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The only detainee at Guantamo Bay who was a journalist has been released and is now back at work for the ArabicAl Jazeera news service.
From the New York Times
Of the 779 known detainees who have been held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — terrorism suspects, sympathizers of Al Qaeda, people deemed enemy combatants by the United States military — only one was a journalist.
The journalist, Sami al-Hajj, was working for Al Jazeera as a cameraman when he was stopped by Pakistani forces on the border with Afghanistan in late 2001. The United States military accused Mr. Hajj of, among other things, falsifying documents and delivering money to Chechen rebels, although he was never charged with a crime during his years in custody.
Now, more than a year after his release, Mr. Hajj, a 40-year-old native of Sudan, is back at work at the Arabic satellite news network, leading a new desk devoted to human rights and public liberties. The captive has become the correspondent.
“I wanted to talk for seven years, to make up for the seven years of silence,” Mr. Hajj said through an interpreter during an interview at the network’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar.
Among Al Jazeera’s viewers in the Arab world since the 9/11 attacks, perhaps nothing has damaged perceptions of America more than Guantánamo Bay. For that reason, Mr. Hajj, who did a six-part series on the prison after his release, is a potent weapon for the network, which does not always strive for journalistic objectivity on the subject of his treatment. In an interview, Ahmed Sheikh, the editor in chief of Al Jazeera, called Mr. Hajj “one of the victims of the human rights atrocities committed by the ex-U.S. administration.”
But Mr. Hajj has not restricted himself to Guantánamo and his own incarceration. He has expanded the network’s coverage of other rights issues, including press freedom in Iraq, Palestinians in Israeli prisons and the implications of the USA Patriot Act. On a Wednesday morning in mid-August, Mr. Hajj pushed Al Jazeera’s news desk to cover a hunger strike by political prisoners in Jordan, and he happily pointed to a nearby television when the Jordan news scrolled on the bottom of the screen.
Nor has his experience radicalized him: he said that, despite his upbringing in a violent and often repressive country and his experience in detention, he maintained a sustaining belief in democracy and the rule of law.
Terry Anderson, an Associated Press correspondent who was detained in Lebanon from 1985 to 1991 by Islamic fundamentalists, said he could understand Mr. Hajj’s chosen assignment.
“In prison, what do you do? You think about your life. You think about what you were doing, and how it led you here,” Mr. Anderson said.
Mr. Hajj’s story is well known to Al Jazeera viewers, but not to most Americans. (As with the experiences of many detainees at Guantánamo Bay, his version is uncorroborated by American officials or any documents.) After working at a beverage company and then trying to start a business in Azerbaijan, he began working as a cameraman for Al Jazeera in 2000. He was captured on Dec. 15, 2001, trying to cross the border back into Afghanistan with his camera and a correspondent.
He later came to believe that the Americans were seeking another Al Jazeera cameraman, one with a similar name who had recorded an interview with Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11 attacks.
After being detained by local authorities in Pakistan, Mr. Hajj was transferred into American custody and, he says, tortured and beaten at a prison at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. He was moved to Kandahar and then transported to Guantánamo Bay in mid-2002. Looking back, he says he thinks that he was sent there in part because he was a journalist.
“I had seen a lot of things that I shouldn’t have seen,” he said, citing the treatment of prisoners at Bagram in particular. Mr. Hajj claims that in lengthy interrogations he was asked for details of the network’s staff, policies and processes and that some guards started calling him “Al Jazeera” as a nickname.
He said an interrogator once asked him, “How much does bin Laden pay Al Jazeera for all the propaganda that Al Jazeera supplies?”
“You’re asking the wrong question,” he replied, emphasizing that bin Laden was not a propaganda partner of Al Jazeera, “he’s a newsmaker.”
A newsmaker whose views often coincide with those at Al Jazeera by the way.
Thanks to the release the news service will now have yet another propaganda tool in thier arsenal to report on their less than friendly view of America.
Post #2517
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Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.
8 Comments for Out of Gitmo Back at Al Jazeera
What he says is perfectly plausible.
Of all the things the US has ever done -Gitmo is probably the worst.
This speaks pretty well for the US -there is no Dachau or Buchenwald in your history -no war of aggression, no flagrant invasion for self-serving purposes…
But Gitmo was outside your own groundrules and a surprise to all who normally support you as I do.
Nonetheless I can understand there was a pretty hard question to answer -“where do we put these bastards?”
And in most cases I think it was to your eternal credit that you didn’t simply kill them!
War has some hard choices -and I understand why you made this one -but I wish somehow you hadn’t.
Jock Williams Yogi 13
Oh is that right? Is Gitmo the worst? What about the internment of Japanese civilians in WWII?
Locking up illegal combatants is hardly worse than that.
Do you support the internment of Japanese civilians by the US? If not, would you therefore cast a similar shadow of doubt on our country’s involvement in WWII?
Would you then say it was plausable that FDR knew about the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, but intentionally withheld the information that could of saved lives?
Lets look at the facts. Was it more likely that al-Hajj was arrested by Pakistani authorities because he was associated with terrorists, moved money for them and smuggled weapons for them?
Or perhaps as he claims, was he was arrested because he was a journalist?
How naive can you be? I can only hope that you were naive and commented without investigating first because the alternative is worse.
Well, since you asked
Internment of Japanese “potentially dangerous aliens” was thoughtless and now politically incorrect -but obviously a large number of enemy aliens (as they were then called) near a potentially disputed shoreline -was a scary prospect. Sure, none of them did anything bad -but then again -they were locked up -weren’t they?
