"In the name of Allah Most Gracious, Most Merciful,

Assalaamu Alaikum

When I was first asked to speak at this honourable gathering I hesitated a bit due to the state of despair I'm living in. But suddenly a flag of the thousands of people marching through the streets of London rekindled my belief in the brethren of mankind in truth freedom and justice.

We must ask ourselves the question. Why in the 21st century there are still double and sometimes triple standards for the value of human life. Your life is worth nothing or $35 sometimes if you are an Afghani killed in Kabul in a wedding reception by bombers, its worth nothing if you are an english cameraman trying to reveal the truth in Palestine such as James Miller, your life and the life of your families are worth nothing if you are Tareq Ayyoub, if you are Gaby Rado, if you are Jose Couso, and if you are Mazen Dana, its still worthless if you are an American peace activist standing in the face of an Israeli bulldozer trying to save a Palestinian home from being destroyed.

As a Muslim, and I am very proud of being one, Islam taught me that no matter how different people seem to be there is always an arena in which they can meet and co-operate with the difference of all. I used to believe that diversity creates enrichment. I was never a defeatist or a pessimist.

Everyday I wake up with the intention of carrying on. Everyday I wake with the intention of following the silver lining in the clouds covering my life. Everyday I sleep putting myself to bed hoping that tomorrow will be more optimistic and more hopeful, but these hopes vanish as I cry myself to sleep.

This is my last family picture - this is Tareq, a loving father and husband, this is Tareq the correspondent of Al-Jezeera news in Baghdad, and this is Taqir dead. And this is my life - a collection of pictures and memories...

Last Tuesday was my twenty seventh birthday, I celebrated in tears waiting for the bouquet of roses that never came.

The only words that were repeated over and over in my mind was those of the american general who said when asked about the killing of my husband, "sorry but we don't know the location of journalists accept those that accompany our troops. Is this what I'm supposed to tell my two year old Fatimah, that the people who killed her father say sorry but they didn't know through their maps through their accurate radars and even collaborators the location that we gave previously by Al-Jezeera over to the Pentagon that they didn't know that her father and his colleagues were there, and the bombs were led astray to land on her fathers heart killing him instantly - is this what I'm supposed to tell her?

Two year old Fatimah, now fatherless

Am I supposed to tell her that the people who killed her father were never brought to justice and were probably awarded military honours for their performance during war?

May be my life or happiness came to an end on that Tuesday, April the 8th, but I still have one last dream. I still have a dream that Fatemah and your children, and the children of the world will live a better future of security, love and understanding. Oh yes, I have a dream that sunshine of freedom will shine in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq and every place with untold sorrows in the world. I have a dream that no more wives will lose their husbands, children their parents, and families their loved ones. I have a dream that Ali the Iraqi child whose family were burnt in to ashes and he himself was burnt left amputated will find a helping hand and a loving heart to embrace him. I have a dream that children like Muhammad al-Durrah in Palestine, Iman .. the children of the world who died in this daily war will rest in peace.

There is a proverb which says the elders die and the youngsters forget. I hope this gathering today will be a challenge to that and that our anger, sadness and rage will be a driving force to stop and prevent war.

I am very grateful to be given the chance to speak to you today, but be assured that there are millions of people over there suffering silently without being noticed or heard, please try and reach them with a sincere deed because a sincere and strong deed is worth a million words. Please don't make Iraq another Palestine. Please don't let us gather 50 years from now speaking still about Iraq as we still do about Palestine. Please lets gather here again to celebrate the freedom of both. Thank you very much, may Allah bless you and your families.

The war on al-Jazeera
The US is determined to suppress the independent Arab media

Dima Tareq Tahboub
Saturday October 4, 2003
The Guardian

When my husband decided to go to Baghdad, he knew that I would protest. He told me that I was exaggerating the risks; that there was nothing to be afraid of because he was a reporter, an objective witness, neither on this nor that side, and because of that was protected by world protocol. He bid us farewell, apologising for having been so busy. He promised to make it up to me and our daughter, Fatimah, when he returned.

Tareq left for al-Jazeera's Baghdad office on April 5. He called me when he arrived - the journey was hellish, he said. He sounded exhausted, because he was sleeping only three hours a day, between shifts. Back home in Jordan, our life wasn't any better; we could hardly sleep and sat mesmerised in front of the TV waiting for Tareq to appear in a live report so we'd know he was OK.

