Travesty

So, where are we this morning?

The US military is holding what appears to be a kangaroo-court trial for Bilal Hussein, the Pulitzer Prize winning news photographer they arrested and detained without trial or charge some time ago, in Iraq.

Harper's Magazine has some rare coverage, rare in part because the US military imposed a gag order - though they have been leaking commentary against him to friendly blogs. (This allegation is not unique to this article, and the use of "supportive" media in this general manner has been confirmed by the White House in the very recent past.) Harper's reports that in this show trial, Mr. Hussein can't cross-examine witnesses, is barred from legal council in court (in direct violation of Iraqi law), his communications with his lawyer are monitored personally by US military, five US military attys are acting as Iraqi prosecutor (in direct violation of Iraqi law), and, oh yeah, the judge said before the trial started that he planned to convict.

I have written many letters to dictatorial governments in protests of identical actions before. Similarly to many of these cases, they're actively using their propaganda wing to propagate a PR campaign against the photographer, and working to suppress other coverage. Please understand that if this material is correct - as after these long six years I no longer find even remotely unlikely - this is a bog-standard show trial, the sort put on against political opponents of any type in any common dictatorship.

And that's where we are today.

more stamps

More Namjatown stamps (16 of 52)

Lots more stamps from Namjatown! It's fun. ^_^


Communication Maid Cafe "Filles" (17 of 52)

Someone dressed like Yuki (in the staff photos) handed this to me in... Ikebukuro, probably? Akihabara! (blues_kun could read the Kanji, so this is the flyer for the Maid Cafe entrance I photographed in Akihabara, and is in the book out of order.) But while I generally kept these things in time order, I didn't always succeed, and I don't really remember and I can't read the kanji on the map. It's a flyer for a Maid Cafe called Filles. I didn't get a picture of the woman handing out the flyer, tho'. (Can anybody read the station name on the online map in the lower left hand corner?)

ETA: Next door - not in the Maid Cafe, a little bit further down - we got a tasty Hong Kong-import-style shaved ice cream snack. And in that same walk, Mariko saw a drink for sale that she'd been meaning to buy because her mom wanted to try it, and dived into the store that had it to buy one. I started to dive in after and noticed it was actually a sex toys store, and bounced out out again from surprise. A couple of minutes later she came out (having bought the drink) and said (more or less) OMG I'M SO EMBARRASSED WHY IS THAT STORE SELLING SODA?