Iraqi TV

Iraqi ‘justice’ by television

Looking cowed and frightened, a young man, identified by his full name and sitting directly in front of the camera, is being bullied and browbeaten by an interrogator who remains out of the picture.

“By what authority did you do these things?”

“Sir, they led us astray with their fatwas and offering us money.”

“Do you realise that everything you did is perfidy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This Mullah Mahdi who gave you fatwas is a dog. He is scum. I’ll get him within 72 hours and put him on TV, God willing.”

“God willing, sir.”

Ibrahim confesses to involvement in a series of attacks, and abducting and killing Iraqi policemen, national guards and others.

He says he was paid $100 (£52) per operation by his commander, or emir, who, he says, is homosexual.

It is all part of the battle to quell the insurgency in Iraq, with the interim Iraqi authorities making use of all their weapons, including propaganda.

Every night the government-run al-Iraqiya television station carries lengthy confessions, under interrogation, from people like Ibrahim, who it says are captured insurgents.

The broadcasts have stirred a lot of interest among the Iraqi people, but unease among foreign observers who see it as an echo of the ousted Baathist regime’s discredited practices.

The televised confessions, on a programme called “Terror in the Hands of Justice”, are shown at prime time every night, and are clearly aimed at shocking the Iraqi public.

For many ordinary Iraqis, accustomed for three decades to the ways of the old regime, such televised confessions – a local form of reality TV – are normal, and they find them compulsive viewing. Few seem to doubt their authenticity.

But the practice of parading prisoners making confessions obtained in questionable circumstances is way out of line with international standards of justice.

Sounds great.

I guess attempts at ‘westernizing’ Iraq stop at economic concerns. Although I suppose this doesn’t sound awfully different from our court tv.