US Silences Dissent: Assassinates Press, Shoots Protesters and Arrests Anyone Watching

Al-Jazeera fears journos are targets
Posted Wed, 09 Apr 2003

Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera said on Tuesday it hopes to get its team out of Baghdad after one of its correspondents was killed by US fire, amid what it said were fears its reporters were now targets.

The editor-in-chief of the network, which has come under sharp criticism from the United States and Britain over its coverage of the Iraq war, asked for their help to get its reporters out of Baghdad.

An Al-Jazeera journalist on air earlier in the day accused the United States of intentionally targeting the network. Al Jazeera's offices in Kabul were hit during the 2001 US war in Afghanistan.

"We are calling on the US-Anglo forces to locate them and to provide assistance in getting them out," Ibrahim Hilal said at the Qatar-based network's headquarters.

"I believe that none of them is safe any more, whether in Baghdad or the rest of Iraq, even those who are with American troops," he said.

"My wish is to get them all out," Hilal said, adding that one of its reporters who was embedded with US forces in Nasiriyah has already been recalled.

Tareq Ayub was killed on Tuesday when a US missile hit the network's offices in Baghdad. With Iraqi approval, Al Jazeera is not based in the hotel where most of the foreign press is stationed.

Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman with Reuters and Jose Couso from Spanish network Telecinco, were killed at the Palestine Hotel when a US tank opened fire in another incident on Tuesday.

US Central Command first said troops came under fire from the lobby, while the field commander said whatever fire had been headed toward his troops was wiped out with a single tank round into the upper floors of the hotel.

But after a journalist questioned why the tank shot the upper floors when fire had come from the lobby, Central Command issued a revised statement saying there had been "significant enemy fire."

It made the same claim about the Al-Jazeera incident.

Washington and London blasted Al-Jazeera after the network showed footage from Iraqi television of dead coalition soldiers and POWs, as well as repeated images of Iraqi civilians badly wounded in air strikes.

AFP

http://iafrica.com/news/us_terror/iraq/227124.htm

The police were brutal in their attack. They fired on people at alarmingly close range. I saw many being carried away, or arrested, who were bloody and wearing a stunned look on their faces. These were young people, elderly men and women, people of many colors and economic backgrounds, teachers and union workers. The police were indiscriminate. They rounded up 31 of us and we were handcuffed and put into a bus. A guy next to me had gravel in the side of his face and his back was greatly aching from the force of 5 police officers on top of him, one with a knee in
his back. This for a man not resisting arrest.

We were arrested at around 8:30am on Monday morning and held in Santa Rita county jail until 4am the next morning. We were seperated by gender
and shoved into cells that were meant to hold half our size. There was 16 men in our cell. Once again the diversity of people was not like the picture painted by the media-we were old and young and not one of us had acted with any violence. We were held in this cell for about 14 hours-not being told when we would be released. We were treated poorly indeed. We were even taunted by the guards-one who shoved a picture of George Bush and a trapped looking Saddam Hussein in my face and asked what I thought of it. I said, believe it or not, we are not in here in support of Saddam Hussein, but for the Iraqi people who are being slaughtered by our government. We are in here because we have the right, less and less, to peacefully protest in our democratic nation. He snickered, "You people are so stupid."

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/04/1597654.php

New York, NY. At 8:40 this morning, approximately 19 protesters were arrested for blocking the entrance to an office building at 712 5th Avenue in protest against the Carlyle Group for promoting and exploiting the war against Iraq for profit. Soon after, a double row of riot police quickly surrounded a group of approximately 100 protesters and bystanders as they stood on the sidewalk across the street, gave no order to disperse, and arrested them.

Attorney Karen Moulding, an attorney with the group Glamericans for Peace, observed the arrests. "Pedestrians were able to get by without any impediment. Police gave no warnings to disperse. I've been a legal observer for many demonstrations for years and I've never seen anything like it. Police behavior seemed calculated to silence or deters peaceful demonstration. Police should be proud to protect the First Amendment right to demonstrate peacefully, rather than use scare tactics to pre-empt it."

http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54794