 NEW YORK - An international media watchdog called Wednesday for the release of a Sudanese news cameraman detained at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who is suffering from throat cancer. Sami Al Haj of the pan-Arab TV station Al Jazeera was arrested by the Pakistani army on the Afghan border in December 2001 and has been held at Guantanamo Bay by the US military since June 2002.
“Aside from the fact that Guantanamo Bay is a legal and humanitarian scandal, the Americans seem to be holding Al Haj simply because they have it in for Al Jazeera,” the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. “How else can you explain the fact that he has been held for four years without being charged while other journalists have been cleared and released in no time at all?” the statement said.
| Among the various possible reasons are he had advance knowledge of where to set up his camera for various al-Qaeda festivities ... |
The watchdog cited Al HajÂ’s London-based lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, as saying that his client was suicidally depressed and was being denied treatment for his throat cancer.
| Categorical nonsense: no American military prison medical system will deny an inmate needed medical care. If he has throat cancer, he's getting treatment. |
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