What The Imperial Press Censors Want Blocked

[Jacuma]

by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Censorship goes by many names in the United States. Taste is one of the favorite euphemisms. Sensibility is another. -- Amy Goodman, *The Exception to The Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, And the Media That Loves Them* (Hyperion: 2004) (with David Goodman)

Now that the Imperial Presidency has tamed, co-opted, or intimidated the nation's press, sufficient to support an illegal and unjust war in Iraq, the empire has worked overtime overseas to discipline the Iraqi press. While the White House and Pentagon propaganda machines have been boasting about 'bringing democracy' to the people of Iraq, a free and independent Iraqi press isn't part of this equation. Remember the military and media assaults on Moktada Al-Sadr, and the rebels of Fallujah? That struggle began when the US tried to close an Iraqi newspaper that was reporting on American atrocities against the Iraqi people.

For months, the American Overlords in Iraq and in Washington have leveled their guns and their criticisms at the Qatar-based Arabic news agency, Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera has drawn the ire of the US government, and the corporate media, for daring to report on civilian casualties in Iraq. One US spokesman, Dan Senor, said, "We have reason to believe that several news organizations do not engage in truthful reporting. In fact, it is no reporting" (*Atlanta Journal-Constitution*, 4/12/04).

Al-Jazeera's airing of the deaths of women and children, of the killing of innocent civilians, drew American ire, not because their reports or videos were inaccurate, but because such reporting enraged the Iraqi people, and provided support for the Iraqi resistance. That, to US government officials, and corporate media, was unprofessional, and unhelpful reporting.

And then came the pictures from Abu Ghraib. Suddenly, reports about American torture against Iraqis didn't sound like 'propaganda' anymore. If these photos originated on Al-Jazeera, or any other Arab news agency, then it would've been dismissed as 'propaganda.' But these were photos taken by Americans, and many were shared with friends and family back home. But the real deal is that most Americans have seen only a bare smattering of photos from Iraq, The Pentagon, and the Senators who have seen them, have barred them from American review. Americans, who glory in a 'free press', are not allowed to see what their sons and daughters have been doing in Iraq.

Al-Jazeera has released truly horrific photos of American soldiers raping an Iraqi woman, *out in the open*, on the bare ground.

Don't take my word for it. If you have internet access, you can probably locate Al-Jazeera Network on the web. I don't have internet access, but saw several grainy, black and white photos of three, camouflage-wearing soldiers on a chador-wearing woman, face-down in the dirt, mounted from behind, and the same three men, standing around the same woman, as she is giving oral sex to one of the men. It is stunning.

The photos were printed in the newly-published *World Wind* newspaper, from Oakland, California. If Iraqis are seeing these images, then there is no question why the armed insurgency and resistance is so pronounced in Iraq. Indeed, a recent issue of *World Wind* was confiscated by the prison, on the grounds that its cover contained, "Racially inflammatory material or material that could cause a threat to the inmates, staff, and security of the facility ...." [Fr. DOC Incoming Publication Disapproval of 6/18/04 to M. Jamal].

I haven't the faintest idea what is on the cover of the latest issue of *World Wind*, but it dawned on me that this censorship and confiscation by a prison staffer, was remarkably similar to what's happening to the allegedly "free" American people by its 'free press', and it's representative, democratic government.

They too are in prison; they just don't know it. They are imprisoned by their illusion of freedom.

Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Source: *World Wind Newspaper*, 3307
Sarazen Ave., Oakland, CA. 94605;
Phone: 510-395-2341; E-mail:
theworldwindnews@yahoo.com]


Read Mr. Jamal's latest work, *WE WANT FREEDOM:
A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South End Press
www.southendpress.org Ph. #1-800-533-8478.

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Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
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175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

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