On the early morning of April 8, I was still awake at 6am and saw his last live report, in which he described the situation in Baghdad as being very calm and quiet. I was relieved and went to sleep, only to wake up one hour later to the sound of my mother crying and yelling.

At first, I didn't know what had happened. I brought a chair and sat trembling in front of the TV. The house was suddenly full of people. I couldn't see or hear anyone. I was waiting for the film to end. I was waiting for the hero to appear and end all evil. I was waiting for the story of my life to end with "and they lived happily ever after". I couldn't cry, I was just listening to the news, seeing again and again all through the day how the Americans bombed the al-Jazeera office and killed my husband.

I teach English translation. Once, when I was lecturing on the translation of political terminology, with reference to the UN charter and the declaration of human rights, one of the students said: "How can the US say that this war has a noble cause and a humane agenda? All the dictionary definitions of war involve bloodshed and overwhelming destruction." Another student joined in: "Don't tell us about charters and so-called noble missions, what we see is what we believe." The whole class cheered; I had nothing to say.

I used to tell my students that the American dream is best described as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now I am convinced my students were right and I wrong. I learned the hard way when the Americans ruined my life, confiscated my liberty and ended my happiness.

The US bombed al-Jazeera because it was angered by reports that did not confirm its one-sided picture of the war. For the past five years, al-Jazeera and other Arab stations have been gaining credibility and fame not only in the Arab countries but also in the west, competing with international networks such as the BBC and CNN. Al-Jazeera in particular became very popular during the American war on Afghanistan. The channel aired voice recordings of al-Qaida and Taliban leaders as well as the speeches of President Bush and allied leaders. This decision to broadcast both sides was in keeping with its motto - "The opinion and the counter-opinion" - but the Americans could not allow such freedom of expression to prevail.

The US sent its first warning to al-Jazeera in November 2001, bombing its Kabul office, destroying its equipment and forcing its journalists to flee. An al-Jazeera cameraman was sent to Guantanamo Bay as a war prisoner.

In Baghdad during the war, the coverage of al-Jazeera again focused mainly on the daily suffering and loss of ordinary people; and again the Americans wanted their crimes and atrocities to pass unnoticed. The two bombs they dropped on al-Jazeera's Baghdad office were the ones that killed my husband. Then the Americans opened fire on Abu Dhabi television, whose identity was spelled out in large blue letters on the roof. The next target was the Palestine hotel, the headquarters of world media representatives - an American tank fired a shell and two more journalists were killed. Thus the US tried to conceal evidence of its crimes from the world and kill the witnesses.

The US didn't take responsibility for the attacks, claiming that all three were mistakes and insisting that it did not know the whereabouts of journalists, apart from those "embedded" with its troops. Later, al-Jazeera's director confirmed that it had given the precise location of the station's Baghdad office to the Pentagon three months before the war. My husband and the others were killed in broad daylight, in locations known to the Pentagon as media sites.

The US was not content with the message it sent to al-Jazeera signed with the blood of my husband; it accused al-Jazeera and other Arab channels of anti-American bias in their coverage of the war. But how biased can a picture of dead people be? A picture of a destroyed house doesn't need a reporter to tell its story, and the tears of children and refugees need no interpreter.

Tell me, please, what should I do when my daughter, just 20 months old, starts calling her late father's name and looking for him all around the house? What should I do when the clock strikes five and I keep waiting for Tareq to open the door with his smiling face but he never comes in? When the only way to have some rest is to cry myself to sleep? When I see my mother-in-law vomiting four times in less than half an hour? When my daughter brings her toys to play with me, as she used to do with her father, and I can't even hold her? When my tears fall on my daughter's face when I give her milk, remembering how her father used to do it? When I feel ruined and desperate, with no hope in life?

How should I raise my daughter? Allow me to answer the last question. I will raise her never to forgive or forget. Never to forget her father and never to forgive those who killed him.

