Over the past three days, federal judges have blocked a pair of new laws that could have closed most of the 19 abortion clinics in Texas and all five of the facilities in Louisiana. On Friday, a federal judge blocked a Texas law due to take effect Monday that would have required all abortion clinics to meet the same standards as hospital-style surgery centers — even those that offer non-surgical abortions with medication, and simple early surgical abortions. Last year, the controversial rule drew mass protest and an 11-hour filibuster by State Senator Wendy Davis, who is now running for governor. Meanwhile on Sunday, a federal judge in Louisiana issued a temporary restraining order just hours before a new abortion law would have begun forcing physicians who provide abortion services to have patient-admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their practice. We are joined by Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, which operates five Texas clinics and was a party in this lawsuit.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to major developments in women’s access to abortion. Over the past three days, federal judges have blocked a pair of new laws that could have forced the closing of the majority of Texas’s 19 abortion clinics and all five of Louisiana’s. On Friday, a federal judge blocked a Texas law due to go into effect Monday that would have required all abortion clinics to meet the same standards as hospital-style surgery centers—even those that offer non-surgical abortions with medication, and simple early surgical abortions. Texas already requires clinics that provide abortions after 16 weeks of pregnancy to meet surgical-center standards.
Last [year], the controversial rule drew mass protest and an 11-hour filibuster by State Senator Wendy Davis, who is now running for governor. Judge Lee Yeakel of the U.S. District Court in Austin ruled the new mandate would place unjustified obstacles on women’s access to abortion without providing significant medical benefits.
Meanwhile Sunday, a federal judge in Louisiana issued a temporary restraining order just hours before a new abortion law would have begun forcing physicians who provide abortion services to have patient-admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their practice. This relates to another portion of the ruling in Texas. Judge Yeakel wrote two abortion clinics in the state’s isolated Rio Grande Valley—one in El Paso, another in McAllen—could be excused from an admitting privileges requirement already on the books in Texas.
For more, we’re joined by the CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, which operates the McAllen clinic along with four other clinics and was a party in this lawsuit. Amy Hagstrom Miller has been working in abortion care since 1989 and is the founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health. She joins us now from Charlottesville, Virginia, on the campus of University of Virginia.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Amy. Can you start off by talking about the significance of both of these rulings?
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: Absolutely. Friday was just a very significant day for us. It’s been a long fight, and it’s been a long year, just since HB 2 was passed over a year ago. But really we’ve seen this cumulative effect over the last 10 years, with a new restriction passed, making access to safe, professional care more and more difficult for women in states like Texas and Louisiana. And so, Judge Yeakel’s decision was a strong decision. He outlined a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about, about an undue burden for women, and specifically women of color and women in rural areas throughout the South who have even higher burdens than those of us who live in the urban areas. And so, his decision was very clear, and we’re very optimistic that the courts are starting to see that these restrictions have nothing to do with women’s safety but are about politics.
AMY GOODMAN: Before we move on to the case in Louisiana, explain exactly what the law would have required and what Judge Yeakel said he would put on hold.
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: So, there’s four different provisions in the law that was passed a year and a half ago. The most highly covered and the most restrictive are the hospital admitting privileges and the requirement that all procedures, even, as you said, medication abortion procedures and very simple first trimester procedures, be done in basically a mini-hospital, an ambulatory surgical center. That is the part of the law that was set to go into effect yesterday that Judge Yeakel blocked on Friday. The admitting privileges, part of the regulation went into effect last November, and we brought another case challenging that also in Yeakel’s court. And that case is in the Fifth Circuit right now. We’ve asked for an en banc decision. There were two other provisions of HB 2, one restricting abortion care beyond 20 weeks and, two, basically making medication abortion almost unavailable to most women by requiring women to come in for four different visits with the same physician. So all four of those provisions are part of HB 2, and they combine to create an almost impossible environment for, one, abortion providers to stay open and serve the women in the communities and, two, for women to actually be able to travel and make it to a safe, professional provider in the state.
AMY GOODMAN: Some might say, "Well, what is wrong with having a clinic that is, you know, hospital-level?" and the other, "Why not have doctors have admitting privileges at local hospitals?" What are the problems with these?
