Spanish inquisition
Spain's arrest of a top Al-Jazeera journalist is a watershed in journalism, courtesy of the war-on-terrorism era. Amira Howeidy reports
| Update 11 September 20:00 GMT: SPANISH Judge Balthasar Garzon ordered Thursday Al-Jazeera correspondent Tayseer Allouni be held in jail indefinitely on charges he aided Al-Qa’eda network. |
Prominent Spanish Judge Balthasar Garzon, who issued the arrest warrant for Al-Jazeera journalist Tayseer Allouni last Friday, is naturally taking his investigation of Al-Qa'eda activities very seriously. But on the other side of the Mediterranean, scepticism reigned high as the news sank in.
Allouni, a Syrian-born Spanish citizen and one of Al- Jazeera's top journalists, was arrested at his summer house in Granada on allegations of links with the First-World's bogeyman, the Al-Qa'eda terrorist network. Allouni's extensive coverage of the US-led war on Afghanistan two years ago, which included an exclusive interview with Al-Qa'eda leader Osama Bin Laden, boosted Al-Jazeera's professional image, winning it international attention. Is this coverage now a charge against him? Are well-sourced Arab journalists working on security sensitive files now targets of the undefined global war on terrorism, observers asked?
Following a three-hour closed hearing on Monday, Garzon extended Allouni's detention for 72 hours, a period ending today, pending investigations.
According to Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Balout, Allouni is being investigated on allegations that include his having carried amounts of money varying between $1,000 to $4,000 from Spain to Syrians living in Chechnya, Turkey and Afghanistan, between 1995 and 1999, and having links with Mohamed Atta, a suspected ringleader of the 9/11 attacks.
"Allouni completely denied any contact with Atta but said he carried amounts of money to families in Afghanistan. This could be considered support for Al-Qa'eda, while Allouni views it as [humanitarian] support for families, which it was," Balout told Al-Ahram Weekly.
The arrest warrant accused Allouni of having links to "important members" of Al-Qa'eda and using his position as a journalist to get an interview with Bin Laden. "But this charge was withdrawn in the hearing," Balout said.
Earlier reports quoting court sources in Madrid said Allouni was suspected of relaying secret messages to Al-Qa'eda operatives in Europe and of belonging to the same cell as Imad Eddim Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Al-Dahdah, who is being held in Spain on suspicion of playing a role in the 9/11 attacks.
Under anti-terrorism legislation in Spain, Allouni is expected to be released after today's hearing or indicted.
Al-Jazeera's spokesman seemed less disturbed about the legal ramifications of the case, albeit dubious of its political implications. "The judge didn't seem convinced with the [charge] file as it is, which explains why he's still waiting for information [requested by Madrid] from three countries," Balout said, placing emphases on the "timing" of the arrest, which came a day before Allouni was scheduled to go to Qatar after spending a month and a half in Spain.
"Why did they wait till the last minute to arrest him? In my personal view, I think the timing is significant," Balout said. "The situation in Iraq isn't going in the direction the Americans want. Al-Jazeera and the other Arabic [satellite TV} channels are exposing this. I find Allouni's arrest directed against the Arab media."
Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Helal offered another reading. "The [Spanish] authorities wanted information from Allouni to help them in their investigation," Helal told the Weekly. "They know he's a professional journalist with links and information that could help them, but he refused to cooperate despite the pressure they exercised on him [in the past.]" Helal said that Allouni had avoided going to Spain as a result but was "lured" into returning recently after receiving "assurances" that he wouldn't be subject to harassment.
"If Allouni gives out information it will be a catastrophe to Al-Jazeera as it will completely undermine the credibility of its journalists as trustworthy professional people," he added.
Garzon, a high profile and internationally respected judge, spearheaded the campaign to extradite the former Chilean military ruler, General Augusto Pinochet, from London to Spain for human rights abuses. The judge is said to harbour political ambitions as well. Observers familiar with this background found his decision to arrest Allouni without sufficient evidence rather surprising, if not unnecessarily damaging to his impeccable reputation as a principled investigator.
To the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) the situation "looks like developing into an international witch-hunt" against Arab-language media.
"Over the past year there has been an expression of irritation by western, particularly American, officials over the work of some Arab media and Al-Jazeera in particular," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary.
The France-based Arab Commission for Human Rights, the Madrid-based Arab Cause Solidarity Committee and the Cairo- based Arab Organisation for Human Rights issued statements condemning the arrest, which they described as a serious attack against freedom of expression. The vast majority of Arab Press syndicates took similar stands. But the strongest protests came from Pakistan, which witnessed a demonstration on Sunday objecting to Allouni's detention and demanding his immediate release. A silent march is scheduled in front of the Spanish embassy in London tomorrow.
As the Weekly went to press on Wednesday, Allouni's Spanish lawyer seemed optimistic that he would be released within 24 hours.
But for many reporters, especially Arabs, a new threat has been added to their difficult profession. "We're now in a situation where a reporter risks his life and security to do his job, gets information for people so that they know what's going on, then this reporter is criminalised for doing that," Balout said. "It is time to elaborate regulatory norms for the profession to protect it from political and security- motivated attacks."
But in the modern world were technology collapses thousands of miles of distance into a moment of communication, the growing role of a media that can transmit news about events as they happen is competing with the influence of security apparati and governments. A strong and independent Arab station such as Al-Jazeera thus seems undesirable in this context as explicitly expressed by top officials of the world's super power. Indeed, footage of the US defence secretary or even state secretary criticizing the Arabic channel for broadcasting this or that has become an all-too-familiar scene.
The bombings of Al-Jazeera's offices in Kabul in 2001 and Baghdad this April -- the latter killing Al-Jazeera reporter Tarek Ayoub -- seem to illustrate that the chosen targets of the US-led global war on terrorism are too often Arabs guilty only of seeking to expose the truth about that very war.
