Double standards on freedom of the press

DETAIN AN Iranian-American journalist in Tehran on spurious charges for four months? That's an international outrage.

But lock up reporters indefinitely without allowing them legal recourse, and you'll get official blessing--as long as the ones doing the jailing are Americans, and the victims Arabs or Muslims.

That's the bizarre mix of hypocrisy and chutzpah surrounding the case of Roxana Saberi, the journalist who was released from prison May 11 after an Iranian court cut her eight-year sentence for spying to a suspended two-year term.

The basics of Saberi's story were well covered by the mainstream media. Saberi, who holds both American and Iranian citizenship, had lived in Iran for six years and worked for both National Public Radio and the BBC.

She was initially arrested for allegedly buying a bottle of wine--which is illegal in Iran. But the charges against her were later amended to include working without a press credential and espionage, when it was discovered she had a copy of a confidential Iranian report on the war in Iraq that, according to her lawyer, she had copied out of curiosity while working as a freelance translator. Her sentence was handed down following a one-day trial, without legal defense, behind closed doors in Tehran.

It seems likely that Saberi's arrest had nothing to do with spying and everything to do with Iranian internal politics in advance of June's presidential elections. Her release is good news.

But for the Iran-bashers in official Washington and the corporate media, press freedom was never the issue. It was simply another opportunity to call for a tougher line on Iran.

And almost entirely lost in the U.S. condemnation of Iran's detention of Saberi was a glaring double standard--the fact that the U.S. military has regularly imprisoned journalists as part of its own "war on terror" for far longer and, in some cases, under much more severe conditions.

THE MOST egregious example is that of Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj. Al-Hajj was taken into custody by the U.S. in 2001--apparently as the result of a case of mistaken identity--and spent more than six years at the U.S. prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before finally being released in May 2008.

The government accused al-Hajj of running an Islamic Web site, and alleged that his attempt to interview Osama bin Laden was evidence that he was connected to al-Qaeda. During his time at the prison camp, he was never formally charged, and like other Guantánamo detainees, he was repeatedly denied the right to a trial.

In an interview last year with the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, al-Hajj's attorney Clive Stafford Smith explained:

[The U.S. military] alleged that he was a terrorist because he had trained in Al-Jazeera. The precise words were "the detainee admitted that he had trained in the use of the camera with Al-Jazeera," and that is meant to be understood as some sort of terrorism. There's no legal basis. They would come up with new allegations, and we would prove that the allegations were rubbish.

According to Stafford Smith, al-Hajj was tortured during his imprisonment and subjected to cruel conditions--including being hooded, shackled, and denied food, water and the use of a toilet for at least 24 hours--even on his release flight to Sudan. During a protracted hunger strike to protest his seemingly indefinite detention, al-Hajj was repeatedly subjected to violent force-feeding.

According to journalist Andy Worthington, declassified testimony from al-Hajj in 2008 described the process:

On the Monday before last [February 11], a white male came to do the force-feeding. They gave him only 10 minutes training, then he did three of the eight men being fed that day, including me. He screwed the tube into my nose, not slowly, and not using lotion. I had flu at the time, and my nostril was closed. It made it much harder. I was in the chair. I could barely talk, and my mouth was covered with the mask they put on. I was waving my hands.

"That's very painful!" I eventually said. There were tears streaming down my face. "I am meant to do this to you," the man said, harshly. "If you don't like it, don't go on strike." He would not look me in the eye. He did not look in the least bit ashamed. He never said sorry, or paused when I was in pain. I almost thought he seemed happy that he was doing it.

According to Stafford Smith, interrogators made it clear that they were not only interested in railroading al-Hajj, but Al-Jazeera itself--one of the most respected, independent news networks in the Middle East.

Out of the more than 200 interrogations he was forced to undergo while at Guantánamo, interrogators reportedly attempted to get al-Hajj to admit Al-Jazeera was a terrorist organization in at least 120 interrogation sessions. They repeatedly accused the network of receiving funds from al-Qaeda and attempted to coerce al-Hajj into becoming a witness against the network.

"I think it's just an assault on Al-Jazeera," Stafford Smith explained. "I mean, it's very, very sad--speaking as an American. We are meant to support free speech...Al-Jazeera is the beacon of free speech in the Middle East."

AL-HAJJ'S experiences aren't unique. A letter sent to the Obama administration by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in February noted that at least 14 journalists have been held without due process for extended periods in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was imprisoned by the U.S. in Iraq for nearly two years without charges--"after Hussein's photographs from the Anbar province directly contradicted Bush administration claims about the state of affairs there," Glenn Greenwald wrote at Salon.com. The photographs in question, helped the Associated Press earn a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for war coverage in Iraq--and caused a black eye for the U.S. government.

Where were those who loudly defended press freedom for Roxana Saberi case back when Bilal Hussein was arrested? In fact, before he was ever detained by the U.S., right-wing bloggers such as Michelle Malkin accused Hussein of working with Iraqi insurgents because he had taken photos that included insurgent activity and contradicted rosy U.S. military reports.

Hussein's case isn't unique for journalists in Iraq. The CPJ found at least eight cases of journalists detained by U.S. forces for weeks, if not months--and without charge.

Freelance Reuters photographer Ibrahim Jassam remains imprisoned in Iraq, even though an Iraqi court ordered him released in December. The U.S. military has simply ignored the court ruling.

So why is it that when Iran (or China, Russia or any other country) detains a journalist without proper trial, it's a violation of human rights--but when the U.S. government does it, it is all but ignored by the mainstream media?

In the wake of the crowing in the U.S. media about Roxanna Saberi's release from Iranian custody, the hypocrisy couldn't be clearer.