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: You know, two different things. One is that there wasn’t a safety problem with abortion care in the state of Texas that these laws were addressing. Abortion has been safely provided for over 40 years in the state in small, sort of doctor’s office-based settings. Abortion, while it is morally and ethically complex for a lot of people, medically it’s quite a simple procedure. There are no incisions. The procedure itself takes five or six minutes. And it’s very adequately and safely provided in a doctor’s office or clinic setting. So this mini-hospital setting that requires hallway widths and airflow systems and, you know, sort of a much more intricate and involved physical plant is really designed for much more invasive and complicated surgeries, like knee surgery or eye surgery or surgeries that take three or four hours with general anesthesia, which is just not the complexity of abortion. And so, herein lies the problem, is that the actual cost to build one of those facilities is out of reach for the vast majority of us who serve the women who need abortion care in the state.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about—
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: Secondarily—
AMY GOODMAN: Oh, go ahead.
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: Oh, sorry. Secondarily, the admitting privileges is another interesting thing. You know, this is the only procedure that requires admitting privileges for physicians. The vast majority of our medical system is delivered outside of that sort of surgical hospital setting. There are many physicians who have private practices in their offices where they’re doing minor procedures in their practice, and they’re not bringing surgeries into the hospital setting. It’s complicated to explain really quickly, but hospital admitting privileges are a relationship between the hospital and a doctor that require the physician to admit a certain amount of patients annually, and most abortion providers may admit one or two patients in a span of 10 years. And so, this requirement, it doesn’t actually have to do with safety, it has to do with access.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your clinic in McAllen, what Judge Yeakel’s decision in Texas means for the women’s abortion clinic there?
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: Yes. We are making plans to reopen our McAllen clinic. It has been on Main Street right across from City Hall in the city of McAllen for years. Women have been calling us. Whether or not the clinic is open, the women in the community still need the care. And so, we’ve been managing trying to help women travel north and help women manage their healthcare in the absence of our ability to provide it. And so, we’re delighted to be able to reopen the facility later this week. We’re making plans trying to reach out to our staff and our physicians, and try to set up a surgical session as soon as possible. The phone has been ringing the whole time, even when we’ve been closed, and we’ve been trying to help those women. And so, right when the law was enjoined this past Friday, we began to call some of the women who had called us earlier that week and, you know, telling them that later this week we hope to be able to actually see them locally in the McAllen clinic again.
AMY GOODMAN: And the number of clinics that have closed since the law was passed and how many you see might open like yours?
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: So, in 2012, there were 44 facilities serving the population in the state of Texas. That’s dropped to 19 at this point. And if the law hadn’t been enjoined, we would drop again to six. With this injunction, there are many of us that will be able to either stay open, like my Austin office—I mean, my Fort Worth office and my San Antonio office. And there—my McAllen office will be able to reopen. And there will probably be other providers that are able to reopen their facilities. Hopefully, our Austin office and our Beaumont clinic, that we had to close earlier this year, we’re looking at reopening them, as well. I think the majority of us in the state, especially those of us that are community-based, independent providers, are really watching closely to the Fifth Circuit. As you know, the state challenged Judge Yeakel’s injunction within about 30 minutes of him issuing it and has challenged it already to the Fifth Circuit. So we’re watching fairly closely to see what’s going to happen next for us.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we only have—well, we have less than a minute, but talk about the decision that came out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: So, it’s my understanding that that—you know, I’m not an expert in Louisiana like I am in Texas, but it’s my understanding that that decision also blocked a very restrictive law from going into effect that would have taken that state’s clinics from five down to just two, which is completely inadequate to serve the needs of the women in that community and throughout that state.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Amy Hagstrom Miller, I want to thank you very much for being with us, working in abortion care since 1989—
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: You’re welcome.
AMY GOODMAN: —founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health. This is Democracy Now! When we return, the jurors are out in the Blackwater case, the killing of 14 civilians in Nisoor Square in 2007. We’ll bring you the voice of the father of the youngest victim. Stay with us.
