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"Deletion" of Images in Afghanistan: Attempt to Cover Up
Civilian
Killings?
By Greg Mitchell
Editor & Publisher
Sunday 15 April 2007
New York - In the past day, there has been wide media coverage of an
official report on the slaying of Afghan civilians by U.S. forces early
last month. The Afghan human rights commission concluded that American
marines overreacted to a bomb ambush with excessive force, peppering
civilians and vehicles with machine-gun fire in attacks that covered 10
miles of road and left 12 civilians dead, including an infant.
Gaining much less coverage are the report's comments on a
nearly-forgotten aftermath of the apparent crimes, carried by E&P and
other media outlets at the time: the U.S. military's forced "deletion"
of images taken by Associated Press cameramen and others. A freelance
photographer working for The AP and a cameraman working for AP
Television News said then a U.S. soldier deleted their photos and video
showing a four-wheel drive vehicle in which three people were shot to
death about 100 yards from the suicide bombing. The AP lodged a protest
with the American military.
The military defended their action in a letter to the AP later, stating
that images gathered by "untrained people" might "capture
visual details
that are not as they originally were." But the Afghan commission
concluded that there were "not sufficient grounds to justify the
substantial curtailment of the right to freedom of expression,
especially as the loss of information caused by these actions was
directly harmful to the successful undertaking of a genuinely impartial
investigation."
Here are those passages from the PDF of the report.
There are also several reports of journalists being hindered from
accessing the area and being forced to delete all pictures and videos
already taken. 7 Journalists, representing 8 different media outlets
complained that US Marines and Afghan forces confiscated their equipment
to delete any images stored and forbid them to continue their work even
outside of the security perimeter area around the VBIED site. There is
some evidence that two of the journalists breached the security
perimeter around the site, but all those interviewed agreed that the
interference with the media went far beyond just these two cases.
In several cases, US Marines expressly threatened
journalists, with one cameraman reporting that he was told to "delete
the photographs or we will delete you" (AIHRC interview, 6 March 2007).
Another journalist said a soldier told him through a translator that "if
any of this incident is released or shown on any media then the reporter
will face the consequences" (AIHRC interview, 5 March 2007).
While in a media release on 11 April 2007 NATO/ ISAF RC(E) spokesman Lt.
Col. David Accetta claimed that ISAF's internal investigation showed
that "the deletion of any film media by ISAF Forces was an isolated
event by one soldier," this account does not match the testimonies taken
by the AIHRC.
After the incident, the US military defended the forced deleting of
images, arguing that their publication could have compromised an
investigation. The Associated Press quotes a letter by Col. Victor
Petrenko, chief of staff to the top U.S. commander in eastern
Afghanistan, in which it
is claimed that "investigative integrity is one circumstance when civil
and military authorities will reluctantly exercise the right to control
what a journalist is permitted to document" and that photographs or
video taken by "untrained people" might "capture visual details
that are
not as they originally were" (U.S. military defends deleting
journalists' footage, Associated Press, 12 March 2007).
NATO/ ISAF's later press release stated that interference occurred "to
ensure the protection of the SVBIED site for security, force protection
and investigational purposes."
***
Both Afghanistan and the United States have ratified the 1966
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and are bound by
its provisions on freedom of expression.
Article 19(2) of the ICCPR gives everyone the right to freedom of
expression. It states that "this right shall include freedom to seek,
receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds ..."
Article 19(3) provides for certain restrictions on this right but
requires these to be provided by law and to be necessary for either "the
respect of the rights or reputations of others" or for "the protection
of national security or of public order or of public health or morals."
The forced deleting of images by the US military as well as the refusal
to let journalists continue in their work constitutes a violation of the
right to freedom of expression as it obstructed the ability of the media
present to seek, receive and impart information about the 4 March
incident, without falling under the exceptions stipulated by ICCPR
art.19(3).
Immediately following the incident the US military relied on the notion
of "investigative integrity" to justify their actions in this regard
and
in the NATO/ ISAF media release of 11 April 2007 Lt. Col. David Accetta
said that the internal investigation showed that "in this case, the
soldier reasonably believed that the restoration of the security cordon
and the deletion of the photographs were necessary."
Arguably these are not sufficient grounds to justify the substantial
curtailment of the right to freedom of expression, especially as the
loss of information caused by these actions was directly harmful to the
successful undertaking of a genuinely impartial investigation.
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