One Million Signatures campaign to free Sami Al Haj inaugurated in Algeria
Submitted by ajmal on Wed, 08/22/2007 - 14:08.
Conference of One Million Signatures campaign to free Sami Al Haj held at
Echorouk Al Yaoumi newspaper
The Algerian daily newspaper Echorouk Al Yaoumi organised a conference
yesterday to launch a one million signatures campaign to free Sami Al Haj held
in Guantanamo.
Important Algerian figures attended the conference such as former Prime
ministers Sid Ahmed Ghozali and Mokdad Sifi and a representative of the
Association of Muslim Algerian Ulema.
The president of the international campaign to defend Sami al Haj called on
the release of Sami Al Haj Aljazeera journalist held in Guantanamo.
He said all European detainees were repatriated in return for 4 percent only
of Arab captives although they constitute more than 95 percent of Guantanamo
detainees.
In the conference organised in collaboration with the Arab commission to
defend journalists and the international campaign to defend Al Jazeera
cameraman Sami Al Haj, doctor Fawzi Oussedik said the commission started a
signature campaign to free all held journalists especially Sami Al Haj,
originally from the Sudan, who has been detained by the U.S. at Guantánamo for
over five years without trial.
Fawzi Oussedik added that the initiative was taken by the Arab commission to
defend journalists created in Switzerland, 5 months ago.
The One Million Signatures campaign chose Algeria to be the second country
after Sudan.
A year ago a new term was created in the US policy which is enemy
combatant. It is an unknown term in law, according to doctor Oussedik.
The classification of individuals as friends or enemies combatants is done by
a military commission. This raises doubts over the credibility of this
commission, he added.
Al Haj was captured in Pakistan, on December 15, 2001. He was on his way to
work in Afghanistan as a cameraman for Aljazeera and had a legitimate visa. But
he is held as an "enemy combatant".
A special report by BBC Radio 4 gave an exclusive glimpse of the world inside
Guantanamo Bay detention centre, told through the letters of a Sami al-Haj.
British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith represents Al Haj, and was
able to visit him in 2005. According to Smith Al Haj reported that he has been
beaten.
Smith said he had a huge scar on his face. Al Haj witnessed guards flushing a
Koran down a toilet and defacing it with swear words. He has been sexually
assaulted interrogated roughly 130 times.
On 23 November 2005, Stafford-Smith reported that, during (125 of 130)
interviews, U.S. officials had questioned Sami as to whether Aljazeera was a
front for al-Qaeda.
Smith offered the opinion: "He is completely innocent. He is about as much of
a terrorist as my granddad. The only reason he has been treated like he has is
because he is an Aljazeera journalist. The Americans have tried to make him an
informant with the goal of getting him to say that Aljazeera is linked to
al-Qaida."
Aljazeera has responded that al-Haj reported his passport stolen in Sudan in
1999, and that anything done with the passport after that date was likely the
work of identity thieves.
Wednesday, August 15 @ 19:00:00 CDT
http://www.prisoner345.net/press/one-million-signatures-campaign-free-sami-al-haj-inaugurated-algeria
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