Dear All, I am sending this urgent message to call your attention to the fact that Salaam Al-Jubouri, an Iraqi journalist and a member of the Jury of Conscience at the June 2005 World Tribunal on Iraq in Istanbul has been imprisoned in Camp Bucca, run by the U.S. Army and Air Force near Umm Qasr just north of the Kuwaiti border.

As I understand it, Salaam and several Western journalists had been held hostage by the resistance in a house near Basrah; the house was raided, the Western journalists were set free and Salaam was sent to Camp Bucca pending an investigation. I strongly believe that Salaam’s participation in the Istanbul WTI may be the principal factor that has put him under suspicion by the U.S. military. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” Those who interacted with Salaam in Istanbul will remember him as a serene and gentle young man. It is incumbent upon the WTI community [as well as on groups of journalists, etc.] to mount a co-ordinated campaign demanding the release of Salaam and other Iraqi journalists. I suggest that the leadership of the WTI in Istanbul and the BRussels Tribunal co-ordinate the campaign.

Many thanks to Cathy Breen and David Engels for their vigilance.

Tom Fasy