You may remember a few days ago I mentioned that Khalid, the brother of the Iraqi blogger Raed in the middle, and himself a blogger, had been taken away by the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi Secret Police that seemed to have survived the invasion and are thriving under American control. Well he’s been freed now finally, and due in no small part I’m sure to his international connections, and he’s written a very long but very chilling account of his arrest and detention.

Some excerpts:

Another guy came after a while, and asked me: who did you contact on the internet?
“my mother and brothers” I said.
He didn’t look satisfied.
“keep him” he said.

Next thing I know, a very fat policeman entered the small room, asked me to face the wall, searched me again, took my money and glasses, put a bag on my head and handcuffs in my hand (I still have the marks on my hand till now). While my hands were behind my back and my head in a bag, he made me run for about a minute, till we reached a police van, where I was forced to get in. The car starting moving towards an unknown destination…

———–

Then it was my turn:))

“Finally!” I told myself!

They started by asking me: “What’s the connection between you and the London Bombs?” !!!
And I was like: “haaaaa???!!.”. I said: “London Bombs???! Nothing!”

BANG!!

A heavy hand landed on my neck, my brain was too busy to feel the pain, I felt my neck numbing for a while.

“SPEAAAK” he shouted.

“Turn around” he yelled.

I turned, facing the room now, but not seeing anything other than my nose and the shoes of the person who was interrogating me, standing so close.

“Why do you have a beard?” he asked.

“Because the prophet…” (I was trying to tell him that prophet Mohammad had one, and that I have one because I love to look like him…)

BANG

He slapped me on the face. It made a loud noise that the room became dead-silent for some seconds….

————-

Then finally I understood why I was there, after few hours. Security guards at the university had printed out all the websites I was reading while I was online there. They were accusing me of “reading terrorism sites” and “having communications with foreign terrorists”.
“Do you know what these pages are?”
I looked at them and figured out they were the comment section of Raed in the Middle!!
I opened the comments section while browsing in the university, read some comments, and didn’t even post anything. But these people don’t seem to know what the internet is, and they don’t speak English, so I was a major suspect of being an assistant of al Zarqawi maybe! Or that I have a terrorist group of my own, with foreign connections!

Please read this entire entry, Khalid was arrested for surfing the internet, nothing else. As you read the entry and ponder that fact remember my previous posts about Kevin Benderman, an American soldier found guilty of a trumped up charge simply because he asked for consideration as a Conscientious Objector. Remember too that American soldiers have been jailed for having blogs and writing about conditions in Iraq and remember that all this represents the “democracy and freedom” that bush is bringing to the Middle East.

It appears more likely he’s bringing the practices of Saddam’s Mukhabarat to the United States, muted somewhat, modified a bit, but the process is the same.

Remember, the Secret Police are now operating as agents of the US Military and occupation forces, we are training them, we are equipping them, and we are sanctioning their actions.

It is being done in your name and it ought to bother the hell out of you.