind back, chains<BR>
on both legs, lots of hits on the face and the rest of the body, severe<BR>
humiliation like I never saw before, they were cursing us almost every<BR>
minute of the day and prevented us from sleeping. In brief, the treatment<BR>
was very inhuman and against all human rights and ethics."<BR>
<BR>
Of course, this may sound like the hyperbole of a traumatized man, but the<BR>
inspector general's report on conditions at MDC confirm most of what he<BR>
says. "[W]e concluded that it was inappropriate for staff members in the<BR>
ADMAX SHU [Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit] to routinely film<BR>
strip searches showing the detainees naked, and that on occasion staff<BR>
members inappropriately used strip searches to intimidate and punish<BR>
detainees," the report says. It cites videotapes of the strip searches in<BR>
which the voices of female officers can clearly be heard, confirming<BR>
detainees' reports that they were stripped<BR>
in front of women. On some tapes, the report says, "staff members laughed,<BR>
exchanged suggestive looks and made funny noises before and during strip<BR>
searches."<BR>
<BR>
The report also found evidence of routine physical abuse. "[W]e concluded,<BR>
based on videotape evidence, detainees' statements, witnesses' observations,<BR>
and staff members who corroborated some allegations of abuse, that some MDC<BR>
staff members slammed and bounced detainees into the walls at the MDC and<BR>
inappropriately pressed detainees' heads against walls," the report says.<BR>
"We also found that some officers inappropriately twisted and bent<BR>
detainees' arms, hands, wrists, and fingers, and caused them unnecessary<BR>
physical pain; inappropriately carried or lifted detainees; and raised or<BR>
pulled detainees' arms in painful ways. In addition, we believe some<BR>
officers improperly used handcuffs, occasionally stepped on compliant<BR>
detainees' leg restraint chains, and were needlessly forceful and rough with<BR>
the detainees -- all conduct that violates [Bureau of Prisons] policy."<BR>
<BR>
There were also numerous reports that, in addition to the lights being left<BR>
on in the cell for 24 hours a day, officers went out of their way to keep<BR>
detainees awake. "For example, one detainee claimed that officers kicked the<BR>
doors non-stop in order to keep the detainees from sleeping," the inspector<BR>
general's report says. "He stated that for the first two or three weeks he<BR>
was at the MDC, one of the officers walked by about every 15 minutes<BR>
throughout the night, kicked the doors to wake up the detainees, and yelled<BR>
things such as, 'Motherfuckers,' 'Assholes,' and 'Welcome to America.' ...<BR>
Another detainee said that officers would not let the detainees sleep during<BR>
the day or night from the time he arrived at the MDC in the beginning of<BR>
October through mid-November 2001."<BR>
<BR>
Almost all the 9/11 prisoners at MDC were being held for interrogation, not<BR>
because police had any evidence connecting them to terrorism. Maddy was one<BR>
of the few in the unit who had actually committed a crime -- while working<BR>
for a passenger services company at JFK airport, he had smuggled his wife<BR>
and sons into the country.<BR>
<BR>
Today, Maddy lives in a cacophonous Cairo suburb where car horns compete<BR>
with mournful Arab pop singers and small boys driving donkey carts clatter<BR>
down dusty side streets. He's a hospitable man who cooks me a dinner of<BR>
grilled chicken and Greek salad while his teenage sons, Eslam and Karim,<BR>
play a James Bond video game on their Xbox and listen to the soundtrack from<BR>
Eminem's "8 Mile." Friendly as he is, though, he can't hide a sadness that's<BR>
made him lose interest in everything in the world except his boys and his<BR>
misfortunes.<BR>
<BR>
In prison, he was questioned "six, seven or eight times," he says, usually<BR>
about how often he went to the mosque and whether he knows any "bad people<BR>
in the USA." Not being a radical man -- he has a picture of Bill Clinton<BR>
hanging on the wall of his Cairo apartment -- he was<BR>
