One year ago today, US and Iraqi forces raided Jassam’s home outside Baghdad. Soldiers seized his computer hard drive and cameras. He was led away, handcuffed and blindfolded. For the past year the US military has held Jassam without charge.
Ten months ago, the Iraqi Central Criminal Court ordered his release for lack of evidence, but the US military refused to release him, claiming he was a “high security threat.” Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders have all called for his release.
US Marine Corps spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Patricia Johnson said this about Ibrahim Jassam, “He is currently classified as a high security threat based on the intelligence information collected against him at his point of capture and since he has been in detention. Though we appreciate the decision of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq in the Ibrahim Jassam case, their decision does not negate the intelligence information that currently lists him as a threat to Iraq security and stability.”
The Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger has said this about the case, “Reuters is concerned at the continued and protracted incarceration of Ibrahim Jassam, and continues to urge the U.S. military to either charge or release him. Reuters believes that any accusation against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defense.”
Reuters has been hit hard. Among others, Mazen Dana, one of the top Reuters cameramen, was killed outside Abu Ghraib. This was a few years ago, an award-winning cameraman. I think the words of the US military was “We engaged a cameraman.” He was holding his camera. Then there was Taras Protsyuk, who was a cameraman for Reuters, April 8th, 2003, a few weeks into the invasion, killed when the US military opened fire at the Palestine Hotel. Also, Jose Couso was killed at that time, as well, the cameraman who worked for Telecinco in Spain. US has held other Iraqi journalists without charge, sometimes for years, and then released them.
none of the journalists that were held by the US military since 2003 have been charged. Not a single one has been charged. They’ve all been released.
Unfortunately, the Iranian authorities are holding around three dozen journalists at this point and have released at least that many since June 12th.
Bahari appeared in court and looked very, very much exhausted and looks like he had lost a lot of weight since he had been arrested.
Zaid-Abadi, who you’ve also mentioned, was finally able to meet with his wife, who’s also a journalist and was also detained in early June and has been released since then. It took her fifty-three days to be able to meet with him. And he described the conditions of his detention, and they’re frankly horrific. He’s being held in a one meter by one-and-a-half meter cell—that’s about three by four-and-a-half feet—entirely alone for weeks on end. He went on a seventeen-day hunger strike and was essentially delirious and close to death at that point. He was released from his cell, fed, and put back into the same cell.
These journalists are, at the very least, suffering from extreme mental exhaustion, if not more.
– from democracynow.org