Giuliana Sgrena, Italy's unembedded journalist kidnapped 2/4/05

[flordehinojos]

Link to article written by Luciana Bohne at Online Journal follows.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/021205Bohne/021205bohne.html

Sgrena was a "...a journalist who intended to interview the refugees of Fallujah, victims of the American occupation."

(snip)

Simona Torretta and Simona Parri, the two humanitarian workers of "Un ponte per Baghdad" (A Bridge for Baghdad), abducted from their Baghdad office and freed on 28 September 2004, know Giuliana Sgrena well and have issued a statement on Il Manifesto after her abduction: "During the war, she showed the Iraq that no one saw—that of the civilians hit by the bombs. She was one of the first journalists to collect evidence of rape among women detainees at Abu Ghraib. Giuliana is much loved by Iraqis. They recognise her great humanity and her passion for truth. Hers is a woman's glance . . . The last time we saw her in our office in Baghdad we congratulated her on her new exhibition of photographs from Afghanistan. They were portraits of women. We were struck by the extreme dignity in those women's eyes."

(snip

Among Italians of conscience today, in this hour of her ordeal, Giuliana is embraced as "one of our own, the people of peace." Today, the "people of peace" are decking the Colosseum and other prominent sites all over Italy with Giuliana's portrait. Mayor after mayor, regional council after regional council, town after town, are passing resolutions demanding that the government engage all its resources to secure her release, followed by the to pull-out from Iraq of the 3,000 "coalition" troops in "Operation Ancient Babylon" (a grotesque and pompous misnomer—as though the reality and the people of modern Iraq didn't exist or didn't matter!), Berlusconi's feudal tribute to his overlord in DC, George Bush.

(snip

Giuliana Sgrena's life is in peril in Iraq, where the horror has ceased to be horrible because it has been so barbarically and unnecessarily normalized. The illegal invasion of Iraq has indeed turned out to be that ultimate Nuremberg-tribunal crime: the crime against the peace. From this original crime, all others have derived. Well might we reflect on Sgrena's prophecy at the beginning of the war: "This is the most absurd of wars and it will be a bloodbath." If only she hadn't been so damned right!
...................................................................

IS ANYONE IN OUR OWN AMERICAN PRESS RAISING THEIR VOICES OUT OF CONCERN FOR THE LIFE OF GIULIANA SGRENA? Hardly, and that in itself is a crime, I believe- Flordehinojos

[EFerrari]

1. I did see a clip on one of the cable channels. But nothing

really.

I hope this strong smart woman is able to negotiate her freedom.

[flordehinojos]

2. although not stated in so many words in the Bohne piece, I read or read

somewhere, that one of the most obscure theories about her abduction, in the form of a question is ... who would have an interest in keeping her from talking to the survivors of the Fallujah attack? And the answer most frequently given is, Certainly, Not the Iraqis!

Should we here in these here United States be appealing to the Bush Forces to release here from wherever they have taken her? The implication being that the Bushes have an interest in keeping her from talking to the survivors of the Fallujah attack.

[EFerrari]

3. Oh God. Not surprised. These people will do anything.

She'd have a better chance at the hands of people who don't speak her language, don't believe women should be out and about and who are furious with Westerners.