Posted by Raed, the brother of Khalid:
On another note, it seems that the new Iraqi courts don’t guarantee the right to lawyers: prisoners are neither offered the help of a public defender nor can they bring their own lawyers. News about my sibling is so confusing, but we’re expecting to know more tomorrow. There are more than ten thousand people in the US prisons in Iraq, and other thousands in Iraq’s governmental and paramilitary jails. Everyone deserves to have the right of a phone call to inform his family about his location and status after being arrested, everyone deserves the right of having a trial and knowing what he or she is charged with, and everyone deserves to have a lawyer for his trial.
This was posted Sunday; since then, there has been no new news. I wonder if the Iraqi government is toying with them, trying to get their hopes up and then dashing them down. And still Bush refuses to demand that the Iraqi government respect basic human rights standards.
But if any harm comes to Khalid for speaking his conscience, the wrath of the whole world will be visited on the Bush administration and the Iraqi government.
You may still sign the Free Khalid petition; the number of people signing has more than doubled since Sunday.