A Google News search for “Roxana Saberi” yields about 12,600 results, all from the past month.
Saberi became the eye of a media tornado when the Iranian-American journalist was jailed in Iran for bogus espionage charges. Thanks to international pressure, she returned to America this week.
Though the actions of the Iranian government were vile, and mainstream media condemnations were certainly justified, we would do well to realize that this is not a problem that only occurs in the Middle East.
In an article entitled “Roxana Saberi’s plight and American media propaganda,” Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald highlights multiple cases of American forces in the Middle East capturing, interrogating and holding photographers and journalists at Guantanamo Bay without charge for years.
Reporters everywhere must not blindly accept the same hackneyed binary oppositions the Bush administration relied on in gaining support (or at least silence) for its crimes against a free global press; it is bad journalism to believe that America stands for justice and Iran stands for oppression, especially when the lines have been so blurred.
Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj (also transliterated al-Hajj) was held in Guantanamo for six years without any legal representation or any trial. From when he was seized in 2001 until the end of 2003, there were fewer than 50 mentions of him, and barely a thousand hits are returned if all time restrictions are removed (according to Google News’s timeline of a search for “Sami al-Haj” or “Sami al-Hajj”).
Another case involves Ibrahim Jassam, a Reuters freelancer who has been imprisoned since Sept. 2, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Amazingly, the Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled that there was no justifiable explanation for detaining Jassam and ordered his release. But the American forces refuse to release him, citing him as “a threat.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists cites “dozens” of such cases that have occurred over the past five years, without any charges or legal representation afforded to the victims.
The cases of Jassam and al-Haj are indicative of the phenomenon one can call self-referential morality. If America does it, it can’t be bad. This is, of course, the justification for pre-emptive wars (if America does it on someone else’s soil, it’s certainly less unfortunate or aggressive than if, say, Iraq invades Kuwait).
A writer for The New Republic by the name of Eli Lake offered this take on the Saberi case via his Twitter page: “Civilized countries do not arrest people for journalism. It’s like the Chris Rock joke. You’re supposed to not arrest reporters.”
Lake offered this gem in response to another Twitter member who asked him to reconcile this belief with the cases of al-Haj and Jassam: “Apples and oranges. Roxana Saberi wasn’t using her press card as cover for terror. Also it’s moral idiocy to equate US and Iran.”
Lake ““ a journalist ““ is clearly taking U.S. propaganda with a spoonful of moral relativism.
Of course the Iranian government has a laundry list of human rights violations and domestic abuses. But one wonders how our government is seen abroad, in the nations where these journalists are captured, or where they’re from.
While our reporters have been largely silent on these injustices, Arab and Iranian presses decry these events with a force comparable to the American outrage over the Saberi case.
As Greenwald notes, “In Iran, at least Saberi received the pretense of an actual trial and appeal (one that resulted in her rather rapid release, a mere three weeks after she was convicted), as compared to the journalists put in cages for years by the U.S. government with no charges of any kind.”
The most insidious aspect of these cases (and that of AP photographer Bilal Hussein, who was held for two years without charge) is that they all bear signs that the actions of the U.S. government were not just products of a mistake or a not-so-latent paranoia.
In al-Haj’s case, there have been reports that the interrogations focused not on terrorism but on Al-Jazeera’s operations. He was even asked to spy on the network if he was released. Hussein ““ who was a part of the AP’s Pulitzer Prize winning coverage of the war ““ was photographing conditions in the Anbar province that falsified the Bush claims of peace in that region.
These shortcuts and injustices may appear to be justified in the larger scope of the war on terror, but this sort of myopic foolishness will only result in a long term hatred of America ““ the kind that terrorists use as fuel for their operations and recruitment.
E-mail Makarechi at kmakarechi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.