CPTnet
April 5, 2004
IRAQ UPDATE: March 20-25, 2004

Saturday, March 20
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) interviewed a friend of the
team. He was frustrated afterwards that he was not allowed to speak
intelligently about the situation in Iraq, because the anchorwoman asked
only shallow questions. "Why did she only ask me, 'What does it sound like
when the bombs go off?'" he asked afterwards.

Sunday, March 21
A couple who are friends of the team came to the apartment to ask for help
because the wife's brother had just been detained. Jane MacKay Wright and
Le Anne Clausen accompanied the couple to a number of military bases around
Baghdad trying to find the man. Each base sent them away, saying they
didn't have the person anymore and insisting the other base had him in
custody. [See April 1 release, "The Search for Khaled."]

Monday, March 22
Matt Chandler, Sheila Provencher, Stewart Vriesinga and a translator
traveled with a Swiss television crew to Balad and Abu Sifa. The crew
interviewed human rights lawyers in these locations about their struggles
with the military administration in the area and not being able to advocate
for detainees.

 In Abu Sifa, a police officer from the village said that six of the eighty
detained men from the village were officers with the Iraqi Police. The
community made the group lunch and they ate together in the remains of a
house bombed by U.S. forces in December. A woman in the village who was
over a hundred years old invited the team to stay the night.

Team members then went to the Palliwoda/Tiger Forward Operating Base (FOB)
and met with Major Hert. There they voiced concerns about local peoples'
negative impressions of the U.S. Army in that area. Hert listened intently
and said he would try to arrange a meeting with Lt. Colonel Huber, the new
base commander, before a joint meeting with the military and human rights
lawyers on Wednesday.

Clausen and Wright went back to the Stadium military base and detention
facility with the couple they accompanied Sunday. On the way home from the
military base, the couple spoke of other friends who had been harmed by
occupying U.S. troops. One was a doctor from Tunisia whose car broke
down. He and the car were crushed by a tank which ran over them rather than
driving around them. Another man whose car also broke down near a hospital
was filling the radiator when U.S. soldiers nearby began calling him dirty
names. The man, who understood English, yelled back at them and got into
his car to drive away. The soldiers then fired twice into the vehicle,
hitting him in the chest through the back of the driver's seat. He has
since recovered. The couple offered to check with the families to see if
they would allow an interview by team members and the press.

Tuesday, March 23
Vreisinga encountered several U.S. soldiers on a street near the team
apartment who asked about his red hat. They had heard about an organization
in town who wore red hats and thought they were new to town. Vreisinga
explained the team's work on
detainee issues. The soldiers responded, "If you ever have a detainee in
this area, let us know and we will help you." They also expressed an
interest in communicating further.

Provencher and Wright traveled to Baquba, a city north of Baghdad, to meet
the family of a high-level Shi'a cleric detained by U.S. forces since
August. The two were also welcomed warmly by locals at the city's main
mosque. The team is adding the cleric to the list of cases for the detainee
letter-writing campaign in North America.

Wednesday, March 24
While at a currency exchange shop, Wright conversed with the owners, who
were Shi'a and believed that all Iraqis detained by U.S. forces were
thieves. When she asked about the detained Shi'a cleric in Baquba, they
were shocked, not having known that he was imprisoned.

Vreisinga and a translator traveled to Balad for a meeting between U.S.
Military officials and local human rights lawyers. On the way, they missed
the highway exit and spent a long time trying to get on the right road. The
translator said, "Well, maybe this is God's will. Perhaps there was a bomb
on that road." When the car made it back to the right road, they came
across a U.S. convoy that had just been ambushed.

They went to the Palliwoda/Tiger military base in Balad to seek a
preliminary meeting with the new commanders. They didn't get a meeting but
chatted with the soldiers at the entrance. One soldier identified himself
as a Christian and said he felt the problems in Iraq were due to the
Muslims. He said he was also frustrated with his non-Christian bunkmates
who were having a bad influence on him. The other soldier identified
himself as an agnostic and said he felt that religion itself was the
problem.

When they arrived at the location for the other meeting, the U.S. military
officials had not shown up. An Iraqi human rights lawyer who was to
participate in the meeting told Vreisinga, "Perhaps they are afraid because
you asked too many questions they couldn't answer last time." Vreisinga
asked the lawyer if he was upset with the team for asking the questions. He
replied, "Well, you told him the truth, and they could not handle the
truth."

Later, Vreisinga returned to Palliwoda/Tiger base and spoke with Captain
Goodfriend. Goodfriend assured him that all prisoners which had been
detained since his unit's arrival were being tracked and monitored, and all
detainees without concrete evidence against them were being released. He
also said the military officials missed the meeting because they were
earlier at a public meeting with local officials and a man opened fire on
them. He felt the person who opened fire in the meeting was targeting the
local officials rather than the soldiers present.

Goodfriend also mentioned that the Balad chief of police and two of his
security guards were assassinated.

On the way home, a large military convoy blocked off the road. The two took
a lengthy detour back to Baghdad along the Tigris river.

Provencher and a translator went to Baghdad and Mustansiriya Universities to
confirm arrangements for holding the vigil there. While administrators at
Baghdad University were welcoming, officials at Mustansiriya wanted to
change plans because of heightened Shi'a/Sunni tensions on campus.

Thursday, March 25
At the vigil, Sheila Provencher gave interviews to two Iraqi newspapers.
She also had a