.I found myself...
"Sleeping in a grave-size space, defined by two walls touching both my head my and feet, and surrounded with human bodies touching me from both sides, in a way that hardly leaves any chance to move at all during the long… long night, in a 12 square meters room stuffed with 35 people trying to sleep, and to hold themselves together in order not to fight…"Khalid explains his ordeal, apparently going to Raed in the Middle is a criminal offence .i.e. a terrorist web site. I think I agree with the secret police, Raed needs to be stopped... I only wonder why Khalid did not admit to being Raeds brother.
Tell Me A Secret
That's if you believe any of this. The part I find kind of funny is how he was able to get word out of a high security interrogation center "illegally" to his family. I did not know khalid was a master spy, even James Bond would have had trouble with that one. I wonder about Khalid sometimes, I just wonder.
posted by madtom at 6:14 PM
10 Comments:
Mr. MadTom
I'm publicly informing you that I'm planning to ask my lawyer in the US to start the appropriate legal actions against you. I'm planning to sue you for both libel and slander, for the things you published on khalid's blog, and your blog.
I'll give you the next 4 weeks as a break to either delete your comments and posts and apologize for your lies, or prove your false accusations.
If you believe you're doing the right thing by accusing me of supporting terrorism, you shouldn't be afraid of sending me your personal contact information, or of publishing them in public, to make it easier for us to go to the US court and solve this small misunderstanding legally.
I assure you, Mr. MadTom, that the US courts would be fair to both of us, you shouldn't hide your identity from me. I won't publish your contact info if you didn't want me to.
Delete the comments and apologize, or prove that I support terrorism.
I challenge you.
Raed,
I'm afraid your mistaken. It was the Iraqi judge in Khalids story that made the allegation as you can see for yourself.
""He asked: you are accused of attending terrorist sites (Did he say that they are sites that recruit young people for terrorism? I don’t remember) so what do you say?""
All I have done is agree with the Iraqi Judges. As any same person can see by my comments:
"they got that part right."
So I think you would have better luck if you turn your attention to the Iraqi Judicial system. I would even support your efforts, as I believe that people should have access to all the web site, even yours, and that just reading a site should not be a reason for anyone's detention, nor an excuses to persecute anyone. We here at This Fucking War support the right of free expression and association, and will continue to support the Iraqi people in their quest to achieve these basic and fundamental human rights. You can count on us to continue to support you in this regard.
Thank you for your attention.
Here is the relevant section from Khalids blog
"He asked: you are accused of attending terrorist sites (Did he say that they are sites that recruit young people for terrorism? I don’t remember) so what do you say?
I said, with my eyes covered: please write my answer “I deny that completely, I was practicing my democratic right of viewing people’s opinion about a certain topic on a site that people visit from all the countries around the world to give their opinions”
He said: what in the hell is that? Did I ask you to write me a composition? Answer my question Goddamn it! You are accused of visiting terrorist websites, what do you reply?
I repeated my answer, but I reformed it in a way that is less complicated for his simple brains to understand, they wrote something and made me sign on the paper.
I don’t know if any of them finished high school, they are uncivilized, they lack morality and education, the way they swear all the time and the words they say tells you what kind of people they are, I asked them about the things that were with me when I was arrested, they said that they have my mobile phone, and my IDs, but the fat policeman broke my glasses and stole some of my money, till now, they didn’t give me back my mobile phone or my IDs.
Since they don’t speak English, they didn’t even ask me one time about the content of the site, which my one and only crime was that I read.
The third day, I found a way to contact my family, “illegally”, to tell them that I am alive and that I am in the seventh floor of the ministry of interior affairs. By that time, my dad checked every hospital, police station and morgue in the city. He checked with the Iraqi army, the Iraqi militias, the US army, and even the ministry of interior which denied that I was there!
It was such a relief to know that my family knows where I was, I told them that I was very well, and that we eat well and sleep well and no one hurts us.
Eight days after I was arrested, I was sent to see the judge, in a court that is a bit far of the prison, when we reached the court they put cuffs on my legs too, and a chain that ties my cuffed hands with my body. I felt the humiliation to be treated like a criminal and sent to a court tied with all these chains. I cried for few seconds only, and held myself together before anyone noticed.
I was taken first to an interrogator who works for the court, where he re-wrote my confession in a way that makes it easier to be understood correctly. He said that the court will assign a public defender for my case. I asked him what did that mean and he replied “Nothing, just some formalities”. He asked me to sign the paper of my “confessions”, and then he called a big chubby man with cheap outfit. The strange man came from outside and signed on my paper: “The Lawyer I-Don’t-Know-What’s-His-Name”. Then after some waiting, I was taken to see the judge, finally.
The judge was a very elegant man in his 40s, sitting behind a fancy disk in his air-conditioned room, with a computer beside him and a cool mobile phone too, with guards outside and a secretary beside him.
