'Human shields' hear from an angered U.S.

[thedrifter]

'Human shields' hear from an angered U.S.

Treasury goes after Iraq war protesters

Ryan Clancy arrived in Iraq in February in a double-decker bus filled with opponents of the war after a rocky journey in it all the way from Milan. He had used frequent-flier miles to get to Italy from Wisconsin.
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"There weren't a lot of Milwaukee-Baghdad flights," he explained.
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Clancy is 26 and owns a record store. He went to Iraq, he said, to observe, to learn and "to protect the civilian infrastructure." He spent weeks as a human shield at a grain silo that he feared would be the target of U.S. bombing.
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The U.S. government is not happy with Clancy and several others like him. Not long after the travelers returned home this spring, they received letters from the Treasury Department seeking information about their activities in Iraq and noting that spending money there was a crime that could lead to 12 years in prison and civil penalties of up to $275,000. The department is seeking substantially smaller fines in the current cases.
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Clancy and other opponents of the war say the inquiries are part of an effort to suppress dissent, but the government says they are a routine enforcement of Treasury regulations. And a Treasury spokesman bristled at the notion that the inquiries were politically motivated.
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"Of course not," the spokesman, Taylor Griffin, said. "Unlike in Iraq under Saddam Hussein - where dissent was met with imprisonment or worse - the freedom to protest and disagree with the government is a cornerstone of American democracy. However, the right to free speech is not a license to violate U.S. or international sanctions."
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He continued, "While free expression is a right enjoyed by all Americans, choosing which laws to abide by and which to ignore is not a privilege that is granted to anyone."
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Other experts said the inquiries were selective, but properly so.
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"They're using the Treasury Department restrictions on travel to send a message," said Pamela Falk, who specializes in international law at the City University of New York.
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"Although these would otherwise be sympathetic cases," she said, referring to the cases of Clancy and others, "they put themselves in harm's way, and they potentially could have endangered U.S. troops."
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Several hundred people calling themselves human shields camped at oil refineries, communications centers, water treatment plants, electricity generating stations and similar sites during the war. Many were from Europe; about 20 were American. Several people involved in the effort said that none of the sites was attacked while human shields were present.
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"That tells me we were successful," said Judith Karpova, 58, a writer in Hoboken, New Jersey, who acted as a human shield at an oil refinery near Baghdad. "We went there to protect innocent civilians, and I went there to protect my own country against further crimes against humanity and war crimes."
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The government says it seeks to punish Karpova and others not for hurting the war effort but for financial transactions in Iraq.
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The transactions were not large. Clancy, for instance, said he took $1,500 with him, gave much of it away and spent the rest on necessities.
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Karpova said all of her expenses were paid by her hosts. She did admit, in a recent letter to the Treasury Department, to importing "eight sets of coloring books and eight sets of color markers, which I left at the children's hospital in Baghdad."
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In a letter to the government, Faith Fippinger, 62, a retired schoolteacher in Sarasota, Florida, wrote that she bought rice, eggs and dates in Iraq.
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"I purchased an occasional glass of delicious, sweet Iraqi tea at tea stalls and tasty kebobs or chicken at food stalls," Fippinger added. "I have no receipts."
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The Supreme Court upheld similar Treasury regulations in 1984, and fines related to travel to restricted countries are not uncommon. In the past week, for instance, the Treasury Department assessed fines in or settled seven cases relating to travel to Cuba.
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A Treasury official said that there were no plans to open criminal cases against the so-called human shields and that the maximum fine was likely to be $10,000.
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The New York Times

http://www.iht.com/articles/106623.html


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