Six months have passed since the killing of Tareq, and those responsible for his death are still in control, claiming ethical supervision of the world, and basking in their military achievements. The attacks on al-Jazeera continue - Iraq's US-appointed governing council has just warned the station that if it continues to "misbehave", its licence in Iraq will be revoked. Meanwhile, an al-Jazeera correspondent, Tayssir Alouni - the only television journalist who had a live link from Taliban Kabul, and a survivor of both the Kabul and Baghdad bombings - has been accused of helping al-Qaida and the Taliban. When he went to Spain to obtain his PhD, he was arrested by the Spanish authorities, widely believed to have been at the behest of the Americans. He is now in a high-security prison awaiting trial, despite there being no concrete evidence against him.

As for me, six months have passed since my husband's death and I can't find anyone to help me to launch legal action against those who killed him. When I thought I had found an outlet under Belgian law, US threats and ultimatums got the law repealed and put an end to my hopes of gaining justice.

When the Muslim Association of Britain invited me to speak at last weekend's anti-war march in London, I hesitated because of the despair I have been in. But when I saw all these people marching against the war, condemning those responsible for it, my hope and belief in the solidarity of humankind, in humanity, justice and truth was rekindled.

My life and happiness came to an end on April 8, but I still have one last dream; that my Fatimah will have a better future full of love and security, that her heart and mind as well as mine will be relieved when those who committed the cold-blooded murder of her father and my husband are brought to justice.

Dima Tareq Tahboub is a lecturer at the Arab Open University in Amman and the widow of Tareq Ayyoub, a correspondent for al-Jazeera

dima@mabonline.net

"...Now Mr.Tony Blair has decided that he doesn't want to discuss Iraq at the Labour conference next week. Its like having an elephant sitting in the corner of your living room and not being prepared to mention it!

But he says he is in none the less in a listening mood. Well I have a suggestion for you Mr.Blair: You bring the lady [Dima Tahboub] who has just spoken at the rally down to Bournemouth, this widow, this orphan, and put them on the stage at Bournemouth and let them speak about Iraq and lets see what the British people think of your war when they hear what that lady had to say!..

Now I want to deal with, as George Monbiot did, a very dangerous diversion, a very dangerous red herring, a false dichotomy which is emerging in this debate - Whether or not Iraq should be controlled by a group of foreigners wearing blue helmets or by a group of foreigners wearing the stars and stripes. Foreign occupiers are not the solutions to Iraqs problems, they ARE Iraqs problems!

And I say to these countries, for being fooled with their arms being twisted up their backs, countries like India; Pakistan, Bangladesh and Turkey, I warn them of this: Don't send your young men into this quicksand because the Iraqi resistance will treat them exactly the same way they are currently treating the American occupation armies! Dont send your young men to kill or to die for the re-election of George W Bush and the enrichment of his republican party friends!

George Galloway under the banner
"No More War, No More Lies"

Now I'm listening to these helicopters clattering away above us. Last night in the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep, I watched Oliver Stones wonderful film Platoon. And I watched again in horror at the degradation which inevitably accompanies a foreign military invasion and occupation of somebody else's country. It begins with the dehumanising of the 'gooks' or arabs and it ends with the dehumanising of the occupation soldiers themselves. And thats exactly whats underway in Iraq now as the american forces rampage through the towns and cities of Iraq, break down the doors of peoples houses, drag there sons out - there hands tied behind there backs, there faces down in the sand. Humiliating and invading the privacy of their women, stealing their things, this is the road that America has taken.

And I tell you something else about Vietnam because I'm old enough to have been actively working for it at the time. The Unites States left Vietnam with their ambassador cluttering from the roof of their embassy in a helicopter like that one [pointing up at the police helicopter] with the rage of the Vietnamese people close behind him!

And if the United States doesn't leave Iraq of its own volition soon they'll leave just like the americans in Vietnam with the Iraqi people chasing them all the way down the road!

I say this myself as a believer, we have manna from heaven, dropped from the sky on thursday with the announcement that George W Bush has been invited to make a three day state visit to Britain because its a great opportunity.

We will turn those three days in to the biggest festival of opposition to british and american imperialism that this country has ever seen! Remember, remember, remember the 19th, 20th and 21st November! Guy Fawkes whos had a hard enough time all these centuries - after all he wasn't the only man to enter parliament with bad intentions, lets replace Guy Fawkes on the top of those bon fires with George W Bush and Tony Blair!"

