Iraqi blogger jailed by secret service

[quaoar]

Khalid, who operates this blog:
http://secretsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/
has been jailed in Iraq, according to his brother and fellow blogger, Raed:

http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

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.

< snip >

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.


From Professor Cole:

http://www.juancole.com/

Iraqi blogger Khalid has been tossed into jail, apparently for being critical of the Iraqi government on the Web. The arrest was first reported by Riverbend.

Please consider writing in protest. The email address is [e-mail].

[bennywhale]

1. Add a comment to his blog. There are lots adding there support there and

also threats to the secret services who will be no doubt reading it that the world is watching them and that the word is being spread.

Also read his last entry. Its frightening. Its about theives who broke into his house and stole 'bits' of his computer. He was laughing about it but it sounds like it was the secret police.

His other blogs seriously criticise the Iraqi government and police. He's a funny bloke (guy).

[quaoar]

4. That's an excellent idea

Off to do it.

[Benbow]

2. My e-mail to the Iraqi Ambassador to Washington

Subject: To His Excellency, the Iraqi Ambassador to Washington : Please charge or release Khalid Jarrar
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 13:34
From:
To: [e-mail]

Your Excellency

Please either charge or release Khalid Jarrar. If you merely detain him, without charge, without access to legal representation or the Red Crescent, then - with respect - you sink to the level of the US occupiers of Iraq. You just give them comfort - make them think that they can continue to violate the sanctity of the lives of Iraqis, because they can point at the actions of the Iraqi secret service and say, "We're not doing anything the Iraqis themselves are not doing."

I am copying this e-mail to as many of your fellow countrymen - Iraqis - as I can to let them know that I utterly deplore this rogue behaviour by your security personnel. I will not stand by, silent, while the secret service police of any country perpetrate human rights abuses upon their fellow nationals. This sort of thing alienates the true friends of Iraq, and it seems to me that just now Iraq needs all her real friends.

Yours faithfully

London, UK

Reference: http://www.juancole.com/

To anyone else thinking of e-mailing the Ambassador: please be courteous. You cannot be too polite to an Arab. If you are not polite, you will not be taken seriously.

[Benbow]

3. Also copied to Aljazeera.net

The English version, obviously.

[quaoar]

5. Here's my email to the ambassador

Subject: To His Excellency, the Iraqi Ambassador to Washington
Please charge or release Khalid Jarrar

Date: Sat, 16 July 2005 15:00
From:
To: [e-mail]

Your Excellency,

I am writing to protest the actions of your government in arresting Khalid Jarrar. It appears that Mr. Jarrar has been detained because of critical comments he made about the government on his internet blog.

Americans are fighting and dying every day so that young Iraqis like Khalid Jarrar will be able to live in a free and democratic society where peaceful dissent is tolerated.

Americans are not fighting and dying so that the repression of Saddam Hussein can be replaced by a new form of repression.

Respectfully,

xxxxx

[Benbow]

6. Excellent, masterful e-mail, if I may say so

and if it bounces as mine did because

"domain is over quota"

please resend. Perhaps also copy to whomever is the US ambassador to Iraq (it was going to be Wolfowitz, wasn't it, but he isn't it).

[Benbow]

7. Suggestion: copy to the Guardian newspaper your e-mail to the Iraqi

Ambassador.

[e-mail]

[LynnTheDem]

8. And here I thought Americans are fighting and dying every day for

bush's pack of bullshit about "WMD".

[BikeWriter]

9. Oh, shit! Those guys are great people! :-(

[FreedomAngel82]

10. This is horrible

So now they're going after bloggers like they did jouranlists??

[Benbow]

11. Khalid spends sixth night in jail

http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

[BrendaStarr]

12. Be careful of rumors

I'd say stick with what is coming straight from the family.

There are people out there that are spreading unsubstantiated tales on this.

On the site of Committee to Protect Bloggers page on this someone had left a comment that Khalid had been released and cited Raed's blog as he source.

There was nothing that said that on Raed in the Middle or other blog that could be construed to be Raed's, and, knowing that the likelihood he'd have no time to respond an email from a glowing unknown like me, I contacted Niki who replied that the comment was not true (and that they would contact CtPBs to sort it out.

I'll post here a link to the reply she left on my blog. (The letter N is her Eblogger name protected by a password, so I feel confident that it was actually she who replied.

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14547458&postID=112158590304149851

There are other rumors out there on Khalid's imprisonment.

One, it seems, is being pushed by a man from Costa Rica who says he called Raed himself and was told that they want everyone to stop talking about this and "tone it down". Trouble is that the man also admits that he only started blogging this weekend to tell us this. So how does a non-blogger from Costa Rica know Raed's phone number?

Well, I also just started an Eblog this weekend and because of Khalid, but I do have proof that Niki contacted me. Otherwise I wouldn't ask you to believe me.(For years I made my own blogs -didn't use internet stuff, but an attack on my computer destroyed my ability to do those last summer. Then some friends and I started a news forum at net54 so I'm not a newbie to this stuff, I just hadn't hooked up with Eblogger or Typepad.

There was a third rumor which I won't even give space to the nature of (not really bad, but really unsubstantiated) and the blogger saying that said she got it from the Iraq Casualties Survey Site (linked from Raed's). Well, unless there's a super secret handshake password part of that site, there is nothing on the current problem of the Raed family at ICS. So there's another rumor that seems to be garbage.

Political operatives? Bloggers just trying to get some attention?

And about the "tone it down rumor", I will say, I told Niki about my efforts to spread the news of Khalid over the internet (I Didn't worry about here or DKos. I knew it would already be here.), here reply was sent after the so called call came to "tone down" and she said nothing about that. So I don't think the Raed family wants things "toned down".


I just wanted to make the point that when hearing rumors on this: stick to what can be proven to be coming out from the family.

(BTW I just checked at the CtPB and they have removed the comment about Khalid's release so I guess someone was able to contact them. I found no way to register at the time so I could comment and mention that Raeds blog did not seem to back their statement up.)

They are at: http://committeetoprotectbloggers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2005/7/17/1042695.html