Transitional Justice Forum

Arabic media responses to Saddam trial

Posted by Helena Cobban at 14:12 | TrackBack

How have the recent stages of Saddam Hussein's trial in Iraq been reported in the Arabic-language media? This is a non-trivial question, especially if one prime goal of war-crimes courts is to effect the "re-education" of populations about the non-negotiatibility of the requirements of international humanitarian law.

I have been able to do a little tracking of this coverage, mainly from the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat. (To which, I should note, I also contribute a monthly opinion column.)

Hayat has a large reportorial team in Iraq, and today's issue carried two interesting articles: this one, with some general reporting on the work of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, and also on related political issues in the country; and this one, carrying what it describes as the first interview that IST chief judge Rizgar Muhammad Amin has given to any media outlet.

The paper also has a short part in this article in which correspondent Basil Muhammad quotes Judge Amin as saying that, "Saddam is innocent until proven guilty." That seemed to be a small out-take from the longer interview-- also by Muhammad-- that is noted above.

The longer account of that interview seems on a quick first glance to have mainly a human-interest-y focus. (The title is: "He said he likes swimming, reading, literature, and going on trips, and he follows politics but is not political... Judge Rizgar to 'Al-Hayat': I allow Saddam to talk about politics because I have a big heart! And I don't talk about the court with my family and friends and I ask other people not to talk about it.") But maybe a close reading would reveal matters of some greater substance there....

The other article is titled, "Iraqi officials opposed the freeing of 25 former officials and the court indicates the reversal of the capital charges [against them]... The trial of Saddam resumes today with his presence and the prosecution will present documents including an execution order." (Many Arabic newspapers love those long headlines!) It's presented on Hayat's web-page with a photo showing Saddam and his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti both standing up in their respective portions of the defendant's "pen" inside the courtroom, with arms raised in angry gesticulation.

This piece, written by Heba Hati and Kelshan el-Bayati, starts off with this news:

Today will be held the sixth day of the trial of the deposed president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and his seven colleagues in the case of the killing of more than 140 Shiites in the village of Dujail after a failed assassination attempt to which Saddam was subjected in 1982, amidst accusations made by the Organization for the Support and Defense of Saddam [OSDS] that the Iraqi Prosecutor General (Attorney General) Jaafar al-Musawi [engaged in] "blatant intervention" in its affairs with his revelation of its request to call 40 witnesses.

Regarding this latter issue, in the text of the story, the OSDS is described as "completely denying" that it had any plans to call 40 witnesses in the Dujail case. I'm assuming that if it did plan to call witnesses, this would signal a much greater degree of cooperation with the working of the court, and thus a stronger recognition of the court's legitimacy, than the OSDS is currently prepared to grant. (I believe that the OSDS still has a request outstanding for a hearing by the court on its own legitimacy.)

Hati and Bayat write further on in this piece,

At the same time, tens of Iraqis joined a demonstration on Tuesday in the city of of Amara demanding Saddam's execution. The demonstrators gathered in the city center carrying signs saying "No to neglect", and "We want justice, oh rulers" and they were shouting, "Death, death to Saddam" and "Yes, yes to execution."

Meanwhile, Iraqi officials opposed the American decision to release 25 former Iraqi officials with a declaration of their innocence and their sickness, at the same time that the special criminal court [the IST] stressed in press releases that it did not recognize their release and that it will issue them with accusations of war crimes.

The imminent release of those 25-- who included the biologist Rihab Taha, nicknamed "Dr.Germ" in the west-- was announced by the US late last week, apparently as part of the policy of reaching out politically to leaders in the Iraqi Sunni-Arab community in the run-up to the recent elections. Whether the 25 have been released, and their precise location at this point, both still seem unclear. There are reports that eight of them have already been freed. But as of today, the US were reported as still seeking a "safe haven" for the releasees.

The al-Hayat reporters added, on that subject:

Sadeq al-Musawi, the political advisor to the President of the Republic Jalal Talabani told al-Hayat that the presidential council did not know about the news of the freeing of the 25 former officials. He added that the government is not happy with this decision because the freed detainees were high leaders in the deposed Baath Party, and freeing them and their departure from Iraq will have consequences both in the political operation and in the current trial of Saddam and his colleagues.

The reporters then say that (un-named) sources told them that in fact a meeting had taken place between the Iraqi Justice Minister, Abdul-Hussein Shandal, and one of the US commanders of the Abu Ghraib prison, in which the officer gave Shandal some of the names of the detainees "and told him of the desire of the US forces to release them because they were innocent and sick-- without asking his opinion in the matter!"

This article-- like several others in the pan-Arab media-- gives some indications of the many ways in which the operation of the IST is enmeshed with the continuing contests for power and legitimacy in today's Iraq. It gives evidence of some of the popular passions aroused in the Iraqi public by the trial; and it also shows the extent to which the "legitimacy" issues-- for both a court and a government that are supposed to be authentically Iraqi, but that are in fact propped up in crucial ways by US military power-- still remain unresolved.

For example, Saddam and his co-defendants are only a few of the many thousands of Iraqi nationals who are currently held in detention facilities inside their country that are still controlled by the US forces. (The Hayat article-- and some Western rights organizations-- put the number of such detainees at 10,000.) The fact of US control over the detention of these individuals evidently gives the US authorities the ability to dispose of their cases according to its own political calculations, even if this causes extreme embarrassment to the allegedly soveriegn Iraqi authorities.

Inside the courtroom, meanwhile, early reports of today's session-- like this one-- describe a Saddam Hussein who continues to mount periodic challenges to Judge Amin's control of the agenda and the general mis-en-scène in the courtroom.

This report, from Al-Jazeera's English-language website (and attributed only to "Agencies") introduced an interesting new twist. The piece led with the accusation Saddam had made in the courtroom today that he had been "hit by the Americans and tortured." The piece then added:

The trial's chief prosecutor said that if American-led multinational forces had abused Saddam, he would be transferred into the custody of Iraqi troops. The prosecutor, Jaafar al-Mousawi, said he would investigate.

The Jazeera piece also noted that at the end of Thursday's session the trial "is likely to be adjourned again until mid-January because of the announcement of Iraq's election results, holidays and the Haj, the annual pilgrimage to Makka."