Dahr Jamail and Jeremy Scahill in Sacramento on March 14, 7 pm

Dahr Jamail and Jeremy Scahill:
The Story Corporate Media Won’t Tell

First Methodist Church
21st and J Street
Sacramento, CA
March 14, 2006 7:00pm

Information: mbrassell [at] riseup.net
916-803-3909


Dahr Jamail and Jeremy Scahill are among a tiny minority of independent journalists who continually risk their lives to maintain a “free press” in the United States, one that can expose the effects of US policy: from burned off faces on the streets of Fallujah to Blackwater SUV’s parked on the banks of the Mississippi; from the interrogation rooms of Abu Ghraib to the offices of Al Jazeera; and from the morgues of Baghdad to the bank accounts of DynCorp.

The danger is real, as is their courage. It is not just a matter of being banned from corporate media. Journalists who don’t regurgitate official government press briefings are targeted by the US government.

In a report published by Project Censored, Camille T. Taiara states,
“Last year was the deadliest year for reporters since the International Federation of Journalists began keeping tabs in 1984. A total of 129 media workers lost their lives, and 49 of them—more than a third—were killed in Iraq. In short, non embedded journalists have now become familiar victims of U.S. military actions abroad.”

Journalists who investigate events that occur under occupation through eye witness testimony or filmed documentation can expect treatment similar to that of Salah Hassan, whose story Jeremy Scahill reported.
While interviewing people at the scene of a car bombing, Salah Hassan was picked up by US troops and “interrogated in Baquba ... flown hooded and bound to Tikrit... and held for two days in a bathroom.” Later at Abu Ghraib, “he was greeted by US soldiers who sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him through his tight plastic hood, stripped him naked and addressed him only as ‘Al Jazeera’, ‘boy’ or ‘bitch.’” Still later, he was ”made to wear a dirty red jumpsuit that was covered with someone else’s fresh vomit and interrogated by two Americans in civilian clothes.”

In reporting from Dohar, Qatar on February 3, 2006, Dahr Jamail recounts the history of attacks on Al Jazeera, “The Al-Jazeera bureau in Afghanistan was bombed by U.S. warplanes in 2001. During the invasion of Iraq, U.S. tanks shelled Al-Jazeera journalists in a Basra hotel. Shortly after, its office in Baghdad was hit by a missile from a U.S. warplane; correspondent Tareq Ayoub was killed. Al-Jazeera reporters have been detained by U.S. forces and placed in prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. It has weathered verbal attacks from U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and from government officials in many countries in the Middle East.”

Managing director Wadah Khanfar of Al-Jazeera, said. "If you, as a journalist, would like to be loyal to your profession, you know it is going to be difficult to get the story sometimes, but you have to do it anyway if it's at all possible."

Integrity and commitment to their craft give Dahr Jamail and Jeremy Scahill the power to expose the layering of lies that bombard Americans from the corporate media on a daily basis. They have been in Iraq. Walk with them through blood stained mosques, bombed out homes, and morgues filled with rows of innocent civilian bodies. Wait in terror, at home, expecting to be swept up into the nightmare of US interrogation and torture. Hear Iraqi voices seething with anger at humiliation and degradation, devastation and carnage. Look into the eyes of a people resisting the brutality of sanctions, and the rain of continual bombing raids and join the resistance.