|
Several Arab Writers Criticize Arab Hypocrisy About Prisoner Abuse
In an editorial, in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, editor-in-chief Ahmad Jarallah wrote: "Dr. Buthayna Shaâban, who is ârevoltedâ by the torture of the Iraqis, should be the last to express her revulsion â because the kinds of torture carried out in the prisons of the regime of which she is a part and in whose services she acts are too numerous to count. No atrocity surpasses the kinds of torment and torture [in the Syrian regime] except those that the former East German ruler [Erich] Honecker [used] against his political rivals, and those by [Nicolae] Ceausescu against his citizens in Romania⊠"We have gone overboard in our talk of the Abu Ghureib torture scandal⊠We tried to unite the world against the perpetrators of the torture at Abu Ghureib. None has dared acknowledge that the U.S. behaved properly in uncovering [this] scandal, for having sufficient courage to apologize. It could have remained silent, or denied it â as is the custom of some Arab regimes that torture, assassinate, bury alive, rip out fingernails, and dissolve [people] in pits of acid, and appear before the world like innocent children with angelsâ wings, using denial and falsehood." ============= Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, former editor-in-chief of the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, wrote: ".... A crime is not a crime unless it is committed by a foreigner. Torture is [carried out] by the Arabs with the consent of the Arab press, which is always silent about it. When someone tries to bring this up, he is accused of damaging the Arabsâ good name, and of acting for the Zionist camp! "No one is acquitting the Americans of what a group of jailers did to Iraqi prisoners. It is a crime. .... Our media raised a ruckus about a hate-filled [American] soldier who urinated on an [Iraqi] prisoner. [But] the thieves of [our] food and medicines urinated on an entire nation, and the [Arab] media doesnât care about their crimes; it awarded medals to some, and kept silent about the others. ...... the Arab media close their eyes on the issue of hundreds of Arab prisons and the actions of thousands of Arab jailers over many years â and exclusively focus on the Abu Ghureib case because the jailer was American. "This reminds me of a sight that shocked me during a visit in Tunis with my colleague Mr. Salleh Al-Qallab. [11] We visited the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, which was situated there at that time. In the office of one official sat a Palestinian with a sad face. During a conversation [with him], he said he had recently been released from an Arab prison, after years of living in one of the dark basements through which sewage flows. The man stood and showed us his foot with a defect. He related that the [jailers] used to chain him tightly, which wore away his flesh and broke the bone. I asked him, âWhy donât you sue for this crime, or why arenât you exposing it to the media?â He answered: âWe donât want to make the situation worse.â" ============= Columnist Ahmad Al-Rabâi wrote in the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al Awsat:"Since the Abu Ghureib prison crime was exposed, the biggest discussion group in the Arab world has been [discussing] human rights, and this is a fine thing. The subject of human rights, freedom, and the state of the prisons has taken over every conversation [in the Arab world], after many years when the Arabs talked little about the value of the individual and the severity of the torture and killing. .... Millions of Arabs do not know about ... the prisons and detention centers in their countries. Only rarely do we hear of an Arab group demanding the release of prisoners arrested for expressing an opinion, or of an association that wants to visit an [Arab] prison. Furthermore, this is the first time that the Arabs have seen television cameras inside the prisons. .... The one who built Abu Ghureib prison is the dictatorship of the Arab leader named Saddam Hussein; the one who exposed this prison is an American television station. Had [these secrets] been exposed, we could [also] have known about the thousands tortured and killed in Abu Ghureib over the past 30 years, about whom no one knew or asked. "I remember that after the liberation of Kuwait [in 1991], the torture instruments used by Saddamâs army were collected in one place and pictures of them were published. We tried to cry to some of the Arabs: âLook, [this is] a serious crime!â But no one listened. It would be interesting to know how many Abu Ghureibs exist the length and breadth of the Arab world. [It would also be] interesting to know the number of people tortured and killed in secret, and the number of those who left prison with the marks of torture on every corner of their bodies, but who preferred to hold their tongues out of fear of death." ============= Syrian columnist Hayan Nayouf wrote in the liberal Internet daily Elaph: "After the scandal of the torture of Iraqi prisoners by American and British soldiers, the Arab media handled this affair in a way arousing ridicule, proving that the Arab media and intellectuals possess everything but objectivity, transparency, and disclosure of the truth and the facts. ... The American president, the president of the most powerful country in the world and the most developed with regard to science, art, culture, and democracy, apologized for the deeds of the American soldiers, and all the Americans also apologized for this shameful deed. And then the Arab intellectuals came, with their mocking, idiotic, and illogical media, and ridiculed this apology. "The question arises whether Saddam or any other Arab leader [ever] apologized. Did Saddam apologize to the Iraqi people for burying a million Iraqis in the ground, for expelling millions of Iraqis, for murdering innocents in his prisons, for his crimes in neighboring countries, for invading Kuwait, and for murdering the Kuwaiti prisoners? "Enough of your foolishness, Arabs! Hundreds of Kuwaiti prisoners fell victim to Saddamâs crimes. Where were the Arab satellite channels, and why did no Iraqi official apologize? Anyone who reads the Arab media [can get] an attack of madness. Had it not been for American democracy and the uncovering of the torture scandal by the American media, would the Arab media [ever] had heard about it? [Why?] Because [the Arab media] is preoccupied [with encouraging] ethnic [discord] and incitement to violence and terrorism!" Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-05-20 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=33455 |