Jurors will begin deliberating this week in the murder and manslaughter trial of four former Blackwater operatives involved in the 2007 massacre at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The suspects are charged for the deaths of 14 of the 17 Iraqi civilians who died when their Blackwater unit opened fire. The trial featured testimony from witnesses who survived the attack and saw loved ones gunned down. In closing arguments last week, prosecutors said Blackwater guards had shot fleeing civilians and boasted of taking their lives. Nisoor Square is the highest-profile deadly incident involving Blackwater — or any private war contractor — and many Iraqis are watching the upcoming verdict to see how seriously the United States intends to hold its private security companies accountable for their alleged crimes. The first witness to testify in the Blackwater trial was Mohammed Kinani, who broke down in tears when describing how his nine-year-old son, Ali, was shot in the head while riding in the back seat of the family car. Kinani reportedly sobbed so uncontrollably when testifying that Judge Royce Lamberth temporarily dismissed the jury. We air a documentary that tells Mohammad and Ali’s story, "Blackwater’s Youngest Victim," by the Oscar-nominated filmmakers Jeremy Scahill and Richard Rowley.
Image Credit: Big Noise Films/The Nation
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Jurors will begin deliberating this week in the murder and manslaughter trial of four former Blackwater operatives allegedly involved in the 2007 massacre at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The suspects are charged with the deaths of 14 of the 17 Iraqi civilians who died when their Blackwater unit indiscriminately opened fire. The trial features testimony from witnesses who survived the attack and saw loved ones gunned down. In closing arguments last week, prosecutors said Blackwater guards had shot fleeing civilians and boasted of taking their lives. Nisoor Square is the highest-profile deadly incident involving Blackwater—or any private war contractor.
The first witness to testify in the Blackwater trial was a man named Mohammed Kinani. He broke down when describing how his nine-year-old son Ali was shot in the head while riding in the back seat of the family car. Kinani reportedly sobbed so uncontrollably when testifying that Judge Royce Lamberth temporarily dismissed the jury. The next day, one juror said she had been too haunted to sleep, causing the judge to excuse her from service.
Well, we turn now to a remarkable documentary that tells Mohammed and Ali Kinani’s story. It’s called Blackwater’s Youngest Victim. The film was created by Big Noise Films and Democracy Now! in association with The Nation magazine and The Nation Institute, shot by Rick Rowley, narrated by Jeremy Scahill. It begins with Mohammed Kinani recalling the day he lost his son.
bq. MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] I’m not just remembering the scene. I’m reliving it as if it were happening now. I will never forget those few minutes. So whatever you ask me, I will answer with absolute clarity.
All I could hear from my car were gunshots and the sound of glass shattering and the sound of tires blown out with bullets. I started to scream, "They killed my son! They killed my son!" What can I tell you? It was like the end of days. With cold blood and stone hearts, they continued shooting.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Baghdad, September 16, 2007. Shortly before noon, a convoy of four armored vehicles departs the Green Zone, the heavily fortified U.S. base in Iraq. The men inside of the vehicles were elite private soldiers working for Blackwater. Their code name: Raven 23.
The men had defied orders from their superiors to remain in the Green Zone and proceeded on to the streets of Baghdad. As they departed, they were again told to return to base. They didn’t.
Within minutes, Blackwater Raven 23 would arrive at the congested Baghdad intersection known as Nisoor Square. Fifteen minutes later, at least 17 Iraqi civilians would be dead, more than 20 others wounded, in a shooting that would go down in infamy as Baghdad’s Bloody Sunday.
You probably have never heard his name, but you likely know something about how nine-year-old Ali Mohammed Hafedh Kinani died. He was the youngest person killed by Blackwater forces at Nisoor Square.
To this day, Blackwater has never faced justice for killing Ali and the other Iraqis that day. But his father Mohammed, who was with Ali in the square, is determined to change that.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] I want the truth. I want the truth to be known, and the criminals punished.
JEREMY SCAHILL: This is the story of the death of young Ali Kinani, and his father has provided us with the most detailed eyewitness account of the Nisoor Square massacre ever given to a U.S. media outlet.
