Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi *above) had an arrest warrant issued on him last week by INTERPOL.
Or at least that's the 'truth' if you (mistakenly) trust AP.
What INTERPOL issued was a "Red Notice." A Red Notice which specifically stated: "A Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant."
How is that difficult to understand?
When INTERPOL's own release states, "A Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant," how is that difficult to understand? Presumably the press can read -- otherwise they'd never know what to clip for the vanity scrapbooks.
Press TV is a news outlet in Iran. The central government in Iran is in conflict with Sunnis and the political slate Iraqiya. Tareq al-Hashemi belongs to both. Yet somehow, Press TV could accurately report that INTERPOL had not issued an arrest warrant while the so-called free Associated Press ran with lies and smears. Why is that?
Probably the same way the US press earlier smeared Tareq al-Hashemi -- and continues to -- by falsely 'reporting' that he fled Baghdad after an arrest warrant was issued.
Here's what happened, following the March 2010 elections in which Iraqiya bested Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law, Nouri refused to allow the process to move forward. He wanted a second term as prime minister -- votes and democracy and the Constitution be damned.
And the Iranian government out of Tehran was backing him as was the White House so he knew he could wait it out and did for eight months until other parties agreed to let him have a second term just to end the political stalemate. In exchange for that (this is the US-brokered Erbil Agreement), Nouri made concessions. Despite being made prime minister in December 2010, Nouri has refused to implement the Erbil Agreement. While others honored their promises, Nouri refused to live up to his.
This is the second political stalemate and it's gone on for over a year-and-a-half. In the summer of 2011, the Kurds began demanding Nouri implement the Erbil Agreement. Iraqiya and Moqtada al-Sadr began echoing that call.
As most US troops left Iraq in December 2011, Nouri's power-grabs increased. Iraqiya announced a boycott of the council and the Parliament, that's in the December 16th snapshot and again in a December 17th entry. Tareq al-Hashemi is a member of Iraqiya but he's not in the news at that point. Later, we'll learn that Nouri -- just returned from DC where he met with Barack Obama -- has ordered tanks to surround the homes of high ranking members of Iraqiya. Saturday, December 17th, Liz Sly (Washington Post) reported, "In recent days, the homes of top Sunni politicians in the fortified Green Zone have been ringed by tanks and armored personnel carriers, and rumors are flying that arrest warrants will be issued for other Sunni leaders." December 18th is when al-Hashemi and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq are pulled from a Baghdad flight to the KRG but then allowed to reboard the plane. December 19th is when the arrest warrant is issued for Tareq al-Hashemi by Nouri al-Maliki who claims the vice president is a 'terrorist.' . With the permission and blessing of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and KRG President Massoud Barzani, al-Hashemi remained in the KRG. At the start of April, he left the KRG on a diplomatic tour that took him to Qatar, then Saudi Arabia and finally Turkey where he remains currently.
If Tareq al-Hashemi leaves Iraq on December 18th and arrest warrant is issued December 19th, you can't honestly report that he fled Baghdad after an arrest warrant was issued. That's not factual, that's not honest and it's not true.
But damned if it doesn't pop up in one so-called 'news' account after another.
Reality's not being reported. So-called 'objective' reporters are slanting the news and doing so repeatedly.
If you doubt that, those liars and whores made last week about whether or not Turkey would live up to its 'obligation.'
Its obligation?
These 'news' outlets 'forgot' to mention there was no arrest warrant. They 'forgot' to report that Tareq al-Hashemi, if convicted, would be executed (or that State of Law keeps telling the press that's what's going to happen, he's going to be convicted). Most of all, they 'forget' to explain that INTERPOL gets trumped by the Turkish government due to treaties signed.
Not last week, but two weeks ago, Sinem Cengiz (Sunday Zaman) reported that, even if Nouri filed a formal request for Turkey to hand al-Hashemi over, the Turkish government would have to refuse: "The legal obligations of Turkey stemming from being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) prohibit it from handing any person over to another country if the suspect will likely be executed."
Pretend again that the United States has a free press. Pretend again that these are just errors that the Associated Press and others keep 'accidentally' making.
They're not reporting, they're choosing sides while claiming to be objective.