Blair already on fire and its not even November!

MP George Galloway was today expelled from the Labour Party over his outspoken criticism of the war in Iraq.

Speaking outside the London hearing, Mr Galloway said the judgment had been "written in advance in the best traditions of political show trials".

He said: "Mr Blair's response to the mistake of the war is to attack those who stood against the war and root them out of British politics."

The ruling would not prevent him or other critics of military action continuing to speak out, said Mr Galloway, an MP since 1987.

He said he would definitely defend his seat in Parliament and would stand as an independent against Labour if he had to.

The Stop The War coalition, which mounted protests outside the committee meeting in support of Mr Galloway, said the expulsion was an "absolute disgrace".

The convenor of the coalition, Lindsey German, said: "George Galloway told the truth before, during and after the war with Iraq, whereas Tony Blair has told nothing but lies.

"It is disgraceful that the Labour party is penalising George Galloway and giving Tony Blair a standing ovation because that does not reflect the British people's views."

 

 

"...We were told it was not a war for oil, and yet we now see the biggest privatisation in world history as the resources of Iraqs people are plundered by american business - it was lies!..."

"...Yesterday the United Nations, the United States of America, the European Union and Russia gave Sharon a new licence to kill. They said to him you can go after anybody in defence of Israel. They did something similar before when the European Union proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organisation. Immediately afterwards, within the hour, israelis sent their f16s to assasinate Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, and hell broke again. A word of warning to the European Union - if you want peace in the middle-east then don't encourage Sharon, bring Sharon to court - he is the criminal!"

The legacy of liberation: Azzam Tamimi holding images of deformity caused in Iraqi babies born after the last gulf war due to the use of depleted uranium by the American forces

"...If George Bush is expecting a civil reception at City Hall he shouldn't hold his breath! I'm not in favour of receiving people who weren't democratically elected but got their republican judges to impose them over the will of the electorate. Equally I will say this, we will have a reception whilst Blair and Bush are here in this great carnival that George [Galloway] talked about, we'll have a reception at City Hall for the peace movement, for those who wish to see British troops out of Iraq and for those who wish to see a just settlement for the Palestinians. We will make it clear to George Bush - he doesn't speak for London, we speak for London!

When I described what I thought of George Bush in terms of his own war record, you recall he avoided serving in Vietnam - another hawk that looked a bit like a chicken - and got into the Texas national guard - perhaps he though there was a imminent threat of a Mexican invasion - I don't know. And then of course he would have gone to prison if his daddy's administration hadn't decided not to prosecute him for insider share dealing. Now when I said these things I had a motion of censure submitted against me at the London Assembly put down by the Liberal Democrats. They withdrew it when they saw the hundreds and thousands of letters that poured in in support not just from Londoners but from people in America as well

We saw earlier this week Glen Cambell raised what will be a difficult issue for every elected politician - in that demand that because of the problems facing British troops in Iraq, because their lives are at risk we must now send more troops to do the job more effectively. The only way to stop their lives being at risk is to bring the troops home!...

Forty seven years ago, here on this platform I remember Tony Benn address the square as crowded as this, crowded with people protesting that Britain, and France, and Israel in contravention of the United Nations and illegally had launched an unprovoked war against Egypt. He gave one clear message that answered the lie of Tory prime minister Antony Eden who said this is to restore peace in the middle-east: 'If you want peace - get out - get out - get out!'.

When british and american troops rolled through France liberating it from nazism, there was no question that we had to have an occupation to actually make sure that before the french could elect their government they have a couple of years of guidance. Why is there always a double standard when it comes to arabs? I am sick and tired of this. Finally let me say this. I will no doubt be condemned again for what I said at the press conference, let me say it again. These are not accidents. We've had a hundred years of imperialist intervention in the middle-east. It has always been about oil and it has always cost the lives of innocent arab men, women, and children. And it is not an accident when people say Sharons hands are covered in blood - the blood goes up to his arm pits! He has had fifty years of slaughtering Palestinians. He first lead and illegal raid in to Egypt over fifty years ago - what was the result? An appalling casualty list of women and children. These are not exceptions, they are the typical basis of western imperialism against the arab nation..."