Mohammed Hafedh Abdulrazzaq Kinani and his wife Fatimah lived with their three children in Baghdad. Mohammed ran his family’s auto parts business, and he adored his youngest son Ali, whom his family affectionately called by his kid nickname, Allawi.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] He would sleep on my arm. He was nine-and-a-half years old, but still slept on my arm. He had his own room, but he never slept alone.
When he turned nine, I told him it was time to stop using my arm as his pillow. I said, "Son, you’re getting older. Go sleep with your brothers, on your bed in your room. Your name is Ali. We used to call you Allawi, but you’ll be a man soon." So he said, "As you wish, father." He always said that.
So I looked and saw his feet under the door. I called him in. He opened the door and said, "Dad, I’m Allawi, not Ali." He was telling me that he’s still a child. After that, he kept sleeping on my arm. It was the only pillow he ever had.
JEREMY SCAHILL: When U.S. forces rolled into Baghdad in April of 2003, Mohammed proudly took his son to greet the men he called their liberators, the U.S. military. Mohammed was that rare personification of the neoconservative narrative about the U.S. invasion.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] The first day the American Army entered Baghdad, I handed out juice and candy in the street, to celebrate our liberation from Saddam.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Before September 16th, 2007, Mohammed had never heard of Blackwater. Now he thinks of them and that day every waking moment. He remembers that Ali was not supposed to be in his car that day. Mohammed had just pulled away from his family’s home on his way to pick up his sister Jenan and her children for a visit. Ali came running out of the house.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] He was quiet the whole ride. But then we passed a newly built park, a garden. So he turned to me and asked, "Daddy, when are you going to bring us here?" I told him, "Next week, hopefully, if God wills it."
JEREMY SCAHILL: Mohammed and Ali picked up Jenan and her three children and made their way back home. The return journey would bring them through Nisoor Square. When Mohammed found himself in a traffic jam at the square that day, he thought it was a U.S. military checkpoint. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him when he saw the armored vehicles block off traffic.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] One of the guards gestured towards us with his hands. This gesture means "stop." So we stopped. I and all the cars in front and behind me stopped. We followed their orders.
At that point, I didn’t even know they were Blackwater. I didn’t know it was a security company. I thought it was some sort of American Army unit, or maybe a military police unit. In any case, we followed their orders.
JEREMY SCAHILL: As Mohammed and his family waited in the SUV, the man in the car next to them was frantic. "I think someone was shot in that car in front of you," he told Mohammed. It was then Mohammed watched in horror as Blackwater gunners, for no apparent reason, blew up a white Kia sedan in front of his eyes. Inside, Mohammed would later learn, were a young Iraqi medical student and his mother.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] There was absolutely no shooting or any sign of danger for us or Blackwater. No one was in the slightest danger.
Suddenly, in the flash of a second, they started shooting in all directions. And it wasn’t warning shots. They were shooting as if they were fighting in the field.
By the time they stopped shooting, the car looked like a sieve. This is the only way to describe it, because it was truly riddled with bullets. They finished with the first car and turned their guns on us. It turned into the apocalypse.
JEREMY SCAHILL: As chaos and blood flooded the square, Mohammed remembers the fate of one man in particular who tried to flee the Blackwater gunmen.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] Everyone was trying to escape. Whoever wasn’t shot dead in their car just wanted to escape somehow. When one man tried to run, they shot him. He dropped dead on the spot. He was on the ground bleeding, and they were shooting, and they were shooting nonstop. They shot like they were trying to kill everyone they could see. He sank into his own blood. And every minute, they would go back and shoot him again, and I could see his body shake with every bullet. He was dead, but his body shook with the bullets. He would shoot at someone else and then go back to shooting at this dead man.
The man is dead in a pool of blood. Why would you keep shooting him?
JEREMY SCAHILL: As Mohammed sat in his SUV with his nine-year-old son Ali, his sister Jenan and her three children, he realized that, for them, attempting to escape was not an option. As the shooting intensified, Mohammed yelled for the kids to get down. He and Jenan did the same.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] Bullets were coming from the right and the left. My younger sister was trying to cover me with her body. So I pulled out of her grip and covered her with my body to protect her. I have pictures that show the headrest of my sister’s seat is full of bullet holes. It was horrific, extremely terrifying. I still wake up from sleep, startled.
