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Youth and Students Against War contributor Khalid Jarrar ABDUCTED!!!

by ysaw (reposted)
[olivebranch] - I have just finished reading Raed Jarrar's (Khalid Jarrar's brother) blog. I found news that left me ...... well I don't know what this emotion is.

Khalid Jarrar, a contributor Youth and Students Against War, and to this blog, has been taken by the Iraqi Government. His family has been given no reason but are relieved he is alive and well.

We believe it may have to do with him being a blogger. To view Khalid's blog visit:

http://secretsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/


Below is a post taken from his brothers' blog.
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

To Khalid, and to your family:

Our minds and thoughts are with you. Please keep us up-to-date on what is happening, as I am sure there is some things that western media can do to help you.

[/olivebranch]


My mom called me today at 7 in the morning, shouting with happiness: "Khalid is okay!". Niki and I were the last members of the family to know the "happy news". Khalid called my dad from the Iraqi mokhabarat's jail to inform us he was alive; he said he was abducted by the mukhabarat men from his university. My dad called my mom and Majed, and they informed us then.

The feelings of joyfulness in our family now would give anyone the impression that khalid has won the lottery! My mom spent the morning planning Khalid’s future, including the arrangements of his wedding party!

If your child or sibling vanishes for two days then calls from the secret service jail in any other place on earth, that would be considered a disaster and a violation of human rights…

In Iraq, however, it’s Happy News.

Because the other options include: To be tortured, executed, and thrown in garbage by SCIRI and their Badr brigades. To be held by the Iraqi police and left to choke to death in one of their cars. To be held by the US troops then disappear and be mistreated for months in one of their many prisons. To be kidnapped by one of the countless criminal gangs and cost your family some tens of millions of Iraqi Dinars and/or your life.

So now you can see why being held at the mukhabarat jail is such happy news!

My dad said that Khalid mentioned something about his writings or his blog. We’re not sure whether our blogs are the reason behind the abduction of Khalid, but it’s one of the possible scenarios. In case if they were, we’ll stand for our political values of anti-violence, anti-occupation, pro-dialogue, pro-free speech, and all of the other honourable stands that my family has taken in our lifetime.

Our goal now is to ask the mokhabarat to take Khalid to court and reveal what exactly he is being charged with (if anything).

http://ysaw.blogspot.com/2005/07/ysaw-contributor-khalid-jarrar.html
§Iraqi Blogger Jailed
by Juan Cole (reposted)
Iraqi blogger Khalid has been tossed into jail, apparently for being critical of the Iraqi government on the Web. The arrest was reported by Riverbend.

Please consider writing in protest. The consular email address is bouncing. But this is the other contact information from the web site:


' 1801 P Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: (202) 483-7500

Embassy hours: Monday-Friday 9:30 AM - 5 PM
Consular Section hours: Tuesday-Thursday 10 AM - 3 PM

Please note: iraqia.washington [at] netzero.com will continue to operate. However, the new general e-mail address is admin [at] iraqiembassy.org.

Ambassador's Office
Fax: (202) 462-5066

Faiz Al-Gailani
Counselor / Deputy Chief of Mission
Fax: (202) 462-0564 '


Also, note that your congressional representative or senator may have some pull here.

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/iraqi-blogger-jailed-iraqi-blogger.html
§update
by Raed Jarrar (reposted)
...my brother is spending his 6th night in jail. He's just one of the thousands of people in Iraq who disappeared and ended up in one of the many jails and prisons around the country without a clear reason.

The number of U.S.-held prisoners in Iraq reached all-time record levels earlier in June and has since gone down slightly. The average prisoner total in June stood at 10,783. The number of Iraqis held in Iraq's governmental and paramilitary jails is unidentified.

My mom freaked out yesterday and deleted all the Arabic posts on her blog. She thinks the Iraqi government would keep khalid imprisoned if they knew his family is anti-occupation and critical to the current regime. She reminded me of what my old friend Salam (aka salam pax) did three years ago when he deleted our joint blog fearing that Iraq's old mukhabarat would find it, I couldn't sleep that night.

I can't sleep tonight either.

history repeats itself

http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2005/07/targeting-iraqi-civilians-in-msayyab.html

...it seems that the new Iraqi courts don't guarantee the right to lawyers: prisoners are neither offered the help of a public defender nor can they bring their own lawyers. News about my sibling is so confusing, but we're expecting to know more tomorrow. There are more than ten thousand people in the US prisons in Iraq, and other thousands in Iraq's governmental and paramilitary jails. Everyone deserves to have the right of a phone call to inform his family about his location and status after being arrested, everyone deserves the right of having a trial and knowing what he or she is charged with, and everyone deserves to have a lawyer for his trial.

http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2005/07/iraqis-and-vanishing-food-rations.html
§Khalid Is Free!
by Raed Jarrar (reposted)
After many long days of uncertainty and worry, Khalid is now free.

We want to thank everyone who tried to comfort us in these hard times with kind emails and messages.

For the last couple of weeks, my family and I have put all of our effort into trying to get Khalid released from detention in Iraq. Now that he is free, we will direct our efforts towards tens of thousands of other innocent people locked up either in U.S. detention centers or in the jails of the U.S. supported regime.

http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2005/07/fkhalid-is-free.html
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