Khalid Jarrar: Iraqi blogger detained

freekhalidBlogger Khalid Jarrar, author of Secrets in Baghdad, remains in custody of the Iraqi intelligence service, known as the Mukhabarat.

As we reported yesterday, Khalid's brother Raed says their family was relieved to hear on Thursday morning that Khalid is still alive after going missing for two days. On Sunday, Khalid described on his blog how his apartment in Baghdad had been broken into and his hard drive was stolen. Soon after that he disappeared.

Khalid's family are calling for his release, or at very least that he be charged and tried for something. Raed says: “Our goal now is to ask the mokhabarat to take Khalid to court and reveal what exactly he is being charged with (if anything).”

The Committee to Protect Bloggers supports the Jarrar family's appeals.

Please show your support for the Khalid Jarrar by posting supportive comments at Raed's and Khalid's latest posts. If you're a blogger, please help spread the word by linking to them.

28 comments

  • You are right Rufus, I agree with you when a message calls for crime or violence.

    I still think though that legal procedures must be respected.

  • Rufus Lee King

    Neila

    I am in complete agreement that the law must always be followed. And those who don’t must be punished.

    But at least for US law, in war zones there are more abbreviated procedures for stopping violent combatants and their cadre than just to use the civilian criminal process. Prisoners of war or unlawful combatant detentions, for example. And habeas corpus and thus the right to any trial may be suspended in invasions and rebellions.

    I’m not informed as to the state of the Iraqi law processes. I know they don’t even have a constitution yet. I would assume they have legal authority to take suspected enemy collaboraters in for investigation, even if only under a civilian model of criminal law.

  • Something that no one is mentioning is the fact that Khalid has not been given the rights of an attorney.

    From his Brother’s Blog http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/
    Raed Jarrar writes:
    “On another note, it seems that the new Iraqi courts don’t guarantee the right to lawyers: prisoners are neither offered the help of a public defender nor can they bring their own lawyers.”

    This seems to contradict the transitional adminstrative law set up by Paul Bremer which can be read here:
    http://www.cpa-iraq.org/democracy/PSAs/Rule_Law.html

    • Accusation is not guilt. Every person is innocent until proven guilty through due process of law.
    • Torture and cruel punishments are absolutely forbidden.
    • Every person accused of a crime has the right to remain silent.
    • Anyone accused of a crime has the right to an attorney and to a speedy and public trial.
    • No one can be arrested or tried for his political or religious beliefs.
    • And, civilians may not be tried before military tribunals.

    According to Article 15 of Coalition Provisional Authority
    LAW OF ADMINISTRATION FOR THE STATE OF IRAQ
    FOR THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD http://www.cdi.org/news/law/Iraq-Constitution.htm , which as I understand it is the law until such a time as the Constitution is written states:

    “(E) The accused is innocent until proven guilty pursuant to law, and he likewise has the right to engage independent and competent counsel, to remain silent in response to questions addressed to him with no compulsion to testify for any reason, to participate in preparing his defense, and to summon and examine witnesses or to ask the judge to do so. At the time a person is arrested, he must be notified of these rights.”

    The fact that, according to his brother, Khalid Jarrar has not been given access to an attorney should be an issue of primary concern irregardless of all other factors.

    So as a concerned citizen I would encourage you to sign this petition:
    http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/820522461?ltl=1121603411

    which I will personally deliver to the Iraqi Embassy in D.C. when it hits 1,000 signatures.

  • Rufus,
    The situation in Iraq is obviously very murky and complicated. If Khalid is charged and tried for terrorist activities then that’s one thing. If he actively works to support certain terrorist activities, or is affiliated with a terrorist group, that is not something we should support. But if blogging alone is enough to make a person disappear into detention as an “enemy collaborator,” that’s pretty scary.

  • Rufus Lee King

    Rebecca

    I agree with everything you said. I do feel that there is alot of free speech territory a person can take on far short of criminal complicity for crime or terror, which nonetheless, might also support some ideas appealing to terrorists and criminals.

    Unfortunately, in a place and time where lives are being lost at horrific rates and the state hangs in the balance, anyone who goes out on a limb with their statements and is subject to be read as an enemy collaborator is going to have to accept the risk that goes with that perception of being dangerous to those powers bound to treat danger very aggressively.

    The safe road, albeit one sometimes compromising to the ultimate in expressive license, would be, when in a war or high threat zone, to take great pains to articulate the differences between a stand one takes and the actions of crime or terror. I don’t know that Mr. Jarrar did that very effectively, though I admit his statements are ambiguous.

  • […] Irakin salainen poliisi on ottanut talteen tunnetun blogistin Khalid Jarrarin, kertoo Global Voices. Secrets of Baghdad -blogia pitävä Jarrar oli aiemmin raportoinut, että hänen kotiinsa oli murtauduttu ja tietokoneen kovalevy kadonnut.   […]

  • […] Irakin salainen poliisi on ottanut talteen tunnetun blogistin Khalid Jarrarin, kertoo Global Voices. Secrets of Baghdad -blogia pitävä Jarrar oli aiemmin raportoinut, että hänen kotiinsa oli murtauduttu ja tietokoneen kovalevy kadonnut. […]

  • Bruno

    Rufus — The irony is, given that you are SO law abiding… the irony is that you support an illegal war conducted by the US on Iraq. A war that has directly resulted in tens of thousands of Iraqis being massacred either directly by US troops, or indirectly via the tidal wave of crime and poverty unleashed by the invasion. Khalid is in the right here, not you.

  • Luisetta

    I read the extracts you highlighted, Rufus, and believe that you may well have completely misunderstood them. They seemed written in a highly ironic vein to me, aimed against the sort of lame and crude propaganda tactics used by the Iraqi government. The “honorable” mujahideen were ironically (and rhetorically) constructed out of the propaganda films’ “dishonorable” Syrian-backed rapist caricatures. Possibly because the tone of the films was very Ba’athist (I’m speculating here) and left Mr Jarrar with a sickening sense of deja vu. He seems to me to be a person very sensitive to language and nuance, and highly unlikely to concretise his thoughts, or to suggest that others do the same, however explosive his invective may be.

  • Luisetta

    Afterthought–I think it’s very hard for someone who hasn’t had to live in a one-party state to really resonate with the rhetoric of someone who has. There are depths of irony and disgust that some of us will never have to plumb, insha’allah. Strangely, (or perhaps not so strangely) the (self-)disgust and irony seem to deepen if the person has had strong links with the regime. There are times when Bush and Blair induce responses of irony and disgust in left-leaning Westerners, but it doesn’t really go deep, and corrode the soul, until you’ve come up against the coercive power of military force or state-sponsored violence.

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