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From: Democracy Now!
Re: Rundown 7-16-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
Iran Admits its Security Forces Beat to Death an International
Journalist; her Son Demands the Return of her Body to Canada
INTRO: Zahra Kazemi was taking pictures of a notorious prison
in Tehran. Democracy Now! speaks with her son, her friend,
a Doctor who spoke with witnesses of her beating by Iranian
police and a member of Committee to Protect Journalists.
Trading With the "Enemy": Halliburton & GE
Make Millions Trading With Iran
INTRO: As head of Halliburton and as U.S. Vice President,
Dick Cheney lobbied to remove sanctions against Iran to allow
his business to profit off the Iranian dictatorship.
U.S. Freelance Reporter Billy Nessen Faces a Five Year Sentence
in Indonesia
We speak with filmmaker David Martinez who traveled with
Billy Nessen through Aceh, former U.S. embassy official Edward
McWilliams and Lesley McCulloch who was jailed in Aceh.
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:20 Iran Admits its Security Forces Beat to Death an
International Journalist; her Son Demands the Return of her
Body to Canada
INTRO: Zahra Kazemi was taking pictures of a notorious prison
in Tehran. Democracy Now! speaks with her son, her friend,
a Doctor who spoke with witnesses of her beating by Iranian
police and a member of Committee to Protect Journalists.
The Iranian government has finally admitted that they beat
an international journalist to death. She was in Tehran covering
protests by students demanding reforms.
Zahra Kazemi, a dual citizen of Canada and Iran, was detained
last month for taking pictures of Tehran's notorious Evin
prison, where many dissidents are jailed.
She was later taken to a hospital where she died last Friday.
She was 54 years old.
Iran’s government spokesman announced Kazemi’s
death on Saturday. He also added that she was treated as an
Iranian because she had remained an Iranian national.
Iran's President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday ordered four
ministers to investigate her death.
Conflicting reports have emerged over the status of Kazemi’s
body over the last few days.
Canada's ambassador to Iran said yesterday that the body
has not been buried.
Kazemi’s son, Stephan Hachemi, said on Monday he believes
his mother has in fact been buried in Iran and is demanding
the body be returned to Canada. He added that if his grandmother
authorized her burial, then she did so under pressure from
Iranian officials.
Kazemi's death has coincided with a widening crackdown against
journalists, student leaders and pro-democracy activists carried
out by conservative clerics who control the judiciary and
shadow security services.
Over the weekend Iranian authorities arrested five more journalists
were arrested over the weekend by Iranian authorities. bringing
the number of journalists presently imprisoned in Iran to
22.
- Melanie Navarro, friend and colleague of Zahra Kazemi.
She is an assistant editor of Montreal’s Recto Verso
magazine.
Link: www.rectoverso.info
- Dr. Ramin Ahmadi, an Iranian-American physician. He is
an assistant clinical professor of medicine at Yale University
and the Director of the Griffin Center for Health and Human
Rights.
- Joel Campagna, Middle East and North Africa senior coordinator
for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Link: www.cpj.org
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:40 Trading With the "Enemy": Halliburton
& GE Make Millions Trading With Iran
INTRO: As head of Halliburton and as U.S. Vice President,
Dick Cheney lobbied to remove sanctions against Iran to allow
his business to profit off the Iranian dictatorship.
In other news from Iran, the country announced this week
the discovery of one of the largest oilfields in the world.
Some 38 billion barrels of oil are believed to be in the oilfield
found in southern Iran making it one of the most lucrative
oil finds in years.
Iran says they are looking for foreign companies to invest
in the oilfield. It will be a tempting deal even for U.S.
companies that are barred from dealing with Iran.
Recent news reports indicate that the subsidiaries of several
American companies have been quietly trading with Iran for
years. These companies include Halliburton, GE and Conoco.
According to Money Magazine, in 1997 when Vice President
Dick Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO, the company paid
$15,000 fine for improperly shipping oil field equipment to
Iran.
Cheney also lobbied both as head of Halliburton and as Vice
President for the U.S. to lift sanctions against Iran and
Libya.
According to a new article in Mother Jones, Halliburton currently
has at least two major projects in Iran. Along the Iraqi border,
a subsidiary of Halliburton is helping to build one of the
world’s largest fertilizer plants. Another Halliburton
subsidiary is providing a $226 million drilling rig to the
Iranian National Oil Company.
Meanwhile GE is also doing work in Iran. A Canadian subsidiary
of GE has provided Iran with four hydroelectric generators
to expand a dam along the Kuran River. And an Italian subsidiary
of GE is supplying pipeline equipment and gas turbines for
Iran’s oil industry.
This all comes despite the fact that Iran is one of the seven
nations listed by the State Department as a state sponsor
of terror. The other nations are Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya,
North Korea and Cuba.
Until recently the dealings of Halliburton and GE in countries
like Iran got little attention. But a new financial company
has begun tracking which companies have investments in the
nations on the State Department’s list.
The company is Conflict Securities Advisory Group and it
has created a massive database that lists which countries
deal with all of the countries on the State Department list
except Cuba. The Group has found that there 35 major U.S.
companies that have operations in these countries. Overall
some 375 publicly traded companies around the world are operating
in these countries.
- Roger Robinson, CEO and President of Conflict Securities
Advisory Group, Inc. He is the former chairman of the William
Casey Institute and served as the Senior Director of International
Economic Affairs at the National Security Council under
President Reagan.
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 U.S. Freelance Reporter Billy Nessen Faces a Five
Year Sentence in Indonesia
INTRO: We speak with filmmaker David Martinez who traveled
with Billy Nessen through Aceh, former U.S. embassy official
Edward McWilliams and Lesley McCulloch who was jailed in Aceh.
U.S. freelance journalist, William Nessen, is facing five
years in prison in Indonesia. He is being held and interrogated
by the Indonesian police officially on immigration charges.
The Indonesian military has accused Nessen, an accredited
journalist, of spying for the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The
GAM had been fighting for an independent homeland on the northern
tip of Sumatra island for over a quarter of a century.
They recently signed a ceasefire with the Indonesian military,
which the military then broke.
Indonesian troops have killed thousands of Acehnese over
the last decade.
Nessen has closely followed various movements working for
human rights and independence in Aceh.
He returned to Aceh shortly before May 19th, the day President
Megawati Sukarnoputri declared martial law in Aceh and activated
50,000 Indonesian troops to crush the independence movement
there. They have killed many civilians since.
As a journalist, Nessen was traveling with the GAM, which
is leading the struggle for the Acehnese independence.
The Indonesian military demanded Nessen surrender by June
14th. He hid in the jungle which is under fierce attack by
the military demanding he not be questioned and be allowed
to leave the country.
He surrendered on June 24th and is being held in Banda Aceh,
the capital of the province of Aceh.
His mother tried to see him on Tuesday but was forced to
return to the Indonesian capital because she lacked permission
to be in the region, which is under martial law.
- Indonesia: The Dirty War in Aceh” – A clip
from Jonathan Miller’s documentary.
- David Martinez, filmmaker who traveled with Billy Nessen
through Aceh.
Link: www.subcine.com
- Edward McWilliams, former political counselor with the
US Embassy in Jakarta.
- Lesley McCulloch, nurse in Aceh, jailed on Visa violations.
8:58-8:59 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, Sharif
Abdul Kouddous, Lenina Nadal, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press,
and Vilka Tzouras. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro and
engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Rousseau, Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender,
Rich Kim, Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Jenny
Filipazzo and Ionnis Mookas.
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