“Reporters without Borders” in connivance with US Government

February 8th, 2006 at 13:49 Björn Hallberg

Another media watchdog goes to the dogs. Sami al Hajj was kidnapped while on assignment and subjected to the most egregious abuse imaginable before being flown to Guantanamo. The next three years were spent under intense pressure make him admit to some sort of “relationship between Al Jazeera and Al Qaeda.” Reporters without Borders however, which has traditionally been active in denouncing crimes against and detention of journalists, has been strangely quiet. Just like in every other case which goes against the interests of the US.

Voltaire Network - The silence kept by the freedom-of-the-press Reporters without border (RSF) organization about Sudanese journalist Sami al Hajj raises many questions on the impartiality of that association headed by Robert Menard. RSF, which is always willing to stigmatize- usually arbitrarily- those countries targeted by Washington such as Cuba, Venezuela and China, has fully ignored the torture suffered by Al Hajj, a journalist with Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV chain.

The conspiracy between RSF and Washington has already been evidenced in the case of Spanish cameraman José Couso, who was murdered by coalition troops. In its report the Parisian organization exonerated the US armed forces from all responsibility despite strong proofs.

US authorities rejoice about the RSF tendentious reports and even use them in their propaganda war against Cuba.

Similarly, RSF received fees from the National Endowment for Democracy, an entity dependent on Congress and in charge with promoting US external policy.

Another NGO to look out for. And I don’t need to point this out anymore, but this agenda has a two-pronged effect. First it shines a light only on certain states and as such furthers US hegemony. Second, it makes people distrustful of NGOs (and rightly so). NGOs are problematic to Washington since they often are international and work according to multilateral, democratic principles. Also, as an added bonus, when people turn on these compromised NGOs, Washington can falsely portray this as just stifling free speech. Like we have seen in Russia.

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