BAGHDAD — Joined by the bonds of pain, two siblings sat before a television set Wednesday in search of justice for their relatives and punishment for Saddam Hussein.
"Look at this," Saadia Saidi, whose family of 13 has dwindled to two over the years because of executions and exile, said to her brother, Mohammed. "He was a dictator. He had everything. Now he's in a cage."
In Dujayl, the Shiite Muslim town at the center of the former Iraqi president's first trial, Jawad Kadhim spat on the television screen as he watched Hussein enter the courtroom. "He has the face of a dog," Kadhim said mockingly, as he watched the trial with friends and relatives.
In a Sunni Muslim district of the northern city of Mosul, a former Iraqi army officer also scoffed at the screen, but in support of the former president. "They want to show him in this humiliating and disgraceful light," Abdul-Rahman Ali, 37, said. "But I want to say that I am totally ready to replace Saddam and sit instead of him on that defendant's chair."
As the first session of the trial of Hussein and seven of his former deputies on charges of crimes against humanity was beamed out through dozens of Arabic television channels, it took on a life of its own.
Streets across the country emptied, and protesters headed to the homes and businesses of friends or relatives with electric generators to watch the proceedings. They surfed the kaleidoscopic array of channels for the best reception and commentary, jumping from Al Arabiya, based in the United Arab Emirates, to government-controlled Al Iraqiya to privately funded Al Sharqiya to Qatar-based Al Jazeera to U.S.-funded Al Hurra.
In some cases, they then took to the streets to demonstrate.
For those treated harshly during Hussein's long tenure, the television images fed fantasies of vengeance as well as hopes for justice. In Shiite cities such as Samawah, site of at least 28 mass graves containing remains of those believed to be victims of the former government, residents see the trial as the first step toward redressing decades of suffering.
"I've been looking forward to seeing the trial of the criminal," said Abdul Karim Naim, who said his pregnant sister's corpse was left on a street for a week after a failed 1991 uprising against Hussein. "I feel that my sister's soul will not go wasted if I could see Saddam dead."
