The First Casualty by Peter Greste

Author:Peter Greste
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9781760142254
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

The cases of the missing journalists were widely discussed in prison.

During the interrogations in the earliest weeks of our arrest, we were taken to a holding cell in the basement of the National Security directorate that had the look and feel of a dungeon. At the time, Foley and Cantlie were only rumoured to be missing, and Sotloff’s kidnapping had yet to be reported.

The cell was a large concrete box, its walls scarred with graffiti left by hundreds of bored prisoners trying to kill time. For some, it was a simple ‘Abdulahi was here’. Others left Qura’nic verses and political slogans.

Sometimes there were dozens of men crowded in, all of us on serious charges related to national security and terrorist offences. Some looked to me to be frightened innocents who had been swept up in police operations hunting for extremists in the slums of Cairo. Others were not only open about their violent hostility to the government but seemed genuinely proud of it.

Many of them carried the marks of torture – some had fresh wounds such as festering acid or cigarette burns; others had older scars from beatings or electrocutions. We were often held there for hours on end in large groups waiting until our interrogators sent word that they were ready for us, and a prisoner’s name would be called before they were yanked out of the cell, cuffed and marched up for questioning.

In the meantime, we talked, with someone who spoke English whispering translations to those close to him.

‘They [the journalists] should never have gone to Syria,’ sneered one self-confessed jihadi. ‘I don’t know what’s happened but they had no business there. They just wanted to spread more lies about Islamic State.’

‘They were journalists trying to do their jobs,’ I protested. ‘They were doing what they’re supposed to do, what we’re all supposed to do – to go and see for ourselves what is really going on so we can report what we see rather than just what we hear. How can they be punished for that?’

‘Impossible. They are Westerners. Christians. They can’t understand what Daesh [Islamic State] is trying to do. They hate a place that lives with Islamic ideals, and never understand why that is such a beautiful thing to us. The West is corrupted – so far from what God wants for us that nobody from there will ever understand. They will only say things that make right bombings and killings of innocents. So those journalists who went to Syria – they are just spies, propagandists. Maybe they will be released – for their parents, I hope so – but maybe no.’

‘But that is no excuse for kidnap,’ I said. ‘And if it is such an Islamic utopia, then what’s wrong with having others come and see? What are you so afraid of?’

‘You never report the truth,’ another said. ‘You only report what you think your readers want to hear. You only say that we are all murderers and rapists. And yet you ignore the fact that there are so many Muslims from around the world who are going to live in Daesh territory.

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