He didn’t look at me in the beginning. He asked me while surfing the papers of my case: “What’s your case?”
I said: “I went to the university to pay the fees of…”
He interrupted me impatiently: “the website, tell me about the website”
I said: “It’s a forum, it’s a place where people discuss a topic written by the owner of a website. I visited it and I didn’t even post an opinion, I closed it and left the internet place, and then I was brought here.”
It seemed he was following me. He said: “Is it like chatting?”
I said: “Yes, your honor. This is more like a website than a chat room. You don’t have to sign in and be a part of what’s happening in the case of forums. I was just watching things there. For me, it was more like watch a TV with different channels; you go to a channel not knowing what will be there and without knowing the content. If you didn’t like the channel, you can change it”
He interrupted me: “ok ok I know I know.”
He had 37 translated papers of Raed’s Comments Section, that’s it, that’s my case. He asked me “What are these strange letters between the words here?” I said “Maybe the person who printed out the papers selected the wrong font, these strange characters appear when you pick the wrong encoding for the language”. He didn’t seem to be a computer expert, but at least he knows the basics.
He said “go, I will take the papers to read them at home, and will decide about them tomorrow”.
The chubby entered the room and sat on a chair in front of the judge. He was my “lawyer”, but he didn’t say a single word, not one single word. He only signed a paper that says that he is my lawyer.
I was taken back to the prison. That was my Wednesday.
On Thursday, the judge decided that I was innocent. He figured out that the papers were from a public forum, and he didn’t find any comments posted by me."
Tell me a secret
Hi strykeraunt,
Welcome to my little blog.
I think Raed is a bit excitable, but as you can see from the previous text, it's not me, but the Iraqi judges in Khalids story that he wants. And maybe some reading comprehension classes would not hurt.
Apparently I am not the only target of this legal action by Raed Jarrar, he's in fact going to sue lots of bloggers. You can read more at Iraqi Bloggers Central comments.
Hi, I found you through Mad Canuck also.
Ever since Raed complained about standing outside in the rain for 15 minutes while his car was searched at a checkpoint(on Salam Pax's blog), I've thought him to be a bit childish. If he's not prepared to take some heat after what he is posting on his blog, he shouldn't be writing. Regardless of where that heat is coming from.
If he really does lawyer up, my money is on the people he tries to sue!
Hello Lynnette in Minnesota,
Welcome to my little blog. I think that they have been under a lot of pressure, and they are under a lot of strain. They are living in and through the war, their whole world has been turned upside down, and now their secure future is anything but. On top of all that they are going through all that on a world stage. Just one example is the upcoming constitution, if the draft that I saw, the part that described citizenship becomes law, It will leave them locked out side the new Iraq. It could have serious repercussions on their business and the property that they currently own. The worst part has to be the fact that they wont even get a chance to vote on the ratification, of in the next elections. So they have to be feeling the pressure right about now as the constitutional process is nearing the end. To be completely fare to the Jarrar's this constitution is in no way in their favor, and may actually be their undoing.
Geez, I feel flattered... that's two people who found this blog through mine... *grin*
Mad Canuck,
Welcome to my blog and thanks for the traffic. I am almost sure there have been more than just two. I am almost sure I found you blog thru another reader that dropped by on some other issue.
Hey Madtom
Just read your profile - CubanAmerican from South Florida. Couldn't help but wonder if your hostility towards the Jarrar brothers was a function of your background. Specifically, I was wondering if your one of those second generation kids from a family that was booted out of Cuba right after the revolution. You know, those elitist families who ran Cuba as a fuedal kingdom, denying rights, political participation, land ownership and education to the bulk of the serf-like population? Encomiendo sound familiar?
I may be off base, but I find it difficult to believe that someone who personally, or whose family, suffered at the hands of the Castro regime, who knows the horror of unjust detention in a torture facility, and was fortunate enough to obtain sanctuary in the US, could write in the manner you do about Khalid and Raed.
So, c'mon Mr. Chickenhawk who gets off on hearing from "real" soldiers and potentially putting another person's life at risk from the safety of South Florida. Let's here some more details.
Hello Anonymous,
"Couldn't help but wonder if your hostility towards the Jarrar brothers "
What hostility?
" was wondering if your one of those second generation kids from a family that was booted out of Cuba right after the revolution."
No! My parents emigrated to the US well before the castro regime.
"You know, those elitist families who ran Cuba as a fuedal kingdom, denying rights, political participation, land ownership and education to the bulk of the serf-like population?"
That is mostly mythology spread by the regime itself. I might be able to tell you something about yourself based on what you think you know about Cuba.
Are you a supporter of dictators? Have you ever lived in a communist dictatorship? Come-on people really want to know.
" hearing from "real" soldiers"
They are the ones on the ground, why would I want to get the story second hand when I can get it right from the people that are there interacting directly with the Iraqis?
"Let's here some more details."
It's not about me.
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