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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
US Occupation Forces Draw up New Rules for Press Censorship
of Iraqi Media
INTRO: Officials say the code is not intended to censor
the media, only to “stifle intemperate speech,”
but Iraqi journalists who endured censorship under Saddam
Hussein are protesting the decision.
The U.S. and U.N. Refuse to Provide Protection for Witnesses
of Massacres: Dr. Sima Samar, Chair of the Afghanistan Independent
Human Rights Commission
INTRO: “We keep asking the [UN] Human Rights Commission
for an inquiry and investigation into [the mass graves]…I
don’t know why it’s delayed…because we do
believe in peace with justice…but there is a lot of
argument that they don’t want to exchange stability
for justice.”
Former Congressmember Cynthia McKinney Speaks about the
War Abroad and the War at Home
INTRO: “All Americans are being asked to sacrifice
so that a few can get butter while the masses get guns.”
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:20 US Occupation Forces Draw up New Rules for Press
Censorship of Iraq Media
“Freedom’s untidy.” These are the words
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld uttered when faced with
increasingly difficult questions at a Pentagon Press briefing
on April 11.
Rampant looting had broken out across Baghdad. Buildings
were set on fire all over the city. Workers at the Baghdad
National museum had fled and the museum was being gutted of
its archaeological treasures.
Rumsfeld told reporters: “It’s untidy. And freedom’s
untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit
crimes and do bad things."
Evidently, the same rule will not apply to the free Iraqi
press.
Last week, US occupation forces devised a “code of
conduct” for the Iraqi press.
Officials say the code is not intended to censor the media,
only to “stifle intemperate speech that could incite
violence and hinder efforts to build a civil society.”
Material deemed provocative will be threatened or shut down.
The decision has drawn protests from Iraqi journalists who
endured censorship under Saddam Hussein and were punished
if they strayed beyond the official line.
Dozens of daily and weekly newspapers have sprung up in the
capital since the fall of Saddam’s regime in April.
The Washington Post describes the situation as “a raucous
rush of unfettered expression.”
- Borzou Daragahi, freelance reporter in Baghdad. He broke
the story on the new US “code of conduct” for
the Iraqi media, in the Associated Press.
Link: http://www.borzou.com
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:40 Former Congress Member, Cynthia Mckinney, Speaks
about the War Abroad and the War at Home
The Congressional Budget Office predicted yesterday that
the federal budget deficit will top $400 billion this year.
The estimate is twice what the office projected in January.
Economists said the soaring deficit is a result of President
Bush’s tax cut and increased defense spending related
to the war in Iraq.
Last weekend, former congress member of Georgia, Cynthia
Mckinney, spoke at an event in Washington D.C. About the war
abroad and the war at home.
- Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Representative, speaking
on May 31, 2003 in Washington, D.C.
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights
Commission, Dr. Sima Samar, Speaks about Security, Reconstruction
and Mass Graves in Afghanistan
Afghanistan is in a state of chaos. The latest developments:
Hundreds of peacekeepers held a memorial service in Kabul
yesterday to honor four German soldiers killed in the deadliest
attack yet on the multinational force. The four soldiers and
an Afghan civilian were killed on Saturday in a suicide bomb
attack in Kabul. Nearly 30 peacekeepers and several Afghan
bystanders were injured.
Also yesterday, US troops came under attack on the Pakistani
border. They killed four suspected Taliban members in the
ensuing three-hour gun battle.
The day before, attackers fired four rocket-propelled grenades
at an Afghan government post in the same region.
Those are only the attacks we hear about as they happen.
But Barry Bearak reports in The New York Times Magazine that
sniper ambushes on Afghans employed to clear landmines occur
almost daily.
It is no secret that outside of the capital city of Kabul,
Afghanistan is run by warlords. Bearak’s 7,000 word
piece in the The New York Times Magazine was the cover story.
The cover blared: “Warlord-i-stan,” with a close-up
picture of “His Excellency Ismail Khan -- ruler of the
ancient city of Heart.” The warlords control their own
armies, with tanks and artillery, and refuse to disband them
to help form the fledgling Afghan national army. Most of the
warlords have at one time or another been on opposing sides
in civil war
Dr. Sima Samar is the chair of the Afghanistan Independent
Human Rights Commission. During the six-month interim Afghan
government, Dr. Samar served as the Minister for Women's Affairs.
According to the Guardian of London, Dr. Samar led a group
of women to confront the warlords during the loya jirga to
choose the new Afghan government exactly one year ago. Dr.
Samar set the tone when she said: "This is not democracy.
This is a rubber stamp. Everything here has already been decided
by those with the power. This jirga includes all the warlords.
None of them is left out." Then, her deputy, Taj Kokar,
and a group of women delegates confronted the former president
Burhanuddin Rabbani. Kokar asked, "Why have you killed
and raped our women? Why do we have so many widows in this
country?"
President Hamid Karzai turned her down for the post of Women’s
Affairs Minister in the new government after conservative
religious factions launched a campaign of slander and intimidation
against her.
Today, in Washington, D.C., Dr. Samar receives a new United
Nations human rights award.
