Six weeks ago, I used the occasion of Alan Johnston’s release from captivity in Gaza to draw attention to another, less high-profile, captive journalist, al Jazeera’s Sami al Hajj. who was abducted by Pakistani intelligence service, sold on to the Americans and shipped off to Guantanamo bay. John Pilger, whose film War On Democracy is on ITV1 tomorrow night, similarly decried the lack of attention given to Johnston’s friend, colleague and champion Imad Gadem, assassinated by Israeli sources the week after Johnston’s release.

Without wanting to trivialise what Alan Johnston went through, Sami’s ordeal has been both far longer and far worse. People held as bargaining chips tend not to be in for that much torture; Guantanamo bay, on the other hand, is all about breaking people down. A good example of the horrors of the place is Jose Padilla, socially lobotomised through four years alone in the dark until little more than a vegetable (Padilla was recently convicted of terrorism support by a bizarrely colour-coordinated jury).

Many of those in “Gitmo” are not only innocent, but not even accused - not even suspected - of anything in particular. Sami was captured in late 2001 near the Afghan-Pakistani border, where the newly-arrived American occupiers were offering the Northern Alliance bounty for prisoners, leading them to round up any number of men who might have looked remotely interesting and sell them on. Sami, like the Tipton Three, no doubt attracted attention partly through being a foreigner not in a NATO army uniform. But while the Tipton Three were out within a year, five and a half years on Sami’s captors still haven’t seen fit to let him out; clearly, there’s more to this one.

According to Sami’s campaign website, Prisoner345.net, he was captured based on intelligence identifying him (falsely) as the cameraman in Al Jazeera’s interview with Osama Bin Laden. Despite surely having realised their mistake long ago they’ve kept him in, trying to force him to testify to that al Qaeda control and fund al Jazeera (to his credit, Sami has consistently refused even at the price of his freedom). It’s just one more front in the War On Journalism.

During the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, al Jazeera were careful to always present the invaders’ points of view as well as that of the invaded, to the extent that conspiracy theories abounded in the Arab world accusing them of being a Mossad/CIA proxy. Looking back in the aftermath, it became clear that al Jazeera’s coverage had been the most balanced, the least impartial, and the best - to the extent that its expanding English language operations had no trouble recruting dissatisfied journalists from the BBC and other Western outlets, Sir David Frost being the most high-profile dissenter - but it wasn’t could enough for the Coalition, who made a point of repeatedly bombing their offices.

Even without the threat of bombing, even without Sami’s testimony, al Jazeera’s independence couldn’t have lasted. It was funded by the Emir of Qatar, a kleptocrat and an American ally who made a point of not interfering with the station’s output but who could not be counted on to resist temptation forever. The alternative source of funding is, naturally, the marketplace, but we all no how impartial that isn’t. Desperate for access to the juicy US cable markets, al Jazeera has been in a position of weakness, and according to Danny Schecter on CommonDreams.org (writing in early June):

Sources inside Al Jazeera who are in a position to know what is going on now confirm that there is an internal struggle underway that may dilute Al Jazeera’s independence and steer it in a more pro-western, pro-US direction….

“You don’t need to bomb Al Jazeera to change its direction,” said my source. “There is a softer way to influence its direction by taking it over from within and it can happen quietly almost as if in slow motion.”

Regular readers of their English language website won’t have failed to notice a shift over the past few months, and while it’s still a useful source of information it certainly no longer needs bombing. Nor, now it’s being brought onside, does it need to be implicated as a puppet of al Qaeda. Given the embarrassment that Guantanamo (rightly) causes our torturers-in-chief, we can understand the following happy news (thanks Rick):

An Al Jazeera cameraman held in the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay may soon be released, a relative says. Sami al-Hajj, who has been detained at the prison camp in Cuba for nearly six years without charge, could be released by the end of August, Asim al-Hajj, his brother, said on Wednesday. Ali Sadiq, a Sudan foreign ministry spokesman, said negotiations are under way with the US to secure al-Hajj’s release.

Let’s not get too worked up, for now, about the bizarre and illegitimate travel restrictions that would keep Sami from returning to his job - getting out of torture-land is certainly something worth celebrating.  Meanwhile, a collection of writings from within the prison entitled Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak was released earlier this month.  You can read three of the poems, including Sami’s, here.