Eyewitness report People in Basra who believe in free speech and democracy - people like Haider - are suddenly free to express themselves, reports Jack Fairweather
Yesterday at dawn, Haider went for a stroll past the house of his girlfriend in downtown Basra.
For Haider, a member of Iraq's small pro-democracy movement, this was his first time he had openly left his house in 12 years. He has not seen his fiancée in six years.
With President Saddam's hold on Basra broken, the voices of the educated middle-class families who dared to stand against the regime while remaining in Iraq have begun to emerge.
"Saddam has taken away everything I have except one thing," said Haider, a small man, looking frail and decrepit despite being only 28. He prefers not to give the rest of his name, just Haider. "He has not destroyed my hope for democracy and freedom," he said.
Haider described how his fight against the regime began after his father, a leading lawyer in Basra who also worked in the foreign ministry, was arrested by the secret police for trying to contact the Iraqi opposition in exile.
"That was during the first Gulf War, when I last felt hope that we might be liberated," said Haider in his melodramatic but heartfelt English, gleaned from hours of listening to American radio stations.
Within days, Haider and his entire family were placed under house arrest "I was removed from medical college, our house was taken away and we were forced to live on the little money my sister could send us from Jordan," said Haider.
"That was when I began trying to contact some of my father's friends. It seemed important to carry on his work. I have not seen him since he was arrested."
He contacted a disk jockey on a local American network but was promptly told: "Hey, don't tell me your problems, buddy, tell the White House."
"That was in 1997, the year when I first met my girlfriend, who lived in a housing complex near to mine. We were to be married, but the secret police found out before and forced her family to intervene unless I told them everything I knew.
"I refused, because how could I give in to them. I'd rather sacrifice anything, just anything, rather than democracy. I then spent a year in Iraqi jails, where they beat and tortured me, but still I would not tell them what they wanted."
"I left prison very ill, but I had a little medical knowledge from my studies to help me get better and was able to continue my resistance," said Haider.
He resumed contact. "The White House told me to keep calling them and telling them what I knew, but to be careful and use different phones each time."
In an inner pocket of the jogging pants he wore - "If I had known I was meeting the British today I would have worn something better," he said - Haider took out a little list of numbers of contacts in America.
"I always knew the Americans and British would come and rescue us. During the siege I went around telling people not to worry, that you would be here soon."
He added: "It is the little details of freedom which have sustained me."
He removed from his wallet a hymn sheet for the British national anthem and words written in unsteady handwriting: "Challenger and Warrior tanks." Haider, who had been speaking up to then in an American accent, suddenly shifted to a strange form of cockney.
"See," he said proudly, "I have also been listening to the BBC World Service. I know about Geoff Hoon and Bob Geldof."
In his hand he also carried a cheap sketchbook of drawings in biro. The pictures were painstaking renderings of deserted beaches, birds caught in motion and swimming dolphins.
"They are all from my own mind," he said proudly. "They are my little pictures of freedom."
Haider turned to leave. "But now there are some things I have to do," he said. "I must make myself well and see my beloved before I return to work helping the people of Iraq enjoy democracy."