Why? I ask. Why would they do this? We were civilians sitting in our cars. Most of the cars had families in them. So why did this happen?
I kept hearing boom, boom, boom in my car. Bullets were flying everywhere. It was horrific, horrific. I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe it.
After they had killed everyone in sight, my sister and I kept still. I had her rest her head on my lap, and my body was on top of her. We would sneak to peek from under the dashboard. They continued shooting here and there, killing this and that one. Then it cleared. Nothing was moving on the street. Only the Blackwater men were moving. Then, they drove off.
JEREMY SCAHILL: It seemed to Mohammed like a miracle had blessed his car. "We’re alive," he thought. As the Blackwater forces retreated, Mohammed told Jenan he was going to check on the man who had been repeatedly shot by Blackwater. It was then Mohammed’s world crumbled.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] When I got out of the car, my nephew said, "Uncle, Allawi is dead." My sister started screaming, and I turned to look at Ali.
I turned and saw that his window was broken. It was shot. I looked at him, and his head was resting at the side of the door. I opened the door to see if he was OK. I opened the door, and he started falling out. I stood there in shock, watching him as the door opened and his brain fell to the ground between my feet. I looked at his brain on the ground, and I pushed him back into the car. I told my sister that they had blown his brains out.
I started to scream, "They killed my son! They killed my son!" I was turning and screaming. People were standing on the roof of a nearby building, saying, "Get out! Get out!" But I was in another world. They killed my son, and I was looking at his brain.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do. I reached through the window to check his heart, and it was beating. I told my sister, who said, "Let’s rush him to the hospital. Maybe he still can make it." But I knew. His brain was on the ground. He’s gone.
I turned the car, which had no water, no tires, and I spun it around. I drove towards Yarmouk Hospital.
JEREMY SCAHILL: At the hospital, Mohammed was told that because of Ali’s severe head injuries, an ambulance would need to rush him across town to a neurological hospital.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] Riding in the ambulance, I was completely destroyed. My son was dying in front of my eyes. He was suffering. His arms were shaking and almost pulled out the IVs. So I held his hands still.
He died. What can I say? My son. Up to the night before his death, my son never slept alone.
JEREMY SCAHILL: That night, Mohammed returned home, and his father greeted him at the door.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] I love my father. He is my friend, my life and my father. He hugged me tight and said, "Son, be a man. Don’t break down."
Everyone else—my mother, my sisters—all broke down in tears. My wife told me, "I want my son from you. You took him. Now give him back." She looked me in the eyes and said, "It is you who took my son. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I want him back."
What can I say? I don’t know what to say. I was speechless.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Mohammed later returned to Nisoor Square to gather what pieces he could find of Ali’s skull and brain. The family then laid Ali to rest in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] My son died innocent, at an age when there are no strings attached. He flew up to heaven like a white dove.
JEREMY SCAHILL: After Ali died, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad contacted Mohammed, offering his family a $10,000 condolence payment, making clear it was not a remedy for what happened and not a substitute for any potential legal action against the shooters. Initially, Mohammed refused the money, but the embassy pursued his family, urging them to take it. They eventually did, but with one condition: that half the money be donated to the family of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. Mohammed’s wife Fatimah delivered the gift to the U.S. Embassy.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] This is a gift from Ali’s family to whichever family you choose, the family of any soldier who lost his life for the sake of Iraq. I want to give it as a gift. I know it is insignificant, but it is an emotional and moral gesture from us to them.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Mohammed carries around a letter sent his family by General Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. "Your substantial generosity on behalf of the families of fallen American soldiers," Odierno wrote, "has touched me deeply."
While Mohammed and his family mourned the death of Ali, half a world away in Washington, D.C., Blackwater’s owner, Erik Prince, was summoned before the U.S. Congress. Blackwater, Prince said, had been the victim of an armed ambush by Iraqi insurgents at Nisoor Square, and he defended the conduct of his men, saying they had, quote, "acted appropriately at all times."
