Spain's sentencing of Al-Jazeera reporter brings further to question just how free media in the West really is, writes Serene Assir Al-Jazeera reporter was sentenced in Madrid last week to seven years after he was found guilty by the Spanish High Court of collaborating with Al-Qaeda; of using his position as a journalist to establish contact with the terrorist organisation and channel funds to its heads from Europe. While Spanish Judge Baltazar Garzon in part based his verdict on secret DVDs and recordings of phone calls which allegedly proved that the reporter provided political assistance to Al-Qaeda, the point that has raised heated controversy is that the prosecution also used excerpts of Allouni's televised interview with Osama Bin Laden weeks after 11 September 2001 as evidence against him. "Had it only been a case of terrorism, the prosecutor should never have used this interview as part of the accusations," Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement released shortly after Allouni was sentenced. The global non-profit organisation, which works to protect the rights of journalists, deemed problematic that the prosecution found Al-Jazeera's choice of Allouni to interview Bin Laden suspicious. What reporters both in the West and in the Middle East are now worried about is that the very nature of journalism -- which demands the protection of sources and freedom of association on professional grounds, regardless of the sensitivity of the political situation -- has been challenged to its core. "It is inherent in the nature of the work of any professional journalist to meet and extract information from players on all sides of the political spectrum," head of the London-based Arab Press Freedom Watch organisation Ibrahim Nawwar told Al-Ahram Weekly. "In the case of Allouni, he cast doubt on his intentions by meeting Al-Qaeda heads." What journalists are arguing is that such doubt should not, in principle, be applied to the work of a reporter. "What is particularly telling about the political motivation behind this case," said Hussein Abdel-Ghani, head of Al-Jazeera's Cairo bureau, "is the fact that when the United States-led coalition launched its offensive into Afghanistan, Allouni was the only reporter who was working on the ground to broadcast the violent truth about the invasion and the occupation." Prior to moving back to his home in Spain -- where he has lived for 20 years -- from Iraq, Syrian-born Allouni was heading Al-Jazeera's office in Kabul. And while he was, in his youth, affiliated to the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is little evidence to suggest that he has engaged in any political activity in more recent years that could incriminate him of collaborating with Al-Qaeda. Moreover, "although the trial of Allouni is political in nature," Nawwar told the Weekly, "that his journalistic work was put under the spotlight caused the greater reverberations across the world. For it relates directly to the way in which new anti-terrorist acts, created and enforced following 11 September 2001 throughout the West and the Third World, are restrictive in their very nature of citizens' rights." "Think also about how this will affect journalists operating in war zones," Nawwar went on to say. "A good case in point is that of reporters working in Iraq, who consistently move between the occupation and the resistance forces -- for both sides provide the sources to a balanced story." "The extra dimension to Allouni's sentence," Abdel-Ghani told the Weekly, "is the clear message that has been delivered to journalists working the world over: that at any given point, we could, in our pursuit of fulfilling our professional obligations, find ourselves tried and charged." The precedent that the Allouni trial sets by default lowers the standards of journalistic immunity in the West, where press freedom has been historically far more respected than in developing nations. "What the creation of the anti-terrorist acts really means in countries such as Spain, the US, Britain and France is that we in the Arab world no longer have the option of citing the West as a role model in terms of freedom of expression," Nawwar said. "On the contrary, what these countries have essentially done is copied the systems that exist in the developing world and changed the name of the laws from emergency laws to anti-terrorist laws." The main problem that journalists and human rights associations working to protect press freedom cite in relation to laws created after 11 September 2001 is that they provide governments with more leverage over the determination of the innocence or guilt of a given suspect charged with conspiring with terrorists. In particular, in the case of reporters who meet sources of all political tendencies, however controversial, "this atmosphere creates fear, and thus seriously hampers the work of any media outlet," Nawwar said. Another important case in point is that of The New York Times reporter Judith Miller, notorious for providing full support for the US invasion of Iraq, who was released last week from jail after 60 days for protecting a source -- Lewis Libby, who works with US Vice-President Dick Cheney -- who leaked that the George W Bush administration's propaganda on Iraq's alleged importation of uranium from Nigeria was false. The journalist never published the report, while Matthew Cooper of the Times did. Nevertheless, members of the highest echelons of the US political hierarchy chose to hound the high-profile Miller in its push to expose Libby, who had betrayed their trust outright. Again, organisations working with reporters condemned the way in which Miller was treated by the US government for protecting her source. "From Egypt to Cameroon to Venezuela," said Ann Cooper, executive director for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, "this case has been cited to justify the jailing of journalists and the repression of press freedom." Despite increased pressures on journalists working ethically and according to the norms and freedoms of the profession, "they must continue to work to fight to get the truth out," Allouni's wife Fatma told the Weekly. That truth, however, demands the full protections ideally granted to a reporter working under dangerous conditions. When the state itself undermines the minimal protections that exist, rendering all journalists suspect, it is far easier for journalists to be considered legitimate political targets. The Lebanon case has proven the point time and again. May Chediac, a Lebanese journalist for LBC channel, was targeted by a bombing attack that left her maimed for life. Long-time writer Samir Kassir lost his life earlier this year. No statement by a journalist, however incendiary, should license a personal attack, whether legally supported or physical in nature. Such attacks only further obscure objectivity and quality in reporting, depriving the journalistic profession of its very purpose: to inform the public of the oftentimes-dark truth about power.