No I wouldn’t cast a shadow of doubt on anything.
No I wouldn’t say that was plausible -although I bet YOU would.
What facts are you looking at -yours or theirs -or neither? Or both? Do you have any personal experience or just your own prejudices?
If I had wanted to say anything else -I would have.
I guess I am as naive as any professional soldier with 35 years of experience can possibly be. Right after you can match my experience and see what I have seen and learned what I have learned -you will be capable of informed comment.
Til then Gitmo is an un-American abomination -but I can envision no alternative.
As many have said -cutting off a mans head on TV is torture -Gitmo (relatively speaking) is childs play.
If you disagree -I bet I know which you would choose if you had to choose one fate or another for yourself.
That pretty much answers your questions doesn’t it?
Jock Williams Yogi 13
If you reread my comment you will see that I did not jump to conclusions. I asked questions because I needed to know more about you before positively denouncing your position. Instead I expressed concern that you might be naive or worse and asked for clarification. I now know a lot more now, but perhaps you made that unfortunate comment due to anger.
You talk of my alleged prejudices and then make an unsupported claim that you would bet that I would find it plausible that FDR intentionally let Americans get killed at Pearl Harbor for political gain.
If you had asked that as a question, I would have said no. So you are way off base.
The fact remains that you said, “Of all the things the US has ever done -Gitmo is probably the worst.” and I replied that the internment of Japanese-American civilians was much worse.
You even stated that, ”…obviously a large number of enemy aliens (as they were then called) near a potentially disputed shoreline -was a scary prospect. Sure, none of them did anything bad -but then again -they were locked up -weren’t they?”
Which is a scarier prospect “enemy aliens” or “illegal combatants”? How many attacks were committed by Japanese-American civilians? How many by illegal combatants? Japanese-Americans fought very bravely in Europe (ie the rescue of the Lost Battalion), while their families were locked up in their own country. Gitmo pales in comparison to the internment of Japanese-American civilians.
Additionally, I have presented a factual rationale to support my assertion that al-Hajj is lying when he claims that he was arrested because he was a journalist.
1) No other journalist was locked up in Gitmo
2) He has associations with terrorists
3) He has a history smuggling weapons for terrorists
4) He has a history of laundering money for terrorists
5) Pakistan arrested him and cooperated with the US. Its always good to get a second opinion and they viewed al-Hajj as a person dangerous enough to be arrested and handed over to America.
This means that the case for the US to hold him for concrete reasons other than his occupation as a journalist was so strong that his accusation is an obvious lie. Even to hint that it was part of the reason is just an obvious red herring. Unfortunately our media falls for such rubbish every time…
You may find it revealing to note that the only person who even mentioned FDR was -YOU!
Gitmo may pale to YOU by comparison (I still suspect that you have a bone to pick about Japanese internment) but I am not alone in saying that it is far worse than that very internment because it goes against America’s stated beliefs.
That there was no sabotage by internees is true -but it COULD be because they were (after all) INTERNED -and hence incapable of carrying out such acts.
Personally I don’t believe that they were a threat -but I wasn’t born at the time so nobody asked me.
The proper question might be “Why were German and Italian immigrants not interned too?” And the US might well have trouble explaining away that anomaly. It may indeed smack of racism -but can we not let the mis-steps of 1942 rest -we have had 67 years to let temperatures drop.
My original intent was to compliment the US on not just summarily executing the Gitmo residents when they were initially captured.
I could give you a long list of countries which would have done THAT!
Instead they (the US) housed and fed these miscreants in relative comfort and absolute safety.
Better treatment than the journalist who had his head sawn off by Islamists.
Like I said -you yourself would prefer Gitmo to that -and the Japanese internees were also released unharmed at war’s end.
Avoid putting words in the mouths of others.
Germans and Italians also fought bravely for the US -although this is completely irrelevant. I spring largely from Irish stock. They have been killing one another merrily for hundreds of years in the name of Christianity! This too is irrelevant.
Go figure!
Jock Williams Yogi 13
Jock They were not killing one another merrily for hundreds of years in the name of Christianity, it was in the name of Christendom. So today they are killing babies in the womb in the name of Churchianity. People in the churches are voting for political parties who have a policy of decriminalizing partial abortion, dismembering babies in the womb. True Real Christianity loves their neighbors. It was the Patriot Act under which Americans lost their personal freedoms so they can no longer say “Don’t Tread on Me”. USA is hated as never before. In more ways than one.
Jock you suspect that I have a bone to pick over the Japanese Internment because you are thinking emotionally.
Although I dislike FDR’s Socialist leanings, I greatly respect the leadership he gave our country because he knew that we must join our Anglo-French allies in the war against totalitarianism. However, he made a mistake when interning Japanese-American civilians. I dont judge him or America solely based on that alone.
I agree with your points about Germans/Italian civilians and the humanity of our country towards enemies who wouldnt do the same for us.
Anyway Ken…
America has been “hated” for a long time. Socialists, Islamists and self-professed “anti-Imperialists” will always hate us.
It is a pipedream to want to be “loved”.
When you are on top and a threat to totalitarian ideologies you will always be “hated”.
So al-Hajj claims that he was held because he is a journalist, but he was the only journalist held in custody as an enemy combatant.
These people can make the wildest accusations with little critical examination by our media.