little help. "I tell them the truth, but they say, 'You are liar,'" he<BR>
says.<BR>
<BR>
Indeed, several detainees say it was their professions of innocence that led<BR>
to weeks of solitary confinement and other torments.<BR>
<BR>
Khaled Betar, 34, is a happy-go-lucky blue-eyed bachelor from Amman, Jordan,<BR>
whose friends know him as a bit of a womanizer. Radical Islam holds no<BR>
attraction for him -- he's an agnostic who tends to see both his Arab and<BR>
Muslim identity as an accident of birth. The first time he prayed to Allah<BR>
was when he was thrown in prison by FBI agents who accused him of membership<BR>
in al-Qaida.<BR>
<BR>
Before arriving in America, Betar spent time working in both South Africa<BR>
and Hamburg, Germany. He traveled to America in April 2001 for the same<BR>
reason many immigrants do -- to earn money. A Jordanian family he knew owned<BR>
a gas station in Stony Point, N.Y., and they gave him a job that paid around<BR>
$2,000 a month -- nearly 10 times what he could make at home.<BR>
<BR>
Betar had a six-month tourist visa that was still valid in late September<BR>
2001, when FBI agents showed up at his apartment to question him. "They<BR>
asked me if I know any people who give speeches in the mosque, if I'm<BR>
religious or not," he says. "They spoke to me for, like, half an hour and<BR>
they asked me about my passport. I showed them my visa." The visa would<BR>
expire in a week.<BR>
<BR>
Knowing that, the agents waited 10 days before visiting Betar again. When<BR>
they returned, there were two immigration agents with them. "They told me,<BR>
your visa expired and you have to go with us to the detention," he says.<BR>
<BR>
Betar would spend the next nine months in Passaic County Jail, where he was<BR>
held as a material witness to the Sept. 11 attacks. "He was never charged<BR>
with terrorism, never charged with being a threat to national security,"<BR>
says his attorney, Sin Yen Ling of the Asian American Legal Defense and<BR>
Education Fund. "There were never any formal charges."<BR>
<BR>
But there were many interrogations. Seven of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers spent<BR>
time in Hamburg, a city with a Muslim population of 130,000. Betar had lived<BR>
there, too, and investigators were convinced there was a connection.<BR>
<BR>
During his first interview, there were four FBI agents. They showed him<BR>
pictures of some of the hijackers, and asked if he knew them. "They told me<BR>
one of the hijackers was in Germany," he says. "They said, 'How come you are<BR>
Muslim and you don't know this guy?' That's what they told me! I told them,<BR>
man, I can't know every Muslim!"<BR>
<BR>
A few weeks later, the agents asked him if he would take a polygraph. He<BR>
readily agreed, but after hours of questioning, he was told that he failed<BR>
(he's never seen the transcript, and it wasn't given to his attorney).<BR>
Several days later, he was given a second polygraph. Again, he was told that<BR>
he failed, and he was taken to the hole. The guard told Betar he was acting<BR>
on the FBI's orders.<BR>
<BR>
"I was in a small cell. It's closed. There was an iron bed and mattress and<BR>
blanket, that's all that you have. I stayed there 24 days. All the time,<BR>
they keep the light on. Every day they came with dogs. The dogs made noise.<BR>
Every day they took me from the room to search me. I'm in the room, how can<BR>
I get anything?"<BR>
<BR>
When he returned to the prison's general population after 24 days, "It was<BR>
like a paradise for me," he says. "You can't imagine. The hole is terrible.<BR>
It was the worst 24 days of my life. They make you crazy, really."<BR>
<BR>
There was pressure, he says, to admit to some role in Sept. 11. "They just<BR>
want me to say I know one of these people," he says. "They want anybody. If<BR>
you are innocent, it doesn't matter for them. They just want to put anybody<BR>
in the jail, to show people that they are working. If this happened in<BR>
Syria, Iraq, it's normal, but in America it's different, really."<BR>
<BR>
Eventually, though, the FBI cleared Betar of any terrorist ties, and he was<BR>
