- Twenty-six middle school students who threw stones at
U.S. troops breaking up a neighborhood pro-Saddam rally Dec. 17 were arrested
during a violent raid at their school the following day.
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- Tanks, assault vehicles, hummers and helicopters from
the Army's First Armored Division descended on the Adnan Kheiralla Boy's
School in the western Baghdad suburb of Amiriya and surrounded the block.
Then, armed with machine guns, tear gas, and what one teacher present called,
"electric sticks," soldiers and interpreters carrying pictures
of the wanted students entered the school and locked the doors.
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- According to information gathered by American journalists
on the scene, what happened inside was chaos. An English teacher told reporters
from Electronic Iraq (EI) that the soldiers opened fire over students heads
"to scare them." Students were tear gassed and beaten. One boy's
arm was broken.
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- "Some of them were vomiting, some of them were crying
and they were very afraid."
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- EI stated all teachers asked confirmed these accounts.
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- Correspondent Dahr Jamail, who arrived at Adnan Kheiralla
after troops had entered, wrote that once released from the school, the
students ran out crying and enraged.
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- "This is the democracy? This is the freedom? You
see what the Americans are doing to us here?" they shouted.
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- As the tanks headed out, boys threw stones at them. Soldiers
responded with random overhead gunfire, sending students, residents and
the journalists scrambling for cover.
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- When EI reporter Jo Wilding returned to the school Dec.
18, she spoke with teachers and the students. Wilding noted:
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- "The pupils have painted over the sign at the school's
entrance, renaming it Saddam's School. The depiction of Saddam on TV in
American hands seems to have made him a heroic symbol even to many who
disliked him.
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- "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.'"
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- The arrested boys, estimated ages 14 to 18, were released.
One student, persuaded by his teacher to talk to the reporters, said the
army failed to notify parents of the arrests and that he and others were
held in "chicken cages, about two metres by a metre and a half (approximately
6.5 ft x 5 ft) with criss cross wire" for seven to 10 hours.
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- http://www.NewsFromTheFront.org
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- Comment
- From Jlii
- 12-30-3
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- Be all you can be = Child Molesters. How brave they are,
taking on a high school. Hey Kids, coming to a school near you real soon.
And these brave men of the United States Army did this all by them selves
no help from the Kurds. What gallantry, how proud their families must be,
A whole High School captured without the use of one nuclear weapon. What
military genius lead these Freedom Fries eaters to this great victory.
Where can I send my bronze to honor this study of courage?
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- I am not surprised I live in a city were they police
mace babies. Of course, America likes attacking people of color. When since
say, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, has there been a year when the US was
not attacking people of color. I'll make easier name a month.
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- It isn't why does the world hate the US; the question
is why have they been so patient.
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