AL JAZEERA Channel’s photographer Sami al-Haj, who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay for six years, is expected to be freed soon, Robert Minar, secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, has said.
Local Arabic daily Arrayah quoted Minar as saying that the channel officials had mediated between for al-Haj’s release. He said he had visited the family of Sami al-Haj in Sudan to assure them that the journalists’ union would not fail them, especially al-Haj, who is the only journalist held at Guantanamo.
“I had gone to Guantanamo with a fellow journalist to visit Sami but I couldn’t meet him because he was classified by the Americans as dangerous. He is not allowed out of his cell for more than two hours a day,” Minar said.
Al-Haj was held on December 15, 2001 in Afghanistan while covering the US bombing. “The Pakistani forces captured him. He was later transferred to Guantanamo,” the report said.
The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders recently signed an agreement with Qatar to open an office in Doha.
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