REP. DANNY DAVIS: You do admit that Blackwater personnel have shot and killed innocent civilians, don’t you?
ERIK PRINCE: No, sir. I disagree with that. I think there’s been times when guys are using defensive force to protect themselves, to protect the package. They’re trying to get away from danger. There could be ricochets. There are traffic accidents, yes. This is war. You know.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Mohammed watched those hearings live and was outraged.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] I wish they would ask the head of Blackwater, did he think that this child was a threat to his company? This giant company with all the biggest weapons, guns and planes—was this boy a threat to them?
JEREMY SCAHILL: At the hearing, a State Department document was produced revealing that before Nisoor Square, the department had coordinated with Blackwater to set a low payout for Iraqi shooting victims, because, in the words of a department security official, if it was too high, Iraqis may try "to get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future."
Despite Prince’s brazen denials, the thought of suing Blackwater didn’t cross Mohammed’s mind. He didn’t want anyone’s money. He readily cooperated with the U.S. military and federal investigators, and he believed that justice would be done in America.
Then, he says, Blackwater stepped in.
In February 2008, ABC News did a brief story about Mohammed. The day the story was posted online, Blackwater’s attorney threatened to take legal action against the network, accusing ABC of defamation.
What outraged Mohammed was that Blackwater denied its forces killed Ali, claiming instead that he was killed by a stray bullet, possibly fired by the U.S. military an hour after Blackwater personnel had departed the scene. Blackwater claimed Ali was hit by a warning shot that ricocheted and killed him. It was not even possible, the Blackwater lawyer claimed, that Blackwater was responsible.
Shortly after that, Mohammed said an Iraqi attorney approached him. But he wasn’t just any lawyer. Ja’afar al Moussawy was the chief prosecutor of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal, which prosecuted Saddam Hussein. He was the Iraqi lawyer. Mohammed agreed to meet with Moussawy and Blackwater’s regional manager. He says they offered him $20,000.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] I said, "I’m not taking a penny from you. I want nothing." I asked them if they wanted to resolve the problem. They said, "Yes." I said, "OK, get me a pen and paper." I said, "Look, I have the paper, and I can sign and waive all my rights. All of them. I will sign now, but under one condition: I want the head of Blackwater to apologize publicly to me in America and say, 'We killed your son, and we're sorry.’ That’s all I want." I told them, "I don’t want $50 or $20,000. I just want him to publicly apologize. That would be enough for me."
Blackwater’s regional manager said, "We do not apologize." I said, "You kill my son and go on TV and publicly accuse me and all Iraqis of being mercenaries who intentionally have you kill us for the compensation. And you were under oath in front of Congress, and you tell me you will not apologize. What did you want, then? Why did you bring me here?" He said, "No, we won’t apologize."
JEREMY SCAHILL: Mohammed then confronted the Blackwater manager about the company’s claim that the U.S. military, not Blackwater, may have killed Ali.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] I told the manager, "My son was killed in the car with me. How can you say it was the military? Do you want to stain the reputation the American Army? The American Army is innocent of this. Why would you blame this on them? Do you want us to hate them more? Aren’t you an American company, and this is your national military? Why would you do this to your own?" I told them, "We love the American Army more than you do."
JEREMY SCAHILL: Mohammed threw the pen and paper at the Blackwater manager and left the meeting.
MOHAMMED KINANI: [translated] So I had no choice but to go the legal route and take things to court, to get justice, to bring closure for the victims’ families, and to deter other criminals from committing the same crime.
JEREMY SCAHILL: On September 15th, 2009, the night before the second anniversary of Ali’s death, Mohammed Kinani sued Blackwater in its home state of North Carolina, along with Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince and the six men he believes are responsible for Ali’s death.
Mohammed is represented by Paul Dickinson and Gary Mauney. They’re not political lawyers. To them, the nationality and citizenship of their client is irrelevant, as is the country housing the scene of the alleged crimes. Mohammed’s lawyer, Paul Dickinson:
PAUL DICKINSON: The U.S. Army was over there fighting for people just like Mohammed. And he’s come here with a heart full of belief in the justice system in the United States.
