Sun 9 Jan 2005
Published in The Post-Standard, Jan 9, 2005.
I have been attending the trial of Dr. Rafil Dhafir for two days a week since it started in October.* Before attending this trial I was under the mistaken impression that the newspaper’s job was to inform the public so that people would have a basis for judgment as to the innocence or guilt of a person. My experience of the paper’s reporting on this trial shows me that my belief couldn’t have been further from the truth.
The Prosecution could not do a better job of presenting their side of the case to the public if they were writing the newspaper articles themselves. I’m appalled at how significant evidence for the Defense is often ignored by the paper. Or, if mentioned at all, it is buried under big damning headlines. What happens in the courtroom and what is reported in the newspaper often have only a passing resemblance to each other.
If you who read this care about civil liberties and another citizen’s right to due process, please come to the trial and hear the evidence for yourself. Over half a million Iraqi children under the age of five died as a direct result of the sanctions imposed on Iraq. Dr. Dhafir’s actions may in fact have helped save many lives. Doesn’t Dr. Dhafir deserve the right to be held innocent until proven guilty? Shouldn’t we as citizens in a democracy help ensure this right, even if the newspaper denies it?
[* I started attending the trial two days a week but very quickly realized I needed to be there full time; this was too complicated to explain in a short letter.]
January 24th, 2005 at 12:54 am
I am grateful that Katherine Hughes is going to Dr. Dhafir’s trial and alerting the public to the biased coverage of the Post-Standard. Ever since 9/11 the U.S. Government has in many respects thrown the Constitution out of the window. When the country was founded, people seemed to understand that governments often have agendas other than justice, and that is why we have the Bill of Rights and (supposedly) the rule of law.
Since 9/11, however, the government has turned the rule of law on its head: now it is the law of rule. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have been secretly incarcerated without being told what they are charged with, or who is charging them. Amendment VI to the Constitution: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in hi s favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” That’s the whole Sixth Amendment, no omissions. So what is a “public trial”? A trial where the government doesn’t tell your family where they’ve taken you, or that you’ve been taken? This is what the Guatemalans, where the practice originated, call “disappearance.” Our government is now disappearing people and holding them in Guantanamo, as well as in other places around the world.
And all because they’re of Arabic or Middle Eastern background, or maybe like Dr. Dhafir they have an “h” in a strange place in their name. This is enough for some people: Guilty! Apparently the Post-Standard feels that way. Too bad. We really do need the press these days, because democracy and the rule of law are sinking into the mire.
So Dr. Dhafir is having the benefit of a trial. Good. But for a newspaper editor to put agenda-laden headlines over the text of a report of his trial, and most likely edit the reports so they imply guilt-that is a grave travesty of the objectivity we must have from our press if we’re to have anything approaching democracy.
I have no firsthand knowledge of this trial, or of the defendant. However, what’s happening to Dr. Dhafir has happened to many other people in this country after 9/11.
If only every citizen were required to sit through two or three public trials, and then read the newspaper accounts every day of those court sessions. It would be a remarkably enlightening experience.