deported back to Jordan.<BR>
<BR>
A resilient man, Betar seems to have largely put his ordeal behind him.<BR>
"Now, I'm all right," he says in Amman, where he and a friend have started a<BR>
business selling nuts. "Sometimes you remember, you get depressed, but I'm<BR>
normal now. I'm OK."<BR>
<BR>
Maddy, who's found a job as an Internet marketing manager for a Cairo<BR>
tourism company, hasn't done as well. He has memory lapses and trouble<BR>
concentrating. "Sometimes at my job, it goes in my mind, everything that<BR>
happened in the USA. I get nervous and have to leave what I'm doing. Never I<BR>
forget. Everything's like videotape. I remember even when I'm sleeping. I<BR>
don't feel safe when I'm sleeping. I don't feel good about my life." He<BR>
wants to sue the Justice Department, but knows little about the American<BR>
legal system, and isn't sure where to look for a lawyer to represent him pro<BR>
bono.<BR>
<BR>
When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, something further seemed to break in him.<BR>
Shortly after the first pictures of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqis were<BR>
published, he fired off an uncharacteristic message full of profanity and<BR>
rage. "How much the American people hate the Muslim people!" he writes.<BR>
"[W]e hate the stupid Bush and I will be happy when he go to the hell in<BR>
November and I want tell him go, not come back. Fuck you Bush and your<BR>
government."<BR>
<BR>
Two days later, he was mortified by his outburst. "I would like to express<BR>
my apology for using an inappropriate language, but I have bitter feelings<BR>
that squeeze my heart and soul," he writes in a second e-mail. "It sounds<BR>
like it is a policy for the American government to treat Arabs, especially<BR>
Muslims, as bad as they can, and it is totally untrue that the behavior was<BR>
individual incidents carried [out] by several guards."<BR>
<BR>
"What I have saw with the Iraqi people made me feel very sick. It was really<BR>
disgusting and made me review all that happened to me," he says.<BR>
<BR>
Maddy wasn't terribly religious before, but in prison he moved closer to<BR>
God, he says. Now, he fantasizes about suing the United States for what it<BR>
put him through, and using the money to build a big mosque, white, with a<BR>
green light shining from the minaret.<BR>
<BR>
But first, he says, "I will give some money to my sons, so they don't need<BR>
to go to the USA."<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
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<BR>
End of Media-watch Digest, Vol 15, Issue 7<BR>
******************************************<BR>
<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
<BR>
<H2>COLDTYPE.NET / May 20<BR>
</H2><FONT COLOR="#800000"><H5><BR>
</H5></FONT>We've got lots more great stuff in our Columnists' section - <B>John Pilger</B> writes about a very special woman; <B>George Monbiot</B> tells how another foreign experiment went wrong for Britain's PM Tony Blair; in <B>Other Voices</B>, we've got stories about Monty Python (No. 70), the strange death of Hanan Saleh Matrud (71), avaricious CEOs (72) torture as US policy (73), human waste (74), the forgotten US election (75), prison brutality (76) and the saga of a fired editor (76). Plus later today: the latest MediaBeat column from <B>Norman Solomon<BR>
</B><FONT SIZE="2">You'll find them all at <FONT COLOR="#0000FF">http://www.coldtype.net<BR>
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<B>COMING NEXT WEEK: </B>A complete new book, in pdf fomat - <B>If Truth Be Told: Secrecy and Subversion in an Age Turned Unheroic</B> - by South African author <B>Stan Winer.</B> The book presents evidence of hidden dynamics that exist in wartime between secrecy, governance, public opinion and the media and explains how wartime methods of information management are replicated in 'peacetime'. Don't miss it.<BR>
<BR>
<B>AND: Jo Wilding's Diary from Iraq.</B> The complete diary - including four unpublished essays - in one pdf book download.<BR>
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