Good news from Iraq:
DUBAI (Reuters) – U.S. journalist Micah Garen was on Sunday freed by an Iraqi group who had held him hostage in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya.
“I am very grateful to everyone who worked to protect me and guarantee my release and I thank my friends in Nassiriya and my family and fiance who spent three months with me in Nassiriya,” Garen told Arab satellite television Al Jazeera by telephone.
He was speaking from the Nassiriya office of rebel Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
“Today he was brought to the office of Sheikh Sadr in Nassiriya and he is now there. We have called the human rights body in Nassiriya to come and receive him,” Aws al-Khafaji, an aide to Sadr, told Al Jazeera.
Garen, of New York-based company Four Corners Media, said he was seized while taking pictures with a small camera at a market in Nassiriya.
“People misunderstood what I was taking pictures of. There was a misunderstanding,” he said without elaborating. His comments were translated into Arabic by the channel.
It’s wonderful that they released him unharmed, but I can not believe he still feels comfortable staying in the country and continuing to work.
You are welcome for the info Kevin. That’s what I’m best at doing. It doesn’t surprise me tho that they let a journalist go – the Iranians, the terrorists, the insurgents, the Mehdi militia, et al, are not in the business of killing journalists, thank God or should I thank Allah?
Actually I read the story of Allah, so to speak on http://hammorabi.blogspot.com but it’s so badly written and I could poke hundreds of holes in it for none of it makes any sense to me at all – screwed up Religion, screwed up story – no wonder there is so much chaos over it.
But they do not want the journalist dead because they like to have the journalists embedded with them so we can see if from their angle. NUTS if you ask me. So it seems journalists are basically safe for the most part. He was lucky it was not Zawari because I don’t think he cares one whit about kidnapping and killing.
My neighbor thinks that is we blow up Mecca, and Bethlehem&Jerusalem and all the HOLY sites, then we’d be out of this mess a lot quicker. When you think about it, THEY are using that against us. Right now, they really don’t have to hurt us, just say they’re going to – see how well Al Qaeda has pervaded our lives? This site shows that very well.
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink and they have indeed changed our lives drastically since 9/11. Why are we allowing THEM to terrorize us so that everything we do has to be held with such high security every where? We have turned into exactly what they wanted us to be. And that infringes on everyone’s rights in this country built on freedom.
~C
~C