AP Photographer Remains Detained for No Charges

(c) AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Rick Egan, File
Bilal Hussein

By: Trina Joshi

A captive journalist spends his second year in the U.S. military detention without a hope of release, according to Reuters.

The U.S. military accused Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi journalist for the Associated Press, of being accomplice to the Iraqi insurgents and detained him for no charges for two years.

The military refused to release Bilal Hussein, despite an Iraqi judicial committee’s order to release him. The committee dismissed all the accusations of terrorism against him.

The military spokesperson, Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Marshall, contended that the Iraqi committee’s order did not apply to Hussein because he is in U.S. military custody.

My questions: i) Doesn’t the First Amendment protect foreign journalists who work for an American news organisation? If not, why?
ii) Doesn’t the First Amendment protect a journalist form being detained without any charges?
iii) Is the U.S. military powerful enough to disregard an order of another country’s judicial committee?