Muntadhar Al-Zaidi on Al Jazeera

Muntadhar Al-Zaidi on Al Jazeera
by Layla Anwar
arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/09/muntadhar-al-zaidi-on-al-jazeera.html

Part I
September 26, 2009
I have done a simultaneous translation of Al Zaidi meeting with Al Jazeera Ghassan Ben Jeddu in an exclusive interview part I. Please consult my tweets on Twitter (click here) for the full translation. I will try to put it in a post form later on.
Layla Anwar's tweets about Muntadhar Al-Zaidi's interview

My HERO al Zaidi live on al Jazeera Arabic with Ghassan Ben Jedu. I dont like Ghassan at all.

My HERO has the OLD IRAQI flag on - YES !!!

Al Zaidi is thanking all of you out there who supported him
He says he has no respect for the invader G.Bush.
He wanted to erase the false pretended image that Iraqis welcomed Americans with flowers.
He says he saw limbs of children in rubbles , these images amongst others were printed in his heart.
He says that his pen dried, and his voice was muted, and other journalists were silent.. the only thing he had left was his shoe !
He said he could have not done anything and live a comfy life, or face the invader and take revenge...and pay the consequences.
he threw the same shoe that he wore during 50 days in Sadr City and in Mosul
He was expecting to be killed before doing his act. He gave his silver ring to his friend just in case.
American security searched the journalists in a humiliating and brutal way.
they gave him a badge saying welcome to the news conf. of the White House in IRAQ !!!!
He is talking of the raped women and the elderly having the boots of US soldiers on their heads, he talks of Sadr city massacre by F16
He said he saw a beheaded girl in Sadr city by the American bombs. He said he was ready for martyrdom for the Iraqi cause.
He professed the Shahada and asked for forgiveness from Allah, and was ready to throw his shoe in the face of Bush. He was a little hesitant
He said to himself if i dont do anything I will be a coward all my life...I will die as a coward because my self will not forgive me
he had prepared his shoe,and he said as an ARAB he could not hit Bush from the back but only from the front. Only face to face.

He gave his journalist badge so his fellow journalists would not be killed.

When he threw his first shoe the world stopped and saw nothing
but bush and the blood of Iraqi innocents.
Al Maliki security guards beated him with his mouth closed and with their rings leaving marks on his face. The American security told no don't hit him.
The Iraqis my brothers do this me, and broke my tooth by punching me on the face they pulled him from the conf.rm as he was deliberately screaming so the world can hear him. they dragged him from his feet
like israelis did to palestinians. his glasses fell off and he remembered Omar Al Mukhtar. He calls them the IRAQI ZIONISTS.

then they carried him and threw him on the floor, tore his clothes down and dragged him on the floor and tied his hands with electrical cable
then dragged to a muddy pool naked in the cold and was hit with a metal rod breaking his fingers, all over his body until the guy got tired

then they asked if he was shia or sunni and called him AQ and he refused to answer. he said am a muslim and then said am from the south

they insulted my dead parents and said my name is Muntadhar MAHDI, then americans arrived so they stopped beating me.
He saw the US boot the iraqis feared the americans. He felt that was even more humiliatiing.
All ministers were watching from afar, they threw a blanket on him
so others don't see his wounds.
He was put in a small van then to a house and then broke his nose, bleedlng all over, hands torn, and a doc wires, electrocuted, while he was wet, 220 Volts, and broke a table on his back. And he felt he was going to die.
They got him a track suit and asked him to eat.
He was still bleeding from all over. He did not eat. They insulted him again and his dead parents-

They took him again in another van to another place 150m from Maliki's office. They kept beating him and they left him with no blanket
and he was not allowed to go to toilet.
He called on the guards and managed to unwrap his hands and blindfolds. the house was empty he thought I can escape and they would call him a criminal escapee. He tied his hands and blindedfolded himself again. the torturer walked in and threw freezing water in january on him and started to flog him with an electrical cable. And they were laughing while doing that.

He kept flogging him and he was wishing to lose consciousness. Samir Haddad the doc came in again. His body was purple. The doc asked him
to confess...which party, which movement. they would terrorize him and stamp on his broken foot. and ask him for which country he worked
he says maliki never visited him he was lying.

Part I is over, part II is next week.