Arresting Iraqi school children

Schoolchildren arrested by armed US soldiers and masked translators for demonstrating against the occupation and in support of Saddam.

“Two days ago there was a demonstration after school finished, against the coalition and for Saddam. Yesterday the American army came and surrounded the whole block. They just crashed into the school, 6, 7, 8 into every classroom with their guns. They took the name of every student and matched the names to the photos they got from the day before and then arrested the students. They actually dragged them by their shirts onto the floor and out of the class.”

They wouldn’t give their names. The children at Adnan Kheiralla Boys’ School in the Ameriya district of Baghdad were still scared, still seething with rage. Another boy, Hakim Hamid Naji, was taken today. “They were kicking him,” one of the pupils said.

... “The translators had masks or scarves because maybe they are from this area. They came and they chose several students and they took them. The demonstration started after school on Tuesday. I advised them not to do it because I am their teacher and the Americans don’t care. The children had pictures of Saddam Hussein from their text books and that’s all, so they demonstrated and just said we want Saddam Hussein.

“There were no leaders, this wasn’t an arranged demonstration. It comes honestly, some of the students say, we love Saddam Hussein. Some of the students say no, we hate Saddam Hussein. I told them, it’s OK, let them love him and let them hate him, we can all express our opinions. There are no weapons, there is no bombing.”

“I told them you have to educate people about freedom, not punish them, but they brought tanks and helicopters. Yesterday they surrounded the school and came in with weapons everywhere, soldiers everywhere and used tear gas on the students. They fired guns to scare them, above their heads. One student got a broken arm because of the beating. They had some sticks, electric sticks and they hit the students. Some of them were vomiting, some of them were crying and they were very afraid.”

...One of the boys told me, “Only 40 kids out of all of us were on the first demonstration but after the raid, we will all go out on Saturday after school and demonstrate against the occupation. They have turned us all against the American soldiers. We don’t care about their tanks, we don’t care about their machine guns, we don’t care about their prisons any more.”

Welcome to American-style freedom.

Read the rest of the account.

....or do what you want....you will anyway.