Bush shoe thrower released, alleges torture by guards

[DarkStar]

Bush shoe thrower released, alleges torture by guards


Zaidi demands apology from PM Maliki

BAGHDAD: Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi television reporter jailed for throwing his shoes at former US president George W Bush, was freed on Tuesday and said he had been tortured with electric shocks and simulated drowning.

Zaidi had been behind bars for nine months ever since he shouted, “It is the farewell kiss, you dog,” at Bush on December 14 last year, seconds before hurling his size-10s at the man who ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Speaking at the office of his former employer, Al-Baghdadia television, Zaidi - who was missing a front tooth - said: “I was tortured with electric shocks, beaten with cables.” Denying however that he was a hero, he said he had been ashamed of the suffering he had seen in his conflict-wracked country and had seized the opportunity to insult the man he held responsible. He added: “For me it was a good response; what I wanted to do in throwing my shoes in the face of the criminal Bush was to express my rejection of his lies and of the occupation of my country.”

Zaidi added: “At the time that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on television that he could not sleep without being reassured on my fate ... I was being tortured in the worst ways, beaten with electric cables and iron bars.” He said he wanted an apology from Maliki, adding that his guards had also used simulated drowning on him - the technique of water boarding used by the Americans on suspects arrested over the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. “I am now free but my country is still captive. I am not a hero, but I have attitude and opinions,” he said. “I feel humiliated to see my country suffer, my Baghdad burning, and my people killed.” The 30-year-old journalist’s family and friends ululated, clapped and danced when they heard the news by telephone at their home in Baghdad. They have prepared a sheep for slaughter in celebration of his homecoming. Zaidi faces the prospect of a very different life from his previous existence as a journalist for Al-Baghdadia, a small, privately-owned Cairo-based station, which continued to pay his salary in jail. His boss has promised the previously little-known reporter a new home as a reward for loyalty and the publicity that his actions, broadcast live across the world, generated for the station. But there is talk of plum job offers from bigger Arab networks, lavish gifts such as sports cars from businessmen, guaranteed celebrity status, and reports that Arab women from Baghdad to the Gaza Strip want to marry him.

Helping countrymen: Without ruling out a return to work as a journalist for his old TV station, Zaidi told reporters he wanted to help Iraq’s widows and orphans, victims of the country’s war. “I am going to concentrate on humanitarian work and will occupy myself with widows and orphans,” he said.

[Lady Macbeth]

Good going Zaidi.......and well done for surviving the torture! I still wish your aim hadnt missed the mark.

[Al-Zakir]

September 16, 2009
Man who threw shoe at Bush, Muntazer al-Zaidi freed after jail 'torture'

Richard Kerbaj in Baghdad

The Iraqi journalist imprisoned for throwing his shoes at the former US President George Bush said yesterday that he had been waterboarded, electrocuted and repeatedly beaten.

Muntazer al-Zaidi — who had a front tooth knocked out and his nose broken during his nine months in prison — also said that he would name senior Iraqi government officials whom he accused of having a hand in his torture.

The reporter, who refused to apologise for throwing his shoes at the former President, demanded an apology from Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, for allegedly misleading the public about his treatment behind bars. “I was being tortured with the most hideous kind of tortures: electric shocks, beating with iron rods,” he said at a press conference at his former workplace, al-Baghdadia television.

He said that Mr al-Maliki’s public assurances that he was being cared for in prison coincided with him being “left until morning handcuffed in a place that didn’t protect me from the pinching cold of the winter, after they drowned me with water.
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“I demand from him to apologise for covering up and keeping the truth from people,” Mr al-Zaidi said. “I will talk later about the names that got involved in torturing me, including some senior officials in the Government and army.”

Despite his defiance and smart appearance, Mr al-Zaidi appeared physically weak and sometimes required help. While his friends celebrated his release and his family embraced him, his brother held his hand for support. Mr al-Zaidi shook as though he were braving a sudden chill.

Asked by The Times how he was feeling, he managed a faint smile. “Not too well,” he said. “But that’s OK.”

Ali Khdayar, a family member, pointed to pockmarks on Mr al-Zaidi’s head. “That’s from the cigarettes that prison guards used to burn his face with. He got even more scars and damage that’s hidden by his clothing.”

Last night Mr al-Zaidi left on a private jet for Syria on his way to Greece for medical check-ups, according to his brother Uday.

His cousin, Haidar al-Zaidi, said: “Muntazer will go to Greece for medical treatment because he was injected with unknown chemical drugs and he suffers from a continuous headache.”

The journalists’s story dominated the news in Iraq yesterday, where his “heroic” deeds were their top bulletin. Everyday conversations in Baghdad were dominated by his release.

He became world famous for hurling his size 10 shoes at Mr Bush at a press conference last December during the President’s final visit to Baghdad and also called him a dog — two of the worst insults in the Middle East. Mr Bush ducked the flying footwear but the attack was a major embarrassment to Mr al-Maliki, who was standing next to him.

There is now talk of Mr al-Zaidi becoming a TV presenter on established Arabic networks. He has even received unsolicited proposals of marriage from around the region.

Mr al-Zaidi said that the media hype surrounding him was less important than what had happened to Iraq. “I am now free but my country is still captive,” he said. “I am not a hero . . . I feel humiliated to see my country suffer.

“If only the people who blamed me knew how many times have the shoes that I threw stepped in houses demolished by the occupation and how many times they mixed with the blood of innocent people and how many times they entered houses that have been violated.”

He was convicted in March for assault but his three-year sentence was cut to one year on appeal because he had no criminal record. It was reduced again for good behaviour.

Mr al-Zaidi’s lawyer, Dia al-Saadi, praised the justice system for allowing his client to be released early. “The court order of the release expresses the integrity and justice of the jurisdiction,” he said.

The Iraqi authorities have denied allegations that Mr al-Zaidi was tortured in prison but after his news conference Sami al-Askari, an adviser to Mr al-Maliki, said that the allegations should be investigated.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6836185.ece

[Xeric]

Threads merged.

[Jana]

Article by Iraqi Journalist Muntazer Al-Zaidi who threw shoe on former President, published in The Guardian. Just read it.




Why I Threw the Shoe



I am no hero. I just acted as an Iraqi who witnessed the pain and bloodshed of too many innocents



By Muntazer al-Zaidi



September 19, 2009 "The Guardian" -- I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.

I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib, The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.

The opportunity came, and I took it.

I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.

I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.
If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.

Ends