- Dr. Sima Samar, Chair of the Afghanistan Independent
Human Rights Commission.
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
9:00-9:01 Billboard:
9:01-9:06 Headlines
9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Break
9:07-9:20 As Attacks on US Soldiers Continue in Iraq We Talk
to Robert Fisk who Just Returned from Fallujah
INTRO: Britain Independent’s chief foreign correspondent
discusses the growing revolt among Iraqis, the so-called road
map to peace in the Middle East and on his meeting with Hamas
leader Abdul Aziz Rantissi
An article in the Independent of London on June 6 begins
like this:
“From high over Iraq yesterday, President George Bush
cast his Olympian eye over ancient Mesopotamia after praising
the Americans in Qatar who had "managed" the war
against Saddam Hussein. But far below him, on a dirty street
corner in a dirty town called Fallujah that Mr Bush would
prefer not to hear about, was a story of American blood and
American power and American boots smashing down the front
gates of Iraqi homes.
” "She's got a gun," an American soldier
shouted when he caught sight of a woman in her backyard holding
a Kalashnikov assault rifle. "Put it down! Put the gun
down!" he screamed at her. The soldiers were hot and
tired and angry. They'd been up since 3am, ever since someone
fired a grenade at a lorry-load of troops from the 101st Airborne.
You could see why Mr Bush chose to avoid any triumphal visits
to Iraq.
“Survivors of the ambush were among the soldiers yesterday,
remembering the early hours as only soldiers can. "They
fired a grenade at a two-and- a-half ton truck full of the
101st Airborne and then straffed it with AK fire and then
just disappeared into the night," one of them told me.
"The guys were in a terrible state. One of our soldiers
was dead with his brains hanging out of his head and his stomach
hanging out, and there were eight others in the back shouting
and pulling bits of shrapnel out of their legs."
“Before dawn, the Americans came back to wash their
comrades' blood off the street. Then they returned once more
to deal with the people who live in this scruffy corner of
the old Baathist city of Fallujah.”
- Robert Fisk, Independent reporter, recently back from
Fallujah, Iraq
9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break
9:21-9:40 ROBERT FISK CONT’D
9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break
9:41-9:58 Shock Radio/TV Host Michael Savage Sues Online
Critics
INTRO: Websites savagestupidity.com, www.michaelsavagesucks.com
and www.takebackthemedia.com face $500,000 for backing a boycott
organized by GLAAD.
He calls gays and lesbians “perverts.” Immigrants
he says are from “Turd World Nations.” He calls
Asians “little soy eaters.”
And filthy rats is how he describes his critics of his show.
We are talking about shock radio and TV jock Michael Savage
who is at the center of a new free speech lawsuit. But the
lawsuit is not over his controversial remarks on his nationally
syndicated radio show or on his MSNBC but on what his online
critics have said about him.
Savage became the center of controversy in March when MSNBC
hired him to host a weekly show. He was hired shortly before
Phil Donahue was fired. Donahue said after he was let go,
“The hiring of Mike Savage, Dick Armey and Joe Scarborough
suggest a strategy to out-Fox FOX.”
When MSNBC announced the hiring of Savage, the Gay &
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation launched a campaign to
urge advertisers to boycott the show. As a result, Procter
& Gamble, Dell Computer Corporation, Casual Male, The
Sharper Image and two others withdrew from sponsoring Savage's
show.
Similar campaigns targeted advertisers on Savage’s
national radio show.
Now Savage’s radio distributor Talk Radio Network is
suing three websites that have critiqued his show and supported
the boycotts.
The websites savagestupidity.com, michaelsavagesucks.com
and takebackthemedia.com
face a $500,000 lawsuit.
According to a report on the news website Alternet, the suit
charges that by endorsing a boycott of advertisers called
for by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation the
groups are causing Savage financial damage by unjustifiably
interfering in his business relationships with program advertisers.
The suit also charges defendants with violating the US Copyright
Act by rebroadcasting portions of the program and by parodying
images of Savage.
Yesterday we tried to reach Michael Savage, representatives
at Talk Radio Network and the network’s attorney. They
did not return our calls. But we do have a clip recorded on
Michael Savage’s radio show on February 27, 2003 responding
to critics who were backing the boycott of his show.
- Thomas Leavitt, founder of the website savagestupidity.com
which is being sued by Michael Savage’s radio distributor
Talk Radio Network
Link: www.savagestupidity.com
Tape: Michael Savage, recorded on his radio show December
9, 2002
- John Sonego, director of communications for GLAAD, the
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
Link: www.glaad.org
- Paul Levy, attorney with Public Citizen representing
the website Savagestupidity.com being sued by Talk Radio
Nation, the network that broadcasts Michael Savage’s
radio show.
9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press
with help from Noah Reibel and Vilka Tzouras. Mike Di Filippo
is our music maestro and engineer. Thanks also to Uri Galed,
Angela Alston, Emily Kunstler, Orlando Richards, Simba Rousseau,
Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Karen
Ranucci, Fatima Mojadiddy, Denis Moynihan and Jenny Filipazzo.
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