GARY MAUNEY: This is not a case about national security at all.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Dickinson’s colleague, Gary Mauney.
GARY MAUNEY: These were people who were in a public square in Iraq, much like the main intersection in Charlotte, North Carolina, is called Trade and Tryon. It’s the primary intersection in the city where we live. It’s the equivalent place for where this occurred. The Blackwater employees were in that square, and they opened fire.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Dickinson and Mauney have gathered volumes of evidence and interviewed scores of eyewitnesses. But perhaps their greatest piece of evidence comes from one of the men they’re suing. Jeremy Ridgeway, a turret gunner on the Raven 23 team that day, pled guilty to killing an unarmed civilian. Mauney points to Ridgeway’s own sworn statements.
GARY MAUNEY: What Mr. Ridgeway has said is that Raven 23 was not supposed to be there, and that they—what they did was not justified by any provocation whatsoever. This is not some lawyer making a hyperbolic argument. This is Mr. Ridgeway, who was there, who was working for Blackwater at the time.
JEREMY SCAHILL: In addition to Jeremy Ridgeway’s statement, Mauney and Dickinson plan to introduce statements made by other Blackwater guards in the square that day, who said they were horrified at what their colleagues did, saying that they shot at civilians for nothing and for no reason.
With the Justice Department’s criminal case against Blackwater very much up in the air, Mohammed Kinani could well be the one man left standing between Blackwater and total impunity for the Nisoor Square massacre.
GARY MAUNEY: This is the last case that’s standing in the United States right now. This is it. This is it.
JEREMY SCAHILL: As we wrap up our time together, Mohammed Kinani shows us a cellphone video of young Ali, hopping around a swimming pool with his cousins and siblings. With a smile ear to ear, Ali approaches Mohammed’s cellphone camera and says to his dad, "I am Allawi."
ALI KINANI: [translated] I am Allawi. I am Allawi.
AMY GOODMAN: Blackwater’s Youngest Victim by the Oscar-nominated filmmakers Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley. Jurors begin deliberations this week in the manslaughter and [murder] trial of four former Blackwater operatives involved in the September 16, 2007, massacre at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. Mohammed Kinani was the first to testify in the trial. His nine-year-old son Ali was killed in the square that day. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Back in a minute.
Nineteen people were arrested in Hong Kong on Monday, one day after thousands protested calling for greater political freedom. The demonstration was organized by a group called Occupy Central after the Chinese government rejected demands for Hong Kong to freely choose its next leader in 2017. Under the new rules, Hong Kong voters will be allowed to choose the territory’s own chief executive, but all candidates must first be approved by a nominating panel. Activists fear the nominating panel will be controlled by pro-Beijing loyalists who will prevent opposition candidates from running. Protesters with Occupy Central are threatening to hold more demonstrations including a blockade of city’s central business district. We speak to Hong Kong legislator Claudia Mo, a former journalist who helped found the Civic Party.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to China, to Hong Kong, where 19 people were arrested Monday, one day after thousands protested calling for greater political freedom. The demonstration was organized by a group called Occupy Central a day after the Chinese government rejected demands for Hong Kong to freely choose its next leader in 2017. Under the new rules, Hong Kong voters will be allowed to choose the territory’s own chief executive, but all candidates must first be approved by a nominating panel. Activists fear the nominating panel will be controlled by pro-Beijing loyalists who will prevent opposition candidates from running.
Protesters with Occupy Central are now threatening to blockade Hong Kong’s central business district. Hong Kong was under British rule for over 150 years. In 1997, it returned to Chinese rule but has operated under different economic and political systems than mainland China as part of a policy known as "one country, two systems."
To talk more about the protests, we go to Hong Kong to speak with Claudia Mo, a Hong Kong legislator, founding member of the Civic Party, former journalist. She attended the protests on Sunday.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Claudia Mo. Tell us why the protests.
CLAUDIA MO: Well, China has practically shut the door on Hong Kong’s political reform, and instead they’ve announced this framework under which they will screen out any election candidates Beijing finds undesirable, unwanted by Beijing. This is fake democracy. We cannot accept any fake democracy. It’s going to be like North Korea. So, well, we have to take to the street to protest. And we’re fighting this battle, and we’ve been doing it for years and years. We may not win. We haven’t won it yet. But we will fight on.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong disrupted a speech by the senior Beijing official, Li Fei, of China’s National People’s Congress. They chanted slogans, waved placards accusing Beijing of breaking its promise to allow Hong Kong to select its leaders directly. After the protests stopped, Li Fei continued to defend Beijing’s position.
LI FEI: [translated] The goal of the nomination committee is to reduce the risks involved in universal suffrage. One, it reduces the risk of political confrontation. Two, it cuts the risk of a constitutional crisis. And three, it minimizes the risk of populism.
AMY GOODMAN: In mainland China, attitudes about the events in Hong Kong are reportedly mixed. On China’s Twitter-like platform, Sina Weibo, some users have criticized protesters in Hong Kong for pushing for democracy now, rather than while under British colonial rule. One user wrote, quote, "I just want to ask Hong Kongers: how is it that during British rule you didn’t ever bring up the 'one person, one vote' demand for Hong Kong’s Governor?" Could you respond to that, Claudia Mo?
CLAUDIA MO: Yeah, I mean, it’s a permanent question, but it’s also very ridiculous. It’s a no-brainer, really. When Hong Kong was under colonial rule, it’s colonialism. What do you expect? We are under—living under somebody else’s roof, right? It’s a colony. So, that’s it. And I have to add that the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, actually did a very good job about fighting for more democracy for Hong Kong at that time. But anyway, these days, after 1997, we’re supposed to come under "one country, two systems," and we’re supposed to enjoy a high degree of autonomy, i.e. except for defense, except for diplomacy. Hong Kong people should be allowed. We’re supposed to enjoy our own autonomy. We can decide on our future, etc. But Beijing now has turned back on its own word. It’s practically telling Hong Kong that it’s got complete jurisdiction over Hong Kong. "And democracy? We want to give you that much." It’s that much. And if we don’t like it, the idea, at all, that’s it. "That’s all you can get." And this is not fair. And I think the U.K. government, in particular, should at least say something. I know there’s very little that London can do, but it’s a moral obligation on London’s part that they should at least tell China not to go back on its word.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what Occupy Central is and talk about its plans to blockade the central business district of Hong Kong, Claudia Mo?
CLAUDIA MO: Yeah, Occupy Central, this idea, I think it was sparked by Occupy Wall Street. And, well, it’s not quite—what we’re fighting for is not exactly the same. In America, you’re fighting against a sort of established capitalism and vested interests, "greed is good" and so on and so forth. But in Hong Kong, we’re fighting against this established political might called the Chinese Communist Party. And we use the Central district, which is our CBD, as the equivalent, and we’re going to be there to, well, I mean, sort of block traffic and—not exactly to try to scare Beijing, but to show the rest of the world, the international community, that we have loads of grievances, particularly on this political front, and we need international attention on our plight.
AMY GOODMAN: What exactly are you calling for, Claudia Mo?
CLAUDIA MO: We are not pro-any Western country. We are pro-universal human rights. We’re just asking for the basic, not just "one man, one vote" kind of election, but we have genuine choices of candidates. Beijing can handpick a couple of candidates, or maybe three, up to—candidate A and then B and then C. All their appointees, it’s all Beijing’s loyalists, Beijing lackeys, basically. And you ask Hong Kong people to vote, and you claim it’s "one man, one vote," and you can pretend that Hong Kong is running, enjoying some kind of democracy. I don’t want to particularly sound grand, but all democrats in Hong Kong, we realize we’re answerable to history, and we’re responsible for our next generations. If we cannot get genuine democracy at this stage, we’d rather keep the status quo, and we’ll soldier on.
AMY GOODMAN: Claudia Mo, Hong Kong legislator, Civic Party founding member, attended the protests on Sunday, former journalist. Thanks so much for joining us, speaking